Okinawa: Part 2

Friday March 2nd 2007. Woke up pretty early after a reasonable nights sleep in my bed box, which was only interspersed occasionally with the roar of un-muffled motorbikes and trucks rolling past the window. We traipsed out of the hostel to be greeted by grey skies, grey skies, and more grey skies. No drama's though, we were of the opinion that maybe it'd clear up. Cruised past the rentacar shop and picked up our sweet ride 'goldilocks' that we'd arranged yesterday, then it was off to the port to catch a 9:00 ferry for Tokashiki Island and some beautiful beaches.
At 8:58 when the ferry wasn't moving we checked our papers and discovered that the boat we were on wasn't actually the 9:00 ferry, it was the 10:00 (that happened to be going to the same place). But hey, whatever. Just another reminder that we are the worlds worst travellers ever, by this stage we had totalled acknowledged that fact already, so just snoozed it up for an hour.
The ferry ride across was pretty cool, saw a migrating whale swim past the boat which was a bit of excitement. In no time the crew had rolled out the harpoon, and it was free sushi lunch for everyone. Good times.

Landed on Tokashiki Island, the place was pretty dead because it was the off season. Jumped into Goldilocks and cruised around the island, arrived at Tokashiku beach, which would have to be one of the most picturesque beaches I've ever seen. Would've looked heaps cooler in sunshine, but you can't win 'em all I guess.


You can check out the DangerBlog's latest feature, embedded videos. How cool is this, all my adoring fans (aka mumsies) can now see me LIVE in action, courtesy of google videos, neat html and the dangercam's videoing capabilities.



Quick swim on the deserted beach then it was time to hit the road and go cruising round the island again. Here's another shot of Tokashiku beach, this time from the hills above it.


Went to a couple of other beaches, but the island was pretty quiet. No jet ski hire places to be found so we just drove around instead, here's a shot of us and goldilocks.


We caught the ferry back to the main island Naha, then hit the town for some eats and drinks. Found a canadian bar, which had VB on the 'premium international beers' list which I thought was pretty funny.


700 Yen equates roughly to about $7 Aussie dollars. $7 bucks for a VB? Don't think so...Nothing too eventful happened that night just talked to a few randoms before calling it a night and hitting the hostel.

Saturday March 3rd 2007. Awoke early again, walked out the door to notice that the clouds of bitterness were still hanging around, so we decided to drive up the coast and hit the aquarium. I was a little reluctant to go, I mean what's so special about fish in a tank? But it turned out to be a pretty decent way to kill a couple of days on a cloudy day.




I think the main tank is the biggest in the world, either way it had three whale sharks in it which was pretty impressive.

After the aquarium it was back to goldilocks and onto some castle ruins. When I parked the car earlier at the aquarium, fern absolutely rubbished my technique cos I took a couple of minutes to get it right. I'm just going to let this photo do the arguing for me:


Ruins were ok, saw my first cherry blossoms:


After the ruins it was further up the coast, to check out Hiji waterfall up the top of the island. Drive up was really enjoyable, the road followed the coast all the way.

We found the waterfall car park, then it was packs on for the trek into the fall.
Greeted by a few signs along the way:






And then:


Hey, they don't call me Max Danger for nothing. And yes, the water was fucking cold.






On the drive back home we encountered the first sunshine of the trip, which was no doubt a kodak moment.



Drive back down the coast was pretty uneventful, although once we hit the city the traffic was a nightmare. Definitely don't miss driving in traffic, that's for sure.

Quick change up at the hostel, then into town for some dinner and to check out the vibe. On the walk in noticed this shop, apologies to everyone else but must have in-joke of the post comes next: Tim, how awesome is this? Foley would go nuts hey?


The izakaya we went to was pretty cool, apart from the half head, half liquid pint of beer that the waitress slapped in front of me, but I managed a super quick switch up while fern wasn't looking so everyone's a winner. Except, of course, the loser, Fern.
Nothing crazy went down and we were pretty fucked from the road trip so had a few quiet beers before heading home.

Sunday March 4th 2007. Finally saw the clear blue skies and sunshine that we had flown down to the islands for. Litter bit bitter that we only had a few hours to take advantage of the rays before hitting the airport, and didn't have enough time to get to a decent beach, but we happy to have some sunshine nonetheless. We hiked to the closest inner city beach, ready to pink up and partake in my favourite beach pastime, digging in sand. Quote of the day was when I cut my t-shirt loose getting ready to go for a dip, prompting fern to remark: "You are so pasty, you make me want to vomit on myself".



Here's a dose of humour that crosses international borders:

You have to look closely, but these japanese lads buried their mate, and then when he couldn't move, added on a nice pair of sand boobies. Gold Jerry, gold.

Who's the king of the beach?


In true form managed to get totally burnt even though I wasn't in the sun that long. Not having the best memory and all, I kinda forgot that max + 10 seconds of sun = lobsterness.

After wrapping up at the beach, trip home was pretty smooth, just had to cope with a super burnt back for the next few days, but that was ok because it was proof that the sun came out at least once. Whingeing aside, it was a fucking good trip. Would like to go back in the summer though and check out a few more of the outlying islands.

Ok that's a wrap for the Okinawa mission ('finally' I hear you sigh).

