Four Go Mad In Okinawa - Part Three

After another horrifically hot and somewhat arduous trek to the harbour, we caught the ferry, enjoyed the fun and bumpy ride and located our Greek-themed hostel in Naha without too many problems.

After hitting the frighteningly dense urban jungle of the city’s central district for lunch (shamefully consisting of a Maccy D’s on main thoroughfare Kokusai Dori - I know, I know, but it’s about the only reliable non-Japanese convenient food staple we have out here, a duck wrap with hoisin sauce or a hot panini would have been lovely, but it was never going to happen) Mark and Melissa, who I should probably point out at this stage are actually a couple, hence the time they spent together, opted to go gift shopping, while Sean and I checked out a music store so I could buy a talon-shaped pick for my hand-made samishan back in Wakayama. For our troubles, the owner gave us each a postage-stamp sized piece of genuine snakeskin on our way out (no doubt cut from one of those long-suffering habi) to keep in our wallets so that "much money may flow though them" (fine by me), following which, we headed to Shuri-jo, Naha’s castle, pictured above.

Very big, very red and surprisingly non-Japanese in general appearance we both had a good poke around the place, before catching a big red gate thing nearby, which must be quite important, as it features on the rare 2,000 yen note. Yes, alright, when it comes to my learning of Japanese history I am truly shocking in my dogged ignorance.

That night saw the belated proper celebration of Sean’s 24^th year at a nomihodai (one upfront fee gets you all can eat from a buffet and all you can drink from the bar for four hours – not half bad for 10-15 quid I reckon) beer hall, which was worth it for the booze but not so much for the distinctly lacking food. Such is normally the way with these places, but since I’d had a McDonald’s earlier that day, it’s not as though I can get on my culinary high horse here.

Following this was yet more karaoke, booth style this time, and in a porno-tastic setting that resembled an early eighties city boy bachelor pad – lots of matte black, red borders and revolving chairs that glided spectacularly well at high speeds across the floor. Much fun indeed was had raising chair-related havoc in the corridor outside, bashing into random doors and saying hi to the bemused occupants before careening away again.

After our time was up (broken to us by a phonecall to our ‘room’ – I’m never the one who answers for both my sake and the staff’s), we headed hostel-wards to the rooftop bar where Sean and myself were determined to claim the complimentary awamoris we’d been promised when we checked in. Bad idea. Mark and Melissa didn’t last long before retiring, which was an extremely sensible course of action, as shortly after they’d gone, we were joined by sizeable group of soccer players from Yokohama. That's them you can see up there. Yeeeaah….

The extremely accommodating barmaid was good enough to let me loose on her iPod and provide a jittery soundtrack to the ensuing conversational chaos (“American.” “American? Ah, veh good! You?” “English.” “Aha, yeah! English! England! Beckham! Veh nice!” you know, that sort of thing) while me and Sean concentrated on chugging back the boozy goodness, which I soon came to regret in the small hours of that morning when, coming to in a stifling room in which the coin-operated aircon had clicked off some time ago, I found myself desperately ill and managed to haul myself to the downstairs bathroom just in time to spew. Only my second ever drink-related vomit in Japan, that. Not very nice though.

And so, to our departure. With the emergency excavation of my guts the previous night having have had absolutely no effect whatsoever on the nausea aspect of my usual hangover routine, I suffered a great deal all the way to the airport. Even once there, due to a check-in system of Kafka-esque complexity that required us all to queue no less than three times, I was really not in the best of moods.

The low point came during ‘breakfast’ at a branch of A & W which, according to Sean and Melissa, is a root beer company of all things, which some time ago branched into the fast food industry. They needn’t have bothered. What I assumed was the safe option of a ham and cheese toasted sandwich (pleasant memories of breakfasts at Amsterdam coffee shops spurring me on) turned out in fact to be a flaccid, mayonnaise-drenched processed monstrosity which I would hardly have been able to stomach at the best of times, never mind in my present condition.

Storming out of the restaurant in search of something slightly more recognisable as food I was grateful to come across a bakery serving croissants and black coffee. Like some magical elixir, the restorative power of these two dependable breakfast companions banished my morning-after demons to such an extent that I could even enjoy a cigarette in the smoking lounge. (‘Callum Fauser’s Guide To A Better, Healthier You’ is available now in shops, priced $When Hell Freezes Over).

After that and the most thoughtless gift shopping for work colleagues I have ever performed, it was back aboard the (sadly non Pokemon-themed) plane, homeward-bound.

Okinawa truly was lovely, but remember what we’ve learned kids – awamori is a dangerous mistress, big spiders are abominations of nature, no matter what anyone says, snorkelling rocks and American-style fast food always deserves to be treated with the utmost suspicion, if not contempt.