Destination Naha

I struck out before dawn this morning. There is a bus that goes straight from the Guch to the airport, but even it didn't leave early enough for me today. So I train hopped my way to the airport, in order to catch my 8am flight.

When I arrived, I had some difficulty checking in using the automatic kiosk, so I proceeded to the desk only to have the lovely lady there inform me that my flight had been booked for yesterday. Feel free to have a bit of a chuckle at me at this point.

Luckily the very lovely lady at the check in desk was able to change my flight over, without me having to buy a whole new ticket, just an amendment fee, and so paying for my own stupidity, I did the dash to the gate and almost immediately boarded my plane.

Now Japan specialises in space efficiency. This is a fairly commonly known fact. Til today I never understood the real reason for this. True, Japan has a very large population compared to it's land area, but this is not reason enough for the extreme cosiness of living here. On top of this the majority of Japan is uninhabitable. I never truly appreciated this until today. From the air, Japan is spectacular and it is clear from the myriad of tightly packed, compact cities, separated by vast stretches of visibly steep mountains, how small the livable areas really are. I spent most of my two hour flight just gazing down at the amazing countryside below, until I could make out the roads, and slowly the cars on the streets. The mountains gave way to scattered islands, the ocean cataloguing its depth with a colour code, indigo so deep it is almost violet for the depths, turquoise and soft greens for the shallows clearly outlining the reefs below the surface. Bright white streaks mark the journey of the boats zipping along the waves. Finally I can make out individual people as we begin to land. Welcome to Naha.

I have not made it out of the airport yet, I couldn't immediately find the location of the trains, so I decided ramen was a higher priority. I will shortly finish my lunch, then direct my entire attention to locating the tourist information centre followed by the trains and my hostel, which unlike my flight I actually managed to book for the right day.