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.