Japan is Actually an Island: Part I

One week, three different places, all islands.

On a miserably rainy Friday morning I skipped all my classes and headed to Okinawa with Sebastian and Juliana. We arrived on a deliciously humid evening greeted by a typically tropical airport.

Our First day night was spent getting delicious hand-made noodles and walking the city a bit. But the next day we headed towards our more permanent residence for the next couple days and made it there somehow on a ten-dollar bus. The best thing about it though was getting to our hostel and trying to find the light switch in our rooms, because the lights are actually controlled by knobs and the only switch-operated light in our room turned out to be a moving disco ball.



Mine was yellow. It was awesome. We explored the town a bit that day, basically we were right next to an American army base, not where I wanted to be at all, but the next day made the location all worth it. I spent a small fortune to go scuba diving. Reef Encounters took Sebastian and I too some small unnamed islands to three different underwater environments. Fisrt we got a coral reef, next we got a sea wall drop off (and I unepectedly ended up going down to 130ft) and the last was a rock and sand envirnment home to many sea turtles! The favorite part of this day was not onlyo being underwater but seing the little islands of okinawa, there are many of them around but you have to kind of own a boat or take ferries to the bigger ones. My favorite island was this tiny little sand thing that had some great history. Doug (our instructor) told me that this island:
is the island that America decided to set up camp before they attacked Okinawa. What happened on it goes like this: the island is 14 miles from the mainland. Okinawa saw what America was doing and decided to let them get all settled and then blow them and their equipment to bits. When Okinawa made their attack, they soon realized their long-range guns only went 12 miles. America saw the little puffs of smoke coming from the mainland and bombarded Okinawa with their 16 mile long range guns. This battle was a huge deciding factor in the war of America's final actions on Japan. Cool bit of history in a picturesque setting.
Other islands were fantastic with not as much history.

The next day I took a beach day and got a tan and walked along the shore. The water was blue, the trees had flowers, it was sunny and warm. However the main event happened at night. Next to our hostel was a nightly flea market where people sold their stuff and ddelicious food was made. The best thing I ate that night was not the fresh-baked brownie, not the BBQ ribs, but the Brazilian pies.
This woman sold them, pastry puff full of meat and cheese. The moment I took a bite into one I decided Okinawa really wasn't Japan. It's actually closer to Taiwan than it is to Japan, but the only things Japan and Okinawa have in common is their language is based on the same structure and alphabet.

The next day I headed back to Osaka Airport only to take the shinkansen (bullet train!) down to Hiroshima where I stayed on an island called Miyajima.