Typhoon-felled cherry trees find new life

Two typhoons that hit the northern parts of Okinawa Okinawa especially hard, caused several cherry trees along the road to the top of Mt. Yaedake to fall down.

Motobu Town, in cooperation with a studio called “Yuimun Koubou” created chopsticks, watches, ballpoint pens and telephone straps using Okinawan cherry trees from Mt. Yaedake that had fallen down during a typhoon last year.

The proceeds of the sale of the items will be used to plant new cherry trees.

The items were first sold at “Motobu Yaedake Cherry Blossom Fest” Feb. 2 and 3, and are now on sale at the Motobu Town Office.

Motobu Town planted the cherry trees on Mt. Yaedake starting in 1963 when a U.S. military base on the top was returned.

The town decided to produce the items using the cherry trees because they didn’t want to dispose them, and wanted to find a way to get them reborn again in some sense.

The price for a set of chopsticks is ¥1,000, a watch costs ¥2,400, while a pen is ¥500, and a telephone strap ¥500.

15:58 29 Mar , 2024