With around 50 inhabited islands, Japan’s most extreme south is an area often considered to be the tropical paradise of the country, so when I was on my way there 20 years ago, I was very much looking forward to experiencing a warmer climate than Tokyo as well as the fine beaches, turquoise waters and traditional culture. It promised much but did it live up to expectations?

At that point in my life, I was only really aware of this deep south-west part of Japan because it had been the setting (but not the actual filming location!) for ‘The Karate Kid Part 2‘ (1986) which explains a couple of the crane kick poses in this post! My girlfriend at that time organised everything for this five-day trip to Okinawa and I tagged along!

The boat trip from Ishigaki to Kuroshima

In terms of the weather, things certainly didn’t quite turn out as hoped due to heavy rain on our arrival in Ishigaki where we then took a 30-minute boat trip to Kuroshima. The conditions did improve by the time we’d checked into our accommodation, so we promptly headed straight to the nearby Nakamoto Beach for some snorkelling. Having got up at 3:30 am, we were very tired so after a delicious evening meal we retired for the night and that was basically it for our short time on that island.

We transferred to Taketomi Island in the morning which was far more appealing by way of its lovely, tranquil and traditional atmosphere. The island is small enough to be navigated without fuel-powered transport. The roads were mostly just sand tracks and, along with bicycles, the main form of transportation was buffalo-drawn cart.

We took a short tour of the island, and our guide told us that he didn’t control the animals but that they guided us! It may have been true to an extent as the buffalos know the routes but they are still helped by the guides of course!

We were taken around the tiny, relaxed village to see the pretty flowers, coral-built walls and red-tiled roofs with their shisa statues (a kind of lion-dog guardian figure) while also being treated to a song from the guide playing his sanshin (a local three-stringed guitar type thing).

Before that we had visited Kondoi, Aiyaru and Kaiji Beaches with the latter being famous for its tiny star sand which is actually the remains of sea creatures! The water was very shallow and a lovely turquoise colour whilst the beaches were beautiful. However, the coral was not so good for snorkelling!

The following day we took a day trip to Kabira Bay as part of a boat tour. As an asthmatic, it’s not a good idea for me to go diving so I went snorkelling on top of the water whilst everyone else in the group were a few feet beneath me with their bubbles coming up my way! The sea was quite cold and there wasn’t such a great variety of fish, but I still enjoyed the experience.

Our penultimate day involved hiring a car back on Ishigaki to drive around the island. The sun finally came out and it was a beautiful hot day, the kind of temperature I had been expecting from day one! We managed to go snorkeling on a quite shallow beach at Yonehara where we saw some poisonous sea-snakes and a couple of fish frightened the life out of me when they bumped into me!

Hirakubosaki Lighthouse in the most north part of the island was followed by…

…some delicious local soba noodles for dinner.

A very nice sunset at the aptly named Ishigakijima Sunset beach was the final thing we did before checking into our hotel for the night.

Some live Okinawan music, dancing, drunken merriment and local delicacies was the entertainment for our final night in Okinawa.

After a lot of indecision and changeable weather we ended up on the east side of the island the following morning as the previous day’s beach had been too windy for our liking. Inoda Auto Camp was an interesting experience and very much of its time when foreigners were still quite a rare sight in Japan. We shared the beach with over a hundred Junior High School kids who were curious by my presence, and they all wanted to say hello! A fit of giggles usually followed each greeting.

It was perhaps strange not to spend any time in Naha on the main island of Okinawa but I have to appreciate how lucky I am to have been to some of the more remote places in the region that I am unlikely to ever return to. The main island is fairly easy to get to by plane so that’s always a possibility, and indeed I did go there ten years after this trip which will no doubt get the retrospective treatment later this year.

Click here to read ‘Okinawa 2016 Pt I: Sightseeing in Naha’

Click here to read ‘Okinawa 2016 Pt II: Dining Out in Naha’

Click here to read ‘Okinawa 2016 Pt III: J3 Football at FC Ryukyu’

Click here to read ‘Tropics of Interest: Prelude to Our Okinawa Island Hopping Trip’