finally..the long due day to day journal on my trip to Okinawa.

When dreams turn to reality
Day 1: Reached Naha and took a monorail from the airport to the city centre. Walked out in what was the hottest the island had gotten since start of summer-35 degrees of humid heat and the sun burning my skin!Walked around trying to look for a cheap place to spend the night. We found a dormitory just above a liquer store in a ghetto like side of town. It was cheap alright and with it came dirty toilets, roaches and and an almost inhabitable square box for a dormitory with no fan! We decided to pay a little more and took the ac private rooms instead. It was a whle lot more decent and so we dumped our bags and got ready to start our holiday! the first place we hit was ofcourse..the beach. we took a taxi and haggled for a reasonable price (which goes on alot in okinawa by the way..so its way cool). We've got 2000 down to 800 yen even! The sight of the blue green sea dotted with swimmers and the warm sand with sunbathers and tanned lifeguards was sheer joy. While ass and cp didnt wait a minute longer to hit the water and the sand, adu n me went bikini shopping! an hour later...we got back to the beach and had a whole lot of fun in the sun. The locals were all so tanned, their skin tinted deep orange looked just heavenly. Ofcourse i couldnt expect to get that with a few hours of sunbathing! later when the sun had set and the beach got less crowded, we too headed off to a nearby pub and drank some cold beer and sang a few songs at the karaoke there. A perfect first day of vacation. Got back to the dormitory early and did some essential planning out for the next few days there in Okinawa- places to go, where to stay etc. A local girl from the dorm who spoke excellent english helped us out with that alot and by 3 am we had a plan. Those dreams we dreamt together..we were all realizing it, living it now.

