[Your Question] Yaetake vs Yaedake

With some of my recent coverage of various things on Yaedake I received a question from a viewer who. He was here in Okinawa many years ago serving with the United States Armed Forces and noticed something strange about me post. He asked:

Why is it that you call it Yaedake? When I was there it was called Yaetake. Could you find out why this might be.

Loving the challenges that I receive from my viewers I quickly started doing some research on why at some time the "t" may have been replaced with what we now see everywhere which is the "d".

My research took me to various websites focusing on different topics but it was not long before a pattern started to emerge. Regardless whether I searched in English or in Japanese when I looked for something with the "t" in Yaetake all of the search results were United States Military Related, particularly focusing on the Battle of Okinawa. Almost every site that I found was in English and focused on the war time activity which took place on or around Yaetake.

When I looked for information with the "d" in Yaedake I found everything else. Websites in both English and Japanese provided information regarding not only the history of the mountain but also what is there nowadays.

This made me curious. In the interest of ensuring that I was not mistaken in my pattern I continued to look up more information through various different sources but it still led me to the same conclusion.

Overall my best guess is that Yaetake with a "t" is something that was for whatever reason used by the American forces during the Battle of Okinawa and stuck for an unknown period of time. This type of thing happens in Okinawa (and I imagine other parts of Japan as well) due to the English speaking Americans not having a clear understanding of the pronunciation of the words used here in Okinawa. A present day example of this is a group of people out there who pronounce MCAS Futenma (foo-ten-ma) as (foo-team-ma). This would explain why on a number of the military related material you will find Yaetake rather than Yaedake. I anticipate that this changed, however, when the government of Okinawa started putting up road signs and such which featured the mountains accurate name.

Of course with anything like this it can be hard to pinpoint exactly why it was that something happened or was changed. I do as much research as I can and put forth my best educated guess but do not mistake there is a bit of margin for error here. Either way I hope that I have at very least given a bit of perspective on this interesting topic.

 

Have information on the topic you would like to share?

Leave a comment below or email me at:

okininjakitty@yahoo.com

Also check us out on Facebook.

See more interesting videos of Okinawa on YouTube.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Yaedake Cherry Blossom Festival

 

 

There are many cherry blossom festivals, or Sakura Matsuri, which happen throughout Okinawa each year. This year we headed to some of the Sakura Matsuri that caught our eye and thought that we would tell you all about them.  After heading to the Nakijin 6th Annual Cherry Blossom Festival we found ourselves driving around the Motobu Peninsula for a while looking for somewhere to eat. We were not anticipating heading to Yaedake as we had been there for the first cherry blossoms of the season but we drove by the entrance of the mountain and figured that we might as well head up that was and see the blossoms. As soon as we turned onto the road we knew that we were in for a treat.



The Good

The festival takes place on the beautiful Yaedake. On any given day this location is beautiful enough but during late winter and early spring the mountain road is lined with beautiful cherry blossom trees. The festival grounds are located at the park on the mountain. The park is great especially for little ones with a large playground area to include a huge roller slide. During the festival, however, that playground is just the beginning of the excitement. A stage and large seating area was set with various entertainment and food booths lined the entire perimeter of the park.



 

For the past few events we have managed to miss the festivities so the smell of matsuri food and the sound of music immediately put a smile on our faces. The booths themselves featured not only the matsuri food that you know and love as well as some special treats for the seasons. A particular booth sold sakura mochi another features hashi made from the wood of cherry blossom trees. There were also soba shops and some fried beef booth which was to die for.



Aside from the standard booth for food and games there were also other activities such as a velcro wall, bouncy castle and even this large pool of water that had these floating hamster wheels in them for your water treading pleasure. If playing in the grass is more your thing then there was plenty of space for that too.

The Bad

To be completely honest there wasn't too much that I would call "bad".  We did notice, however that there were absolutely no trash cans or bags anywhere on the property. Of course not having trash cans is standard practice in Japan but it's not often that you will see a festival completely void of trash cans.

 

The Ugly

The ugly for this event is the apparently broken men's bathroom. Of course this was not an actual reflection on the actual event itself but it was the only thing that we experienced that day that we could call "ugly".



The Conclusion

Overall the event was everything that we were looking for in a cherry blossom festival. The music, the food and no shortage of cherry blossoms made for a great time. Driving up the beautiful winding mountain road with the blossoms on either side of you is just wonderful and then walking to the site itself amongst the blossoms was just wonderful. You could also enjoy a walk under the blossoms on the mountain road as well but we opted out because we arrived so late in the day. Overall this is our favorite cherry blossom festival to date.

First Cherry Blossoms Bloom In Japan - Yaedake

Cherry blossoms are a sign of spring so you might imagine my surprise when I saw them blooming the other day as I came down a mountain road on Yaedake. Knowing that Yaedake is known for having the first cherry blossoms in all of Japan I could not resist so I pulled over and started snapping away.



Being that it is only late December this was a rare sight. The blossoms are not supposed to show themselves until at least mid January but here they were all around. It is said by the locals that when the cherry blossoms bloom that means we have seen our coldest day of the year. Being that it is so early in the winter I hope that this is not the case. I would like to enjoy a few more cool days before the summer returns.



If you would like to view cherry blossoms you can do so all over the island of Okinawa but remember there is no set time that they will bloom and there's no saying how long they will be around. Some say that is what is so special about cherry blossoms.