Not All Who Wander Are Lost

J. R. R. Tolkien

But sometimes they are. They are all lost. And they don’t have a way back to their Airbnb which an hour away driving. And they are soaking wet from the beach with all their bags from the plane. And they don’t have a signal or enough cash for a taxi fare. And they are like kinda, just a little bit stressed.

So how did they get here?

Well, when eight college kids decide on Wednesday to fly out at 5am on Friday not a lot of research can be done.

We got off the flight in Okinawa Japan and wanted to beeline straight to the beach, so we googled the closest one and headed right over. There was a really cool temple next to the beach we went to so we decide to check that out first. Naminoue Shrine was super pretty, it was small but the artwork was super intricate and there is a nice view over the water behind it. The view was so pretty that I got distracted and left my bag there by accident. But luckily, it was right where I left it when I went back before heading to the beach (thank God Japan is so safe). The beach was right behind the temple, so we sat there by the water for a while. But we wanted somewhere bigger… so back to google we went.

We found Naha beach and some of my friends jumped in before we even got to the sand. It was nice but it was still small. And we came for an adventure (and couldn’t check into our Airbnb). So a friend found a beach on the other side of the island, Gushichan Beach. We Ubered over and it was pretty, the cab driver was so nice he even asked about how we’d be getting home.

Gushichan Beach looked like a postcard with a beautiful view and boulders… but there was no sand. We missed in the reviews on google that it was a bouldering beach, not a swim and get tanned beach. Nonetheless, we persevered and found some tidepools to swim in. Let me tell you, you NEED shoes or good sandals because there are a lot of rocks to trek through. The tidepool was worth it though. We swam around for a while and then talked on the beach when we decided we should start heading home. We were quite proud of ourselves, another WBB trip success, until we tried to get an Uber back home…

The app didn’t load.

We didn’t have service.

I suddenly understood why the cab driver asked us how we were getting home… and I really wished I hadn’t.

So we did the only thing we could. We started walking soaking wet from the beach with all of our belongings from the airport. We walked up hill further and further and eventually we saw people… but they were working on telephone lines or taking out their trash. We walked for about thirty minutes uphill before anyone was able to get any real connection. So we tried Uber again, but (because there’s always a but, isn’t there?) none were available. Not as in, they were all busy, as in there were none in that district of Okinawa at all. So we kept walking and walking and walking through rural Okinawa.

Eventually, we thought to try and hail a taxi, but like the Ubers, there were none. Besides we wouldn’t have enough money for two taxis anyway. So public transportation it was. The only bad news is that we had no idea how the busing system really worked, and we had already been walking for thirty minutes. But the universe was on our side as we came across a bus stop, so we googled where it was heading and hopped on.

We rode the bus for a while, and got about halfway. We were so happy to have made progress, until we realized that was as far as we could go, because we barely had enough money to get off at this stop. So we scavenged for random coins from our bag and managed to hop off the bus. The bus stop was in front of a supermarket so half of us went to get some snacks, and the other half kept trying to find a new way home. Luckily, in the supermarket we found an ATM, so after eating some amazing Ube and Pistachio ice cream, my group headed back on the bus.

The bus ride was fun. We were so happy to finally have means to get home and I’m sure the sugar high helped. We were laughing the whole time because of how wild the situation was since we were approaching hour two of trying to get home. And then we got shushed by the driver… it was humbling.

A few stops later we found our friends, they said they were finally able to get an Uber. So we waited for a while and after about 15 minutes we were finally in a car on the way to the AirBnb. It was so amazing to be able to put our bags down and relax. So we showered and got ready to go back out for dinner. But we learned from our mistakes, and so we brought a form of transportation this time, and biked to dinner. Biking was so much fun passing farms and fields, until we got a flat tire. But that’s a story for the second post.

Let’s just say that getting “Lost in Japan” is wayyyyyy less fun than Shawn Mendes made it seem. If you want the full itinerary from the trip check out my Instagram, look out for the Okinawa Pt. 2 post, and check out Sam’s Okinawa Vlog!

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