Pacing life

Day 2: Left early for Nago on the North of the island. It was a two hour drive listening to unbearable italian opera ballads on the radio. Later we switched stations to an all american one..so what we got was a crazy american RJ, a few good songs and breathtaking sights along the highway by the sea. We finally reached Nago after what felt like ages and then began our hunt for the Nago guest house. The local girl who had helped us plan the trip had suggested this guest house for meeting 'wild fun' people. We did find the place after a good 45 minutes of asking around and getting lost and winding up in similar places again n again n again. The place looked like a shack which is what it really was. A bunch of shabby tiny wooden structures tightly scattered over a junkyard by the beach. Who would have known by the look of the place that it would be the very place where I had the most fun and memorable times while on vacation. The people were so laid back and chilled out. We were shown to our small room and given a tour of the place which took up barely 2 minutes(heres the kitchen, out back there are the showers and Done!) of our prime beach time. and then we hit the warm sand which was just 3 or 4 steps away from our room!! This beach was empty...not a soul ard other than the four of us ofcourse. And the view was just perfect..endless sea meeting the endless sky in the horizon somewhere very very far away. when it got too hot I sat with an okinawan beer on the hammocks back at the shack, the gentle n cool sea breeze brushin against my skin. Later we went kayaking which was a whole lot of fun. cp('nichan' at
Nago..hehe) n me on one, rowed our way far out to a rock.We headed back to the shore when it began to drizzle. It felt like cool ocean spray and was so refreshing. We had to walk quite a stretch of the beach dragging the kayak back to the shack. But then us being us..we dumped the thing in the middle of nowhere on the beach and the boys picked it up later in their jeep. Then I kicked around a football on the beach, spent a little more time by the waters and then we headed off for fruitsland and a few other places with Ryota and Chi , two amazingly tanned locals with big smiles and a bigger heart. We had got talking earlier and since we hadnt rented a car on the island, they decided to drive us around. What better than having a local showing us around the island? It was great, the ride on his van listening to jack johnson and taking in the island views was quite something. Fruitsland was sort of a drag. Lots of fruits, butterflies, brilliantly hued tropical birds and free tasting of cookies and cakes made from different kinds of fruits. After that was done, we didnt really have a 'to do 'thing on our list, so we asked Ryota to surprise us and take us places. He took us first to a nice okinawan restuarant as we were all so hungry. Ate a good meal, listening to the waterfall in the breezy open deck restuarant. Then he took us to a lookout point..sort of a cliff overlooking the sea below and miles n miles around.We spotted a tiny speck of an island far off and he decided to drive us there. Once we crossed the bridge to the other island everything was wild and natural, the maze of small unpaved dust roads leading down to the beach, with fields on either side, no people bustling about, no mcdonalds, no nothing. Just us in the car and nature at its best. The beach turned out to be a slice of heaven itself- small and secluded. It was truly beautiful. By now the sun was setting and we decided to watch the sun set off into the waters from another beach. Thats when our adventure started. Poor Ryota..despite being a local, he tried. and tried. and tried yet again, to get to that beach. but we just kept getting lost in those maze of small dust roads, which had fork pathways on every other turn. Finally after almost an hour of reversing and going round n round to find ourselves in the place where we started off, we just drove up on higher grounds and saw the remanents of the bright orange ball from the car. It was beautiful none the less. We also literally chased the rainbows while on our quest to reach the sun set. Saw them in full color and perfect arch, atleast about 5 different times. It was getting late by now so we headed back to the guest house, after collecting my cell phone along the road coz I'd left it in a tiny surf n fishing shop while asking for directions earlier in the day. Heck I didnt even miss it all that much..I was on a holiday for gods sake!:) Once home we all sat out on the deck, all the travellers in the guest house and the staff and we just chilled. Cold beer and aowamori okinawan sake, in the company of fun people. We talked, laughed and drank our way into the night. It was like one big family, a community of complete strangers. There were a few magical moments when we all shared comfortable silences just staring out at the moons reflection in the waters and the stars above the ocean. Nobody had a single care or worry in the world..atleast not then. not on this night. Ryota got the gang into more of the chill mode when he started struming his guitar and the shamisen( three stringed okinawa instrument). The sounds were heavenly. And he sang a few of my favourite songs including the japanese song nada sou sou, more than words and patience by GNR. Gotta love that guy, Ryota. He was so laid back and cool and funny as hell. He's a staff at the beach shack so he told us of hilarious and interesting incidents of the 'forever kissing' french couple and other travellers who stayed over at the guest house. Slept at 4 am that night with an excuse of waking up early the next morning...even though the now drunk Ryota, insisted I stay for the 5th "one last" drink!! But I did have to wake up early the next day as we were heading back down to Naha. It was a sad sayonara after uncertain promises of coming back again, I sure as hell wished to be able to have stayed a bit longer! The ride back to Naha was a silent one. I think each of us knew that that was a special time spent, memories of which will remain etched in our hearts for a long time to come.

Gradual Transition
Day 3: Back in the bustling capital, the previous day at Nago seemed like a distant and beautiful dream of pure shores. We stopped in Ryuku Mura-a traditional okinawa themed village on our way back to Naha. We caught a few performances there of Esa dance and Shamisen and saw Habu snakes as well . We checked into our hotel 'Sun Royal' and just dived into the plush beds coz we'd been sleeping on floors in the guest house and dorm. After a very 'fishy' lunch at the hotel's cafe resturant, we headed out to see the Shuri castle. The castle was so immaculate and rich with history and culture. Came back to the hotel and rested our tired feet a while then got ready for a saturday night out in town. We even bumped into a guy from the uni there , also on a holiday, with his girl. After checking out a few random shops along the kokusai doori(international shopping street), we looked around for good clubs. We found one and went in as the weather outside had started to get bad. A storm was due the next day!! So we danced in that club till the wee hours of the morning, took a taxi back to the hotel and slept like logs on our last night in Okinawa.

Back to Reality

Day 4: The next morning, we got a call from the hotel reception saying that we needed to check out at 11am! it was 11am and we were all in bed!! we hurried and took turns in the shower and packed our bags and left the room in the span of 30 minutes! We headed for the airport and browsed the shops there selling okinawa gifts and artifacts. Finally it was boarding time and we got on the flight back to home in Beppu! I slept throughout the one and a half hour flight as I was so tired from the previous night's clubbing. But those one and half hour of sleep was the most delicious sleep I've had for it was filled with dreams and memories of my 3 days in paradise!!