Ishigakijima

It’s not often that I can walk to my hotel directly from the airport – most airport hotels are still a good bus ride from the plane-hold, with a vain attempt to compensate for only having industrial parks for views by adding the word ‘airport’ to their name.  In fact, my accommodation was at the end of the runway: Scenic.

Yes, Ishigaki is a small island; small enough, in fact, that you can see someone on the south side of the island, only to see that same person on the north side of the island only an hour or so later…though, they did get on the same bus as me.

Yonehara Beach

Known in Okinawa Prefecture for its beaches, my time here was hindered by what seems to be affecting much of Japan at the moment: Wind and rain. And this was a bit of a shitter, as many of my plans for while I was there involved sitting on beaches, masturbating into shellfish. But alas, I persevered and managed to have a reasonably good time on the island, sandwiched between my time on Okinawa-honto.

All-in-all, I learnt two things from my time here: a) how to get a tropical beach all to yourself; and b) what DMX will sound like if dubbed in Japanese.

Regarding point a), if you choose a time to go to the beach when it is pissing it down and/or quite windy, you will find that there aren’t many other people there. While you won’t have the bright sunshine to enhance the experience, you will greatly reduce your chances of being annoyed by anyone from Milton Keynes.

Sukuji Beach

The two beaches I ventured to were Sukuji Beach (rain-affected) and Yonehara Beach (wind-affected), though the latter does have a couple of colourful gift shops to amuse.

While my time was good – and narrowly beats Hong Kong for getting me the closest to Taiwan I’ve ever been – if I had gone there the week before or the week after, it could have been better. Though then I may have missed the chance to see ‘Romeo Must Die’ being televised, and that would have been a tragedy unto itself…How do you make a great film even better?...