Okinawa Main Island Report – Part 1

After visiting the Okinawa Prefecture islands of Miyako and Ishigaki, this time I went to the Okinawa main island.

I’ve actually been there once before, a shocking 22 years ago! OMG! I once went to Okinawa by ship from Kyushu while I was having my exchange student year in Fukuoka. That time I stayed in Naha, the main town, and did some bus tours around the island.

This time I chose something quieter further north (Naha is the southern area of the island) and booked a room on Sesoko island. A sleepy place separated from the main island by a canal of seawater and connected with it via a 700 meter bridge.

The flight to Naha was of course fully packed, since it’s high traveling season in Japan over the new year holidays. Haneda airport was crowded but it was not as bad as I thought. I had asked the hotel a few weeks before departure how I’m supposed to get to them and they recommended to take a bus called Yanbaru Express. I checked in the internet for it and wow, it would take two hours by bus from Naha airport to the port of Motobu where I was supposed to get off and where the hotel people would pick me up.

Even from 22 years ago I remember that the traffic in Naha was a pain. Apparently that has not improved much, loads of stop and go, but once we were on the 53 km long highway of Okinawa, things went a bit quicker. Well, but then another reason for the two hour ride to Motobu was that we shall make a break in between at a highway rest area. Lol.

The driver stopped the bus for ten minutes at half his route, which is in total apparently two and a half hours long. Lol. They ain’t doing that in Tokyo