EM Wellness Lifestyle Resort - a wonderful retreat
Last night we were pretty tired when we arrived at the hotel. Our ride had been very challenging with a succession of steep climbs…at times the gradient was over 20% and we also struggled with heavy traffic for part of the ride. When we arrived, we were so pleased to see the lights of the hotel welcoming us.
The EM Wellness Hotel was originally the Okinawa Sheraton Hotel. The EM Corporation has purchased it and turned into hotel that focuses on healthy eating and living. The hotel has an outstanding hot spring onsen with many therapeutic treatments available.
After a great sleep in our room, we were looking forward to going to the dining room for breakfast, included in our room rate and a visit to the Onsen later on. Such are the delights of travelling when your plan for the day can be summed up so simply.
The hotel has a library filled with information about Okinawa.
At first glance we could see that breakfast would be special as this large dining room had several huge stations laden with great choices, hot and cold. We could see that It was primarily Japanese food with 2 types of curries, 2 soups, stir fry options, a couple types of rice, etc. While in Japan, we always enjoy the salad buffet section as the ingredients are excellent and the dressings are house made. There was a tasty selection of breads and buns from their bakery, yummy fresh fruit. A highlight for Barry was a dish called Daishi Chazuke…think of it as Japan’s version of your morning cereal, but better. It is made by pouring dashi (Japanese soup stock) over the rice and adding toppings, such as Japanese pickles, seaweed, pickled fish, steamed chicken and his favourite, vinegared seaweed.The choices for this dish were generous..a large station was used just to hold the 15 different toppings. Looking forward to our second breakfast here.
The buffet breakfast was amazing. Most of the food was grown at the hotel’s organic farm. The dish, Dashi Chazuke, is on the left above the spaghetti.
The hotel is at the top of a series of punishing hills (if you arrive from the east, as we did). This view to the west surprised us as we didn’t realize how close we would be to the ocean, as last night we arrived with little understanding of our location.
Habu Sake…the toxins and venom are removed from the viper and then it is left to soak in sake for an extended time. You could (we didn’t) order this sake drink from the hotel’s bar
We walked to a shopping mall that we thought was fairly close to the hotel. It was much farther than we thought. Plus it rained crazy hard and we got drenched.
In our travels in Japan, we have often been in places where we are frequently the only foreigners and certainly the only ones cycle touring. It has been a bit strange to be at the mall and see so many Americans and their families enjoying the mall. It makes sense though because there are several US military bases along the west coast near here. We are reminded of this when we suddenly hear the distinctive roar and penetrating whine of a fighter jet overhead.
The mall was very busy with Christmas shoppers. The Pokémon Centre was very popular with the younger shoppers
The mall had two floors of restaurants. We decided on soba noodles as Okinawa is famous for its soba noodles dishes. The plastic models of food on the menu are very useful for us and it is scaled to size. This set meal was Mary Ellen’s choice, but she chose,too,have her soba noodles hot in a soup.
We discovered that the rain had not stopped - it had intensified and so had the wind. We made our way to the entrance and lined up for a taxi. Back to the hotel and you guessed it…to the spa for a much needed visit to the onsen for the sauna and some time in the pools. A good day.
