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Konichiwa,
When we arrived in Naha, Okinawa - the Japanese Hawaii - we had mainly sleeping and relaxing on our "To Do" List. However, when we got to our hostel, an odd place in the center of Naha, we were welcomed with news of a Typhoon coming in the next day. This dampened our enthusiasm right there. In the end it turned out that the Typhoon hit the island that same night and the weather improved steadily every day. Now we can say that we are disappointed as it would have been an exciting experience to witness a typhoon.
The guest house we stayed in seemed to be the main meeting point for all sorts of people. The entrance was an organized chaos with all the shoes, people slept on the floor at any time of the day, the TV was running 24 hours a day, the staff played the rock-paper-scissors game to decide who has to do the dishes, the beds, in our at least 20 person dorm, were a piece of plywood with a 2cm thick mattress (still surprised that we did not have any back pain) and straw mats as curtains, lights were turned off at midnight (sharp!) and at 9am a guy came into our "women only" room, screamed something in Japanese and turned on all the lights (so much to sleeping in every day) - but who would complain about all that if the rate is only 8 EURO a night.
Amongst all the interesting people we ran into during those 4 days we have a few we want to point out. A nice local guy from the hostel proved to us that it is faster to boil the water for our instant noodle soup on the stove rather than using the old cattle. He called himself "winner" which turned later into "wiener" when he cooked a bag full of sausages for everyone. This nickname stayed with him for the duration of our stay. Another time when we were just about to eat our meal on the bench in front of a supermarket, a guy from Rhode Island walked past us and randomly asked us "From which part of Australia we were from???" He kept on talking to us about the weirdest stuff when all we wanted was to eat our dinner. We also met an US Navy Officer who kindly helped out taking a picture of us at the beach. It was interesting to talk with him and we decided to meet up the next day for a couple of drinks. We found a nice Canadian Bar (well, actually the owner has 3 bars) and enjoyed some drinks (him only water since it is prohibited for Navy Officers to drink off base) and were joined by some other local guys later.
Of course we finally got our beach time, were able to swim in the ocean and work on our tan. After feeling the effects of a couple of nasty sun burns we can say "Mission Accomplished" - our tan lines are mostly evened out!
Now we are ready to spend a night at the airport in Osaka and fly to Seoul, South Korea tomorrow morning. Our Japan journey is over and we are excited for everything new to come.
Cheerio,
Ann & Sabrina
- comments
Gotte von Ann-Katrin oh, wie gern wäre ich bei euch am Strand in der Sonne, aber das mit den vielen Schuhen, dem 20 Personen Schlafsaal und dem Taifun muss net sein. Ich wünsch Euch weiterhin ganz viel Freude auf eurer Reise.