Dear Tokyo

Week 48

Riding the train to the airport with Edu to meet up with Alfie and Julien held that same, indescribable giddiness that was usually only reserved for the morning of school excursions, as students waited to board the buses that would take them to wondrous places like the zoo. The flight to Naha was three hours, our seats spaced out to keep everyone socially distanced. Edu and Alfie swapped seats so that Edu and I could sit next to each other.

Naha was the main island of Okinawa, where we planned to stay for the first two nights. We hadn't planned the trip too much because we had expected to play everything by ear once we got there.

We still had a few hours before we were able to check into our Airbnb so we climbed the stairs with our bags to the top floor of an A&W. I hadn't been to an A&W since living in Malaysia as a kid. We didn't have any in Australia. Tokyo didn't have any either, to my knowledge, and I assumed Okinawa only had it because of a high population of American military.

There wasn't a whole lot to do in Naha besides eat. The boys kept talking about a Korean restaurant they had been to during their first trip, touting it as the best Korean food they had ever tried. I didn't hold much stock in Edu's opinion since he hadn't been that exposed to different kinds of cuisines in his small hometown village back in Spain, but Alfie had at least been to Seoul.

It was indeed good food, so good that we went there twice. The owner was a nice, Korean man who smiled with his eyes and remembered Edu and Alfie from the first time they visited, so I took a picture of the three of them on Alfie's disposable camera before we left.

Other than that, the main attraction of Naha seemed to be the main shopping strip. If we went off into any of the little alleys, we usually found ourselves surrounded by thrift stores and streetwear.

Curiously, one store had a sign on its door banning women from entering so I sat on the step outside, playing with a stray cat while Alfie and Julien browsed and Edu kept me company.

The day we were supposed to leave for Zamami, a smaller island, Alfie woke up early to walk down to the dock to check whether or not they would be selling ferry tickets. As it was nearing typhoon season again, we had been warned that the ferry might stop running at a moment's notice.

He returned to our place with bad news and we ended up booking another Airbnb in Naha as soon as we had to check out of our current one.

We worried that we wouldn't be able to go to Zamami at all, which was what we had been looking forward to the most because Edu and Alfie had hyped up how beautiful and fun it would be. Thankfully, we were able to catch a ferry the next day, though the waves were so choppy it left me a little seasick.

Zamami was microscopic. It probably took only a half hour to drive from one end to the other, not that we had a car. We walked under the sun towards our accomodation, which amounted to an old wooden shack lined with some mats and a divider in the middle so that Edu and I could sleep with some sort of privacy. The shower and toilers were around the back.

The owner of the place was gruff but made conversation with the guys and even offered a place for us to have lunch, walking us right to the restaurant door.

After that, every afternoon was pretty much spent on the beach, and every night was spent drinking under the stars at the wharf. The water surrounding Zamami was the bluest, most translucent I had ever seen. It felt like a miracle to swim in and even more special to snorkel.

By the end of our trip, we were all tanned (except Alfie, who burned bright pink) and pleasantly tired, sad to call an end to the holiday but ready to go home and recover from it. We had McDonald's at the airport for lunch before saying goodbye. Because he wouldn't be free for the next for days, Julien knew he wasn't going to be able to see Edu off if he did anything for his farewell, so they said a proper goodbye and then we parted ways.