Okinawa Time!

I woke up and headed to the car park I’d booked to leave the van in for the next three weeks. It was actually only about £50 for the whole thing, which seemed pretty reasonable considering how much it would cost at Heathrow or Gatwick.

Dropping the car off was very easy, and I was on the shuttle bus to Terminal 3 before I knew it – although just as the bus was pulling into the airport, my phone flashed up saying I’d left my AirPods behind. That was actually really bad news, as I also use them as earplugs for sleeping – and I’ve booked a bed in a hostel for the next four nights… I picked up some cheap, weird headphones at the airport and will have to see if it’s worth buying new AirPods in Okinawa, but £200 is money I don’t really have right now.

The flight was only about three hours, and I was sat next to a German couple. We had a brief chat about what they’d been up to (auf Deutsch, natürlich) before I slept for the rest of the journey. The first thing I noticed when getting off the plane was how humid it was – way more so than anywhere I’d been so far.

I picked up my bag and jumped on the monorail to a moped rental shop I’d found. Unfortunately, I hadn’t pre-booked and they had no bikes available. Same story at the next two shops I tried, and as it was now about 6 p.m., I gave up and got back on the monorail to the Guest House Grand Naha, where I’m staying for the next few nights.

My bed is actually pretty decent – plenty of room for bags and I’m at the end of a row, so only one neighbour, which is nice.

After dropping my bags, I headed out into Naha and walked around the Kokusai Dori area, grabbing a tofu, beef, and garlic stir-fry for dinner along the way. I wandered around a bit more until about 9:30 before heading back to the hostel.

Plans for tomorrow: catch up on this blog – which, at the time of writing, is massively behind – and find some wheels for the next three weeks.