Moving on, let me introduce a new segment, called 'Patty's ps of the week'. My little bro is travelling through South America at the moment, here's an excerpt from one of his emails:

-ps Next time I send and email I will make sure I have done something real good, like sleep with 4 chicks in one night or get kidnapped by a bunch of desperate brazilian girls trying to raise money for their end of season netball trip but then end up liking me and taking me on the trip with them.

Ok hombres until next time take care,
Maxi.

Okinawa: Worst Trip Ever - Part 1

As mentioned last post, an Okinawa mission was on the cards last weekend. Here's a frame by frame replay of what went down. Warning, this is a bit of a long one, and also contains a fair bit of 'colourful' language. If you don't like the f word, don't read on.

Thursday, March 1st 2007. Okinawa Mish Day 1.

01:00 Wake up to the sound of the woman upstairs obviously enjoying 'relations'. Fall back asleep after a bit.

06:00 Wake up to the sound of a rooster crowing. Sleepily curse the mope that owns a rooster in the middle of a fucking city. Drift back to sleep.

07:00 Wake up again, this time to tune of metal rods being sawed, coming from the construction site next door. Decide that metal being sawed is my least favourite sound in the world.

08:00 Alarm goes off, get out of bed, primed and ready to smash up Okinawa. Feel a little tired. Trudge to the fridge to grab some bread, am devastated to discover that there's not one fucking slice left in the house. No vegemite and toast for Maxi Danger this morning. Sulkily eat tim-tams instead. Think to myself 'I hope the no toast in the fridge isn't an omen or something'.

09:30 Arrive at bus centre, purchase tix for the airport run.

10:03 Hop on the bus, little unnerved by the fact that it's four minutes late, which is very unusual for Japan.

10:10 Vague feeling of uneasiness about whether or not this is the right bus. Reassured by the fact that we're following the signs to the airport.

10:20 Fern realises that he's forgotten his drivers licence, and is therefore extremely pissed off. No Okinawa scooters for him.


11:00 Arrive at the airport. Grab our bags and go to get off, but the driver indicates that we should wait until the other passengers get on. After they get on, get up and stand in the aisle to leave again, driver indicates that we should still wait. Figure that he's taking us to the departure terminal or something.

11:02 Bus drives straight by the departure terminal. Fern: "Yeah, this doesn't feel right". I agree. Agree even more when the bus turns onto the highway and proceeds away from airport at 100k's an hour.

11:05 Ask the bus driver (in very bad japanese) what's going on. When I say that we want to get off at the airport, he responds with an internationally recognisable facial expression that plainly says: 'ooh, you're fucked then aren't yah?'. Ask to get off at next stop.

11:10 Not at next stop yet. Slightly concerned at missing our 12:20 flight. Think about the rooster, the no toast, the licence and now the bus. Phrase 'worst trip ever' flashes through my head, refuse to acknowledge it.

11:25 Get off at the next stop, which as it happens is 20 minutes away from the airport, and deep in the fucking mountains. Kindly bussy calls a taxi for us. As we get off, we both read the sign on the side of the bus and realise that no, it's not an airport bus - but it went there anyway? Sun is out, not a cloud in the sky, fucking magic day. Grudgingly admit that if you were going to get lost in the mountains and miss your flight to some beautiful tropical islands, then you couldn't have asked for better weather to do it in.

11:30 Waiting for taxi, decide to try hitch-hiking. No one picks us up. While waiting, play 'estimate the taxi fare back' game. My guess: $40, Ferns: $48.

11:35 Taxi arrives. Scenic trip back down through the mountains made better because for the first time today it's accompanied by the secure feeling of knowing that we are actually headed in the right direction.

11:50 Arrive at airport, $62.50 later. OUCH. Bid farewell to the cool taxi driver.

11:51 Check in. Realise that we also had our flight time wrong, although luckily only by ten minutes.

11:55 Clear security, arrive at the gates, ready for boarding. Okinawa, here we come.

12:20 On plane. Fern: "Hey, you don't happen to remember the name of the hostel we booked do you?" I don't. Sneaky suspicion that this trip is just going to be one big cluster fuck. Decide to cross the hostel bridge when we land.

12:30 Hottie air hostess offers me an overpriced beer. FUCK YES! It even comes with four types of complimentary snacks - cheese, two types of crackers and a mini cabana. Crack my beer, LOVING LIFE.

14:20 Touchdown, clear security. Sort out hostel issue by scanning a list from the information booth.

15:30 Arrive at hostel to find that it's currently under construction. Suspect the guy at the front desk is on drugs. Led to the 'rooms'. After negotiating random planks of wood and power tools left on the floor, am assigned a space in an oversize bookshelf for people.





But hey it wasn't all bad, the joint only cost $15 bux a night and was sort of clean, could've done a lot worse. As fern so aptly misput it later that night after he'd had a couple of beers: you pay what you get for. Well said fernando, well said. Stashed our stuff and headed off to grab some food and check out Okinawa Castle (Shuri-jo).


19:50 Castle was ok, head in to town to have a few beers and some dinner. Try the local speciality umi budou (sea grapes), find that they are rather salty. Pretty tuckered out from the big day, plus no cool bars to be found by aimlessly wandering the streets so don't stay out too late.

21:40 Chilling out in the hostel common room reading my book when this jap dude comes up and says "Can I conversation you?". Why not. Chat to him for a little bit, good on him I say.

11:00 Call it a night. Drift off to sleep thinking that with all that went wrong today, what could possibly go wrong tomorrow?

Next Post: Okinawa Mish, Day 2.