Japan

Digital Nomad Stop #17 – Japan: Okinawa

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When I looked into which Japanese islands to visit next to the main island, Okinawa always stood out to me. I mean, how could it not? Google it. White beaches and turquoise water, far from the Japan that people are used to seeing. It felt like the perfect place to visit at the end of my time in Japan, to relax a bit after all the sightseeing. Figuring out a budget-way to visit Okinawa that allowed me to see some different places while not having to rent a car, was rather complicated. Many hours of research later, I came across a budget hotel on the main island of Okinawa, in a settlement called Onna, next to Nabee Beach. While Nabee beach was already quite pretty, the hotel was also located next to a bus stop with busses passing regularly in both directions along the coast.

I figured out that, by staying here, I would be able to see a lot of different beaches and places along the coast. And it worked out so well! Over the next 10 days I beach-hopped my way along the coast and spent a lot of time relaxing. I also hiked along Cape Manzamo to see some of the cool rocky coastline.

My favourite beach was Emerald Beach. It has its own shuttle bus that you can use and a stunning beach with some of the most turquoise water I have ever seen.

Another unexpected highlight of my time in Okinawa was going scuba diving. Again, it took me some time to find a dive shop that 1) spoke English, 2) didn’t require you having a car to go to the dive spot and 3) was reasonably priced (diving in Okinawa is not cheap). In the end, I went with Flare Dive, a dive shop located close to my hotel that also offered pick-up. The main dive site I wanted to visit was the wreck of the USS Emmons that lays at 36-45m depth. Because it is such a deep dive, the dive shop required me to do a check dive with them first on a reef near Manzamo. I was a bit annoyed about that (although I understand the reasons), but in the end, I’m happy they forced me to do a reef dive as the reef was beautiful with healthy corals and some interesting topography with swim-throughs and a little cave that we went into. Really cool! In fact, I liked that one dive so much that I decided to join them for the second dive of the day as well. USS Emmons next day was the clear highlight though – definitely worth the day trip to get there!

From Okinawa, I flew back to Tokyo for two days, and then back to Europe. Because this is my last post for Japan, here you can also find my album with all photos of my time in Japan: Japan album.

Japan

Digital Nomad Stop #17 – Japan: Kanazawa & Shirakawago

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Kanazawa – a city really far off the beaten tourist track in Japan. Why did I choose to come here? The city is known for numerous things: one of Japan’s most iconic gardens, traditional houses from the Edo-period, the samurai – and gold.

The city is larger than expected and I was running a bit low on sightseeing-energy after all those weeks. So I probably could have done and seen more, but I think I covered quite a bit. I first ventured out to Kenrokuen Garden and Kanazawa’s castle. Unfortunately, it seems that end of April was a bit late for the gardens as everything was just green. They were still pretty, but I imagine seeing the cherry blossoms here would be even nicer.

I also walked around the Nagamachi Samurai District (didn’t spot any samurai unfortunately haha) and the Higashi Chaya District where all kinds of gold products can be purchased – from desserts to jewellery to body lotions. I ended up trying some local sweets without gold and buying some face cream with gold leaves (that I actually really like). Overall, Kanazawa was a really nice, pleasant city to visit – it reminded me a bit of Hiroshima, not too touristy, but some interesting things to see and do.

Another reason I chose to detour to Kanazawa was the option to visit another traditional village – Shirakawago. It’s a small, traditional village up in the mountains that can be reached by tourist bus from Kanazawa. It really is set up for tourists, even though there are still some locals living there. In a way, it feels more like an open-air museum – but I still enjoyed walking around there and taking photos of the traditional houses which are just really beautiful in my opinion. A worthwhile day trip from Kanazawa!

Japan

Digital Nomad Stop #17 – Japan: Nagano & Matsumoto

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From Kiso valley, I wanted to make my way to Kanazawa, but stop to see some places on the route. Initially, I chose Nagano and Matsumoto because of some potential day trips into the nature of Japan, but these turned out to be too complicated to organize without a car, so I ended up visiting just the cities themselves. My first stop was Matsumoto, where I just spent one night and one day – visiting the famous Matsumoto castle. At the entrance of the castle, I saw a desk of volunteers offering a free guide in English to show you around. In most other countries, I would suspect them asking for money in the end, but in Japan, this was really just set up for locals to be able to practice their English – and for tourists to learn something more about Matsumoto castle. It was kind of nice getting some more historical information rather than just walking around in the castle grounds by myself. I got lucky with the weather so that I was able to see the mountains in the background.

Other than that, Matsumoto didn’t have a lot to offer, but I still enjoyed my short stay there. On to Nagano, it was. Nagano is of course famous for the winter Olympics it hosted in 1998. Unfortunately though, there aren’t many buildings left from then and what is left is rather spread out and difficult to reach on public transport. In the end, I just walked around the city, visited the main temple and some nice streets. I really liked Nagano! Originally, I had wanted to do a trip to see the monkeys taking a bath in the onsen in the snow, but the more I researched the more I was turned off going. It seemed like a tourist spectacle and also, it seemed as if the snow would probably already be gone and therefore not many monkeys might be enjoying the hot water baths anymore. Nagano and Matsumoto were still nice stops along the way, but probably not any cities that I would return to.