Although a
month has passed since our trip to Japan (can someone stop the Earth from
rotating so darn quickly?), impressions of Okinawa are still fresh in my mind.
Here they are, along with the photos of our weekend jaunt in May across the
East China Sea.
We arrived
in the Naha airport in the early afternoon on Saturday and found out everything
we wanted to know from a super helpful woman at the airport visitor center.
Most importantly, she narrowed down for us all those coastline options to one
beach in the south that’s mostly enjoyed by locals. She had the bus schedules
and a map of where to catch our bus, since the main terminal was under
construction. She also helpfully dissuaded us from going to the Okinawa
aquarium – famous as it is, it would take 3 hours of bumping along on a bus,
one way. Yuck. And we really only had 1.5 days to take it all in!
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the many lion-dog guardians of entryways of Okinawa |
I think Rich’s
description of Okinawa as “old-school futuristic” hits the nail on the head. Naha,
the capital, feels like a place that was once ahead of its time, but froze at
that point in its development.
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Monorail tracks stretching into the distance |
Exhibit A: the monorail (monorail, MONORAIL!
hehe) that runs – at most – 4 times an hour and moves at a quaintly slow pace.
It was entirely way too packed for any more people to squeeze in on Sunday
afternoon. Imagine the groans of a whole platform full of hopeful passengers,
some with suitcases and obviously heading to the airport, as our train pulled
up, crammed with people like sardines in a can. Everyone seemed to take it in
stride, though. We had bought 48-hour monorail passes and certainly got our
money’s worth, even with the conservative amount of traveling that we did in
our time there.
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This is not our hotel... haha... but a UNESCO-protected ancient gate outside of the castle |
But backing
up to Saturday afternoon. We checked into the conveniently named Okinawa Hotel,
which turned out to be a great choice. We’d booked it for its bargain price and
a few good reviews, mostly recommending its quiet location that’s still close
to the main artery – Kokusai Dori, or International Street. The hotel was –
just like most of the city – kind of homey and old-fashioned, but the service
was impeccable, everything was clean, they had a small onsen (hot soaking pools) section and didn’t charge us extra for using
the AC (I’d read in several other reviews, mostly of small B&Bs, that the
AC was hooked up to a coin box you had to feed at expensive rates).
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another (restored) gate at the castle |
We dropped
off our stuff and struck out for Shuri Castle – “a must-see” seat of the local
government in days gone by. We loosely followed this
helpful walking tour, although at some point realized we didn’t have it in
us to do the entire lengthy stroll. We poked around the afore-mentioned
International Street in the evening and it seemed primarily gaudy and touristy,
but Rich did manage to lead us to the second floor of Makishi
Public Market where seafood restaurants were still going strong.
Although
Sunday had originally called for rain earlier that week, by the time we landed
the skies promised to stay blue and sunny, so Sunday morning we got up early,
enjoyed a fab breakfast buffet at the hotel and got on a bus heading to Mibaru Beach.
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Clockwise from left: salmon, veg and pickles, natto, rice and Japanese curry sauce, miso soup, seaweed, congee and yogurt with fruit. |
Just like the rest of the city, it was calm and semi-deserted. The tide was
waaaay out when we arrived, so we had to walk and walk and walk to any
swimmable depth, but that also meant that as the water came back in, it was
warm as a bathtub. We stayed out there for ages. There were also an army of
hermit crabs keeping us company in the little cove we chose as base camp. My
main impression of the seaside there was the super clear water! It was so clean and pristine. I never thought of
Japan as a tropical paradise, but I’d have to describe Mibaru Beach as
something akin to that.
We spent
ages looking for a place to eat when we got back to town. After much on-foot
effort, we gave up finding the port where the tourism lady recommended we get
fresh sushi. But, we did eventually find a traditional restaurant where we had
Okinawan specialties like fried noodles, “sea grapes” seaweed (yum!), braised
pork belly and some random deep-fried stuff.
That’s about the highlights of the trip. I hope we can return one day with more time and an international driving permit so we can rent a car (they seem to be very strict about that). Another possibility is that we’ll go to one of the outlying islands, which are even more tropically luscious. Ishigaki is a possibility; it’s even closer to Taiwan and barely developed. A friend of a friend said it was amazingly natural, and they just rode around on bikes.
Sayōnara for now, Land of the Rising Sun!
See all of the photos here: