The Summary
In June 2024, I spent roughly 6 weeks in Japan, from 3.6.2024 to 11.7.2024.
My Route
Okinawa -> Shirahama -> Osaka -> Kyoto -> Tokyo -> Kawaguchiko -> Tokyo
Okinawa
3.6.2024 - 10.6.2024
Diving
My plan here was to dive in the morning and work at night, which turns out to be quite a hardcore decision, because that week in particular we had some pretty urgent customer issues that required me to stay up late at night. Diving with little sleep is no fun but more importantly, dangerous. I was saving my leaves for the important events: AOBUC in Shirahama, WUGC in Gold Coast, and Machu Picchu + Patagonia in South America. Though my company, BentoML, technically allows “Unlimited Leaves”, I did not want to abuse it.
The dive shop I chose was Aloha Dive. It was run by a Brazilian couple, Pedro and Andrea, who turned out to be very nice dive instructors. The best part? They offer free underwater photography. The price was very reasonable too! 61000 YEN for 8 dives across 3 days, including gear rental and free pickup from the hotel.
The dive itinerary: 4.6.2024 - Day 1 - Manza - 3 Boat Dives 5.6.2024 - Day 2 - Keramas Islands - 3 Boat Dives 6.6.2024 - Day 3 - Minna and Sesoko - 2 Boat Dives
Diving in Okinawa is colddd, even with a 5mm wetsuit. With water temperatures between 22-23°C, I was hugging myself all the time, ignoring all the positionings to maintain trim. Day 1 dives were all negative entries, meaning you backroll from the boat and meet with the group on the bottom. This is because the water is too choppy at the surface, so we wouldn’t want to spend too much time up there. I was nervous because it was my first time doing negative entries (I had only 20 logged dives at this point), but I think I did okay!
I almost missed my pickup time on the 2nd day as I overslept, having worked until 2am the night before. I woke up at 6:43am, and Pedro was going to leave if he didn’t see me at 6:45am (pickup was 6:35am). Luckily, I had packed my things the night before and dressed up before I slept, so I managed to make it out of my hostel in 2 minutes. The day turned out to be the best dive experience I’ve had so far. Swimming with huge turtles, chilling with octopuses, seeing seahorses (they are so smol), schools of some big fish (I don’t know their names), and also meeting a lovely couple from Sydney, Carmen and Stephen. The weather was great that day, and not only did I enjoy the time underwater, but also the surface intervals on the boat with the chilly summer breeze and the infamous blue sea water of Keramas. 传说中的庆良间蓝，它真的很蓝。Also, the last dive of the day was a drift dive, and the entrance was interesting. Everyone lined up on the boat, and once the captain found the entrance spot, we leap-dove immediately into the water and met underwater. Hush hush, no delay because the surface current was strong.
The third day’s dive was so-so, but the highlight was chilling at some rocks and letting the cleaner shrimp clean our fingers.
Overall, diving in Okinawa offers excellent water visibility, easily 20m and over. The water is cold, and currents are expected, though the current I experienced was a 1.5/5 according to Pedro. Coral formations are not as vibrant and big compared to Southeast Asian dive sites; they often form in patches of rock, and we swim from one patch to another. The rest of the sites are mainly just sand patches. Fish here are generally bigger and more colorful, I think? At least the colors are more vibrant. There are also chances to see big things like whale sharks and manta rays, but no luck for me this time.
I stayed for 4 nights in Chatan during the diving days. It’s one of the main towns in Okinawa, but it’s still quite sparsely populated, and I enjoyed my time there. The weather was great, usually around 19°C at night and 24-25°C during the day. Cycling around was a great way to explore the town and is definitely one of my favorite ways to see a new place.
Naha
I spent the last 3 nights in the main city of Okinawa Island, Naha. It looks like a typical Japanese city, with a busy main street (Kokusai Street? - 国际通) which I didn’t enjoy. The highlight was this little Izakaya near my hostel that turned out to be one of the best meals I had on my Japan trip. There was no English menu — and it is where I first got to put some of the Japanese I’d learned in the past months into use. It takes some courage to start speaking Japanese to the locals — during my diving, I was mainly still using English. One of the first complete sentences I managed to piece together was “Eigo no menu wa arimasu ka?” (Is there an English menu here?)
