Okinawa and the end of our tour.

This is the picture I was searching for, my 'I drove to Okinawa!' shot. Nice location.

The Okinawan peace museums, memorials and caves were quite affecting (is that the right word? 'They had an effect on me', not 'they looked fake'). Things learnt:

The Japanese were entrenched in a messy, hopeless war with China.
The Chinese were being supported with material from America and Britain through Hong Kong and Malaysia.
Over 60% of Japan's petroleum came from America and when America cut Japan off from that supply Japan had virtually no choice but to find alternative sources, hence the assault on the oil-rich SE Asia region. Japan needed to secure resources and deny the Chinese their aid from Britain and America.
So the 'surprise attack' on Pearl Harbour was only surprising in it's daring. That's one historical event I had no prior understanding of.

As the main landing point for the American assault Okinawa got hammered. Three months of the '鉄の暴風' or 'typhoon of steel', 200,000 dead, mostly civilian, killed by bombs, Americans, Japanese, suicide... The Okinawans weren't regarded as true Japanese by the army and were considered expendable.

We later visited one of the caves, or the vertical drop into darkness that was the entrance to the cave, where some mobilised student medics (14-19 years old) hid after they were abruptly de-mobilised and abandoned by the Japanese army. From the de-mobilisation order to the Japanese surrender, just 5 days, most of the 222 students died on the battlefield.

Even after the war Okinawa had the hardest time under American occupation and it was a long time before Okinawa re-joined Japan.

As in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the eyewitness accounts had the most impact. Horrific stories.


From Okinawan history to hanging out with modern Okinawans: Our first hostel stay of the trip in 'Base Okinawa', highly recommended. Lots of comics there, and I finally got around to reading Akira - very different from the film.

We visited Tokashiki island by ferry, rented a wee 90cc scooter and went snorkelling. Really beautiful coral once past the sandy dead patch. Sea slugs and sea cucumbers aplenty and tons of fish. Better than the Great Barrier Reef area I went to with dad, though not on the same scale and perhaps not up to the Sulawesi area in Indonesia. We even met a huge, docile old turtle, covered in algae and barnacles. Felt strange to be snorkeling while it snowed in Hokkaido.

Our final destination in Okinawa was Kume island - the furthest West we could get without flying. Met a weird old guy who helped us out quite a bit but dogged us for most of our stay - little awkward.

The 'Tatami rocks' also and more appropriately known as the 'turtle shell rocks', formed from cooling magma.

Another whole day of rain, mostly weathered in the tent with occasional excursions to replace flysheet pegs torn out by the wind. Met a couple of spear-fishers in the nearby cafe who seemed to hang out there all day and fish all night. Nice guys, frequently apologising for the drunk old guy who was trying his best to communicate with us - he seemed to live in the cafe.

On our last day there we decided to check out a small sign we saw to some limestone caves, despite them not featuring on any maps or tourism guides that we'd seen. No-one was there except this guy in his beat-up old car. No signage except 'enter at own risk' and no significant pathing or construction. No lighting. We were about to go back to the bikes to pick up our head-light and torch when the guy appeared with a bag full of torches and offered to guide us around the place for free... What followed was several kilometres of pitch-black limestone caverny goodness complete with manic bat caves, human remains spilling out of broken jars, chute climbs, glittering celings and fancy stalactites. Easily one of the best caves I've ever seen, and all the more so for the lack of walkways, railings, steps and floodlights that spoil every similar place I've been to in Japan.

We booked a flight back to Hakodate from Miyazaki, so we took the 25 hour ferry back, stayed at John & Mayumi's place and went to see how much we could get for our bikes... The shop spent 20 minutes checking them out and then came back with their offer: $50 and $100 respectively. We were kind of insulted, to be honest! We knew the shop would sell them for about $2,000 after a little work so we sold them to John for $100 each. I hope he gets a good price for them!

We said goodbye to the bikes that had carried us all this way, about 7,000 kilometres in all, and flew home to negative temperatures and snow, and the easy familiarity of Hakodate.