Kokusai St

 Kokusai Street is the fun, hip part of Naha.  This is where all the parades and festivals are held...lots of cute shops, weird novelty items, and tourists.  It was a fun stroll.

check out some of the oddities, inviting storefronts and local faces...

 

I loved all of the entrances into the cluttered knick knack stores, jewelry shops, and restaurants...

 

Umm...not sure if these REAL frog/toad purses are in style here in Okinawa...but I couldn't bring myself to unzip one and look inside.  These are made from the real thing, they feel like a soft leathery gutted frog.  gross.

Here are more of the frog purses...any takers?

As if the frogs weren't enough, we also found entire display walls with jars of Habu Snake Sake.  Otherwise known as Habu Sake. 

Double the snake, double the alcohol content?!?

This limber fellow was writing kanji...beautiful strokes of a brush create not only words and stories but beautiful works of art.

We walked from one end to the other...this was the south end of Kokusai.

We wandered upstairs in one of the crowded shops, and found this!  A secret stash..

The cute faces of Japanese kids...So adorable.  Kids here are so independent from a young age.  When school is in session, you will see kids as young as 5 years old walking by themselves down the sidewalks of busy streets on their way to school...

Probably my favorite part of the day...Pickle benches!