The food that left the strongest impression was this Okinawa tofu made with peanuts, and this umami potato salad. I’m not a foodie, so I don’t have fancy ways to describe food, so I shall just let the pictures do their job.
Various
Some of the other places that I visited in Okinawa:
- American Village
- Okinawa Prefecture Museum
- 波上宫 (Some shrine)
- Some food market which turned out to be mediocre
And oh! I bought a dive watch that’s cheaper than everywhere else because there was a discount plus tax refund. I chose a model that I could use on normal days too, and so far I’ve been liking the watch quite a bit :)
Shirahama
10.6.2024 - 16.6.2024
The second stop for my trip was Shirahama, part of Wakayama Prefecture, where I was playing for Team Malaysia in the Asia Oceanic Beach Ultimate Championship (AOBUC). Shirahama in Japanese stands for “Long White,” if I’m not mistaken. As Shirahama is considered an out-of-town area in Japan, reaching the beach itself required me to take a train from Kansai Airport then a bus to the place.
Shirahama is a famous town for onsen, as it hosts one of Japan’s oldest onsen, albeit I never did any of those during my time there. It’s a rather quiet town, quite sparsely populated. I really enjoyed my time there, and food in Japan never disappoints wherever you go. The beach was one of the best that I’ve been to, true to its name, the Long White Beach. According to the mayor, the sand was imported from Perth, and in my memory, Perth sand was super soft and silky when I was there back in 2018.
One of my favorite moments in Shirahama was dipping in the cold sea water after our frisbee games every day. Another was walking in this little serene town at night with the cold sea breeze petting my skin.
Meeting Bryan (CHS Power) was another plus point in this trip. It’s always nice to meet friends at a place that is away from home; it kind of just gives that magical feeling that fate will always bring people together again.
AOBUC
Honestly, at this point, frisbee memories get faint really fast, maybe because I am less passionate about playing the sport? Or maybe I wasn’t as invested in this campaign as my focus was mainly on the World Championship happening later in September. As I am writing, I am on my way to Brisbane.
We pretty much lost most of our games, except the last. I guess not much to expect from a team that is formed without many tryouts and no real beach to train near KL. In the end, I was just grateful that my knee survived the whole journey, though on day 4 it was already significantly swollen from overuse. Sigh, old body. I do really wish for the day when I can finally run again without pain.
What’s important is that I got a highlight picture from the official photographer :)
Some photo dumps with the team!
Once I was done with my games on the last day, I pretty much left immediately for Osaka to meet Jia Ler, Boon Khai, and Mao, who were there for a week-long holiday.
Osaka-Kyoto-Tokyo
16.6.2024 - 24.6.2024
In this leg of my trip, I was joined by my uni friends Jialer, Boon Khai, and Mao for 9 days. I pretty much told them: “Hey, I will be in Japan for these times, would you all like to join?”
And they came! How many opportunities in life do you get where friends can just hop into your trip like this? However, during this leg, I was pretty much working most of the weekdays, and the route was mainly the same as my family trip last year, so I didn’t join most of the attractions they decided to visit. What was new for me this time was:
Day trip to Himeji Castle + Kobe Beef
It’s one of the oldest castles in Japan, and honestly, it’s so gorgeous. I’ll just let the picture do the talking.
And the famous Kobe Beef, though really nice, is not something that I would spend money on again. Simply because I think simple food in Japan is enough to satisfy me, and I would not spend a fortune to contribute to global warming (if you get what I mean).
Fushimi Inari - at night
This time, at midnight, I cycled there. Last trip it was my favorite spot, and this time it was the same. The shrine without the crowd simply spells magic to me, and I’ve made wishes to the shrine that I believe will come true, and at the time of writing, they actually did.
Kyoto
Still one of my favourite city in the Kansai area where history blends well with modernism. The highlight for my time in Kyoto is one of the nights where the two other alcohol-allergic hoomans has went to bed, me and Boon Khai stumble across this little bar in Pontocho area where we had a great exchange in conversation with the bartender — that speaks a lil more English and another Japanese customer who has very limited English but is very curious about us.
Tokyo
24.6.2024 - 28.6.2024
First time in Tokyo and first Shinkansen experience. Hell, the place we stayed was crazily small, 300 sqft for 4 people? At this point, I actually hoped to return to the hostel where I actually got my own bed. And so I did, after 2 days when one of my friends left for Malaysia. One thing I did not expect in the capsule hotel was the public bath (and no private bath). Although I didn’t mind people looking at me, I wasn’t exactly prepared to look at people’s bare bodies (and butts and dingdongs).
