For my summer holiday this year I went to Okinawa, a chain of islands south of the main islands of Japan leading down to Taiwan that form the Ryukyu islands. The temperature is generally above 20°C all year round and the islands have some of the most abundant coral in the world. Okinawa is also recognised as being the longest lived country in the world with 4 times more people over 100 years old than anywhere else. The island are a popular summer holiday destination for Japanese tourists and great for diving and beach holidays. My friend Martin (the same who brought me my passport at the last minute when I first came to Japan) managed to get a place on a science course at a university there over the summer, which was perfect timing since his course finished the exact same day as my summer holiday started.
On arrival I met Martin at the airport where he had been waiting for 6 hours since he had no idea where our hostel osaru-oyadou (Monkey’s Inn) was; he kindly left the planning up to me then forgot to ask where we were staying. Since I’d forgotten to print a map I didn’t know where the hostel was either except for some vague instructions from Hostelworld.com. But by following those we actually managed to find our hostel by chance just walking along a side road trying to get back to the main road which was on the instructions so it kind of worked out anyway.
On our first day we looked around the city a bit seeing some of the sites such as a Chinese garden that aims to transport you into a world of tranquillity and make you forget you’re in the big city of Naha.
We next went to a rather nice beach in the middle of the city with very hot sand and probably the clearest sea water I’ve ever seen. There was just one tiny problem with the beech, aside from the sand burning your feet; a massive flyover crossing the bay blocking the view out to sea. We came back to this beach on the second day of out holiday after visiting the castle. We had intended to get here around 4 pm just as the sun was starting to go down, but due to us getting up really late to visit the castle we didn’t actually arrive at the beach until about 9 pm when it was already dark. Still not to pass up the opportunity we went for a swim, the water was still very warm and we only got out when we started to get stung by jellyfish, which unfortunately are rather small and hard to see, especially at night.
Next was visited the main shopping street in the middle of Naha called kokusaidori which consisted of mostly souvenir shops and restaurants for the tourists, but also loads of shops with massive models of comic book characters and films. We also saw about 4 different full size Velociraptor models in different shops on this street. Why they have them or where they even got them from I have no idea but they seem to be popular. Possibly the Okinawans like to display them on their mantelpieces.
For dinner we went to an all you can eat hamburger steak restaurant where I managed to eat enough food for the next day as well as being able to ride on a zebra! Although unlike Europe I don’t think our burgers were made from these particular zebras. (On a side note the Japanese actually eat horse sashimi (raw meat) known as basashi and it’s readily available in larger cities. It’s very tasty!)
Still within Naha was Shuri Castle, the former palace of the Ryukyu Kingdom and which dates back to the 1300s. However, as I have mentioned before, Japanese castles and temples have a habit of getting burnt down over the centuries and simply rebuilt in the same location, and sure enough Shuri castle’s latest restoration was finished in 1992 which makes it 21 years old! Although there was scaffolding up when we visited so even that 1992 date might be a bit optimistic for what we in Europe would call old. Still it was nice to look around and we arrived just in time to see some traditional dance being performed at the castle.
One of the things that Okinawa is most famous for are Shisa statues which adorn the entrance of pretty much every single building there. Shisa look like a cross between a lion and a dog and are almost always in pairs, one with its mouth open the other with its mouth closed. The open mouthed Shisa is to ward off evil spirits while the closed mouthed Shisa is to keep good spirits in. Back in the shopping street Kokusaidori every other shop was selling these, with hundreds of different models to choose between. Here are the two Shisa guarding Shuji castle.
Our last trip on the mainland was to Churaumi Aquarium the North of the island. The aquarium is one of the largest in the world with a massive tank holding 7,500 cubic metres of water and several whale sharks and manta rays.
After the aquarium we went to Emerald beach for a swim and which is only 5 minutes walk away. I’d somehow managed to forget my goggles in Tokyo so bought a new pair to use at the beach there and later on Zamami island. And it was quite lucky that I did as while chasing a fish underwater I came across a facemask on the sea bed buried under some sand which were perfect for Martin who had also forgotten to bring any goggles. We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming around before having to catch the very early 6pm bus back to Naha and our hostel.
Finally it was time to go to Zamami island. This was the part of the trip I had been most looking forward to. About 30 km to the West of Naha are the Kerama islands and while these don’t quite have the picture perfect white sand beaches you see in postcards of tropical paradises they are pretty close and in addition also have some of the best coral reef and diving areas in the world. To get there we took what I think is the fastest boat I’ve ever been on, which isn’t saying much since the only other boats I’ve been on are ferries to France and some rowing boats in city lakes.
(Click either picture for video, parental advisory explicit lyrics)
On the island we went to the nearest beach and started swimming around. There was absolutely loads of coral and thousands of fish everywhere just a few metres below the surface so that all you need to see everything was a pair of goggles or recently found facemask. Obviously I can’t show you the pictures of the fish as my camera is not waterproof despite it having an underwater setting on it, not quite sure what that’s there actually, but if you should ever be in Okinawa a trip to Zamami and some snorkelling is an absolute must. Since both me and Martin were super organised for the trip we had decided not to bother booking a hostel and just find somewhere to sleep outside for the night. Our first night we spent at an outlook post which had a stunning view of the sunset.
Before we settled down for the night on a large picnic table (actually comfy) we went into the village to look around and find some food. Guess who we met in an izakaya there. None other than Mr Miyage from the karate kid. It turns out he isn’t dead but just running a bar on a tiny Okinawan island.
With an early start the next day…
…it was off to a different beach for more snorkelling, lots of fish and some horrendous sunburn, the first of the trip for me . Despite taking more care than usual and putting on loads of sun cream I was still well done by the sun. Unfortunately you just don’t feel the heat while swimming around in the water. We decided to spend a second night on the island and take the ferry back the next afternoon rather than cutting our time on the beach short that day and so we “borrowed” some deck chairs from the beach that one of the tourist companies on the island were renting out and decided to sleep on them for our second night (actually not comfy at all).
My pillow for the night.
The next day we did a little bit of snorkelling in the morning but unfortunately there were rather a lot of tiny jellyfish in the water which made it rather painful, especially on sunburn, then it was back to Naha, a bit of souvenir shopping on the high-street and a final night in osaru-oyado before flying back to Tokyo.
I’ve uploaded all of the photos Martin and I took to my Google drive which you can view here. I will take them down after a while as they take up quite a lot of room of my free storage so please feel free to download any you like. If you would like to download all of the pictures they are in a .zip file here.
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