It kind of blows my mind that the Okinawa island chain is part of Japan at all. Although, despite its vast distance from Tokyo and it being much closer to Taiwan in terms of geography and climate, it does still maintain that distinctive Japanese identity. I visited the region for about 12 days and covered a fair bit of ground. I was so excited to visit; it’s extremely popular as a holiday destination for people in East Asia but not often visited by western tourists. It was an opportunity to understand the Japanese on another level, plus the scenery here is absolutely top-notch. I was extremely lucky to travel round Okinawa with my friend Kenny who I met in London but who is a native of Japan, which came in sooo handy. Things are a little rough and ready from a travel perspective in this prefecture; think 20 year old websites, an almost complete lack of public transport and the majority of locals not speaking a word of English!

We would spend the majority of our time on the Yaeyama islands in the far south west, but I wanted to just spend a couple of days before that in the prefectural capital Naha which sits on the main island of Okinawa. Naha is a city of about 300,000 and is therefore the largest urban centre in Okinawa. I felt like it therefore merited a visit and while I’m glad I did go and see it, I can say with authority that if you were to skip it, you wouldn’t be missing much. There’s not a ton to see, and I was unlucky in that the stuff that there is to see was either closed for refurbishment (Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum), 3 hours away by bus (Churaumi Aquarium), or had burned down in 2019 (Shurijo Castle). I visited a couple of places of note, but the highlight was probably the Kokusaidori Shopping Street, where I spent a lovely day browsing the markets, having beer and karaage and finding the most ridiculous souvenirs to take home with me. Okinawan’s identity is closely tied to their role in WWII, as well as their famed Orion beer and Blue Seal ice cream. Accordingly, you can buy all sorts of tat with these brands on, which I duly did.

After Naha, the Okinawa trip started proper. We landed into Ishigaki which served as our base for the trip. Ishigaki town has enough bars and restaurants to keep you fed and watered and a convenient ferry terminal with links to all of the nearby islands. The island itself is of course beautiful – we opted not to get a car here so we took the bus up to the north west one day to check out Kabira Bay. Here we gazed upon the azure waters and dazzling sands while eating udon noodles, before jumping onto a glass bottom boat tour to see giant clams and sea turtles.

The next day, Kenny and I took a day trip to the nearby Taketomi island. At just 5km squared in area and 21m at its highest point, it’s basically just a bit of sand with some houses on it. The draw of the island is wandering/biking the unpaved streets and admiring the traditional homes, checking out the beaches and beautiful blue water, and taking a ride in a cart behind a water buffalo. It’s an outrageously instagrammable place and things are perfectly set up for the tourists who come here. It’s an iconic and unique destination and I’m thrilled that I got to see it with my own eyes.

A few days later, after visiting Iriomote (I’ll get to that in my next post) we returned to Ishigaki and were coincidentally in town for the annual Orion beer festival. I have to say, people who opt to live on a tropical island are of a different breed to city dwellers like me – it was a joy to see some real free spirits enjoying themselves. Whenever I see people wearing swimshorts and tatty vests, dancing in the sunshine and not caring at all what others might think of them, I can’t help but think they’ve got it absolutely made and that I’m the idiot for living in ‘civilisation’. We bought homemade food from the stalls, drank a few beers and enjoyed the live music as the sun set. It was the first festival they’ve had there for four years so we were so lucky to be in town for it!

We visited two more islands which I’ll get into more in the next couple of posts as they were the true highlights of our time in Okinawa. Nevertheless, we had a great time in Ishigaki and Taketomi. Being here truly felt like a holiday within a holiday, and the fact I was with Kenny meant I could relax a little more and leave the planning to him (he’s an excellent travel agent). My next post will be all about our visit to Iriomote, which may well be the number one highlight of my entire trip! Till then!