Day Out with Friends - Lunch

The kids were off school, the men were off school, so we teamed up with our neighbors - Liz, Don and Lydia - and headed up island for a day of fun.  Liz and Don had been wanting to try this restaurant called the British Wine and Tea Shop, but the last time they tried it was closed.  So today we headed up the island, through the city of Nago and out into the hills to find the place again.  The path to find this anomoly in Japan is in the wild woolies, down tiny, twisty roads, ending at a log cabin similar to one you'd find outside of Gatlinburg but proudly displaying the Union Jack. 

Liz, Don and Stevie stay with the Blue Beater as the kids and I check out the (closed) restaurant.

Alas, we ran into the same fate as Liz and Don did last time and the place was closed, but we'll definitely have to try again!

As a back up plan, we back-tracked to the restaurant called the "Big House".  Who knows what it's real name is, that's what the Americans call it.  We've been here once before and it is a really cool setting found down another twisty road, past tombs and fields of pineapples, ending at a sprawling restaurant set on the side of a steep hill with beautiful gardens and waterfalls running past the dining rooms. 

Beautiful garden just outside the dining room.

We all enjoyed a lunch of soba noodles (except Don who somehow order the set with pigs feet!) and then went for a walk up the paths and around the waterfalls and flowers. 

Emmy and her friend Lydia

Liz examining one of Don's pig's feet!

One of the reasons we headed up north was to see if the sakura (cherry blossoms) were blooming yet. Liz and I managed to find a tree with one lonely bloom! Later, we did find others, but this one tree was what we consider to be the first of the season.



A typical Okinawan roof.