Some street photos of Tokyo:
And of course, two single men, me and Boon Khai, went to the famous shrine in Tokyo to pray for good “姻缘” (marriage prospects).
Highlight of Tokyo was getting a Stitch soft toy for Boonkhai from the claw machine, which was really fun!
Living in Tokyo for a week helped me realize that I did not like the life of a huge metropolis like this. It could be just during travel where I prefer more scenic and less populated spots, or it could be that it simply reminded me of the grindy days I had in Singapore. On the 2nd day of being in Tokyo, I quickly thought of leaving the city and moving somewhere else for the rest of my trip. And so I planned for it.
And it brings me to the highlight of my whole trip, Kawaguchiko.
Kawaguchiko
28.6.2024 - 9.7.2024
In kanji, the place is 河口湖. It’s one of the five lakes of Fuji, and probably the most popular one. Here, all day and anywhere, you get a super clear view of Mt. Fuji if the clouds allow. So clear that tourists will take pictures of Mt. Fuji together with a convenience store??
Anyway, the original plan here was to spend 2 days over the weekend and head back to Tokyo for another work week. One of the days was to hike Mt. Mitsutoge, which is supposedly less crowded (and it is) and have a quiet view of Mt. Fuji by myself.
What was unplanned was that the weather on the day of the hike was not great (rainy), and it was a forest trail, so it would be muddy. What was unplanned was that I actually dreaded spending time in Tokyo. What was unplanned was that the hostel I stayed in Kawaguchiko — Kagelow — was super lovely, and Kinako-chan — the hostel cat — was super cute. So I decided to extend my stay for a couple more days and do the hike on another day.
So I did. The Mt. Mitsutoge hike was great, but the view was unsatisfying. Mt. Fuji was nowhere to be found, but overall the hike was hard but meditative. I’ve developed a relationship with the mountains because I think hiking itself is a little theatre and reflection of life — one must take one step at a time and not think about the end. As long as you do that courageously, life will always reward you in its own way.
I thought I was done with Kawaguchiko. But then I found out later that the Fujisan hiking season had just begun, and hikers from all over the world were starting to populate the town and the hostel. Every day in the hostel, I met hikers from all over the world who came to hike the sacred Fujisan. First, it was a Finnish guy, Mikael? and then it was 郁甄 and 媛詠 from Taiwan, with whom we spent a good 2 hours exchanging conversation. It got me thinking that maybe I should hike Mt. Fuji too, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready with my injured knee.
As days went by, I extended my stay again, to a total of 11 days in Kagelow, Kawaguchiko.
Here’s the bar area of the lovely hostel!
Waking up every day to the majestic Fujisan was really a serene, yet respectful experience, wondering how on earth such a landscape could form. I was tracking the mountain hut availability and the weather of Mt. Fuji every day, and finally, I decided to go for it on one of the last days. There was a hut space available, and it was supposed to be clear and sunny for two days.
Fujisan
There are many ways one can hike, but the most popular trail is the Yoshida Trail. The route is divided into 10 sections, where typically people will start at the 5th station. That’s where I started mine. There are plenty of videos and blog posts out there sharing about these trails, so I would skip the description and let photos and videos do the talking.
Along the route, I met Alex, a French guy who is a crazy anime fan, whom I met in the mountain hut where I stayed. Pretty much we did the rest of our hike together and had really good exchanges of conversation. THE HIGHLIGHT OF FUJISAN - having a hot udon at the top of the mountain!?!?!
Also, there’s this little souvenir where one can collect stamps from every mountain hut for 300-500 yen, which I found pretty cute. It’s like collecting Pokémon.
The other little highlight in Kawaguchiko was the fireworks that signified the start of the Fujisan hiking season, which shows the mastery of Japanese firework craft. It’s a show that spans over 25 minutes. I took a video of the first few minutes and then decided to be fully immersed in the experience without digital items. Somehow fireworks have that magical touching effect, and at times like this, I wished there was someone along to share the moment with.
Tokyo - Part 2
9.7.2024 - 11.7.2024
Back to Tokyo, because that’s where I would fly home from. I met with Suet and spent 2 brief days together. Pretty much mostly city things, and the highlights were her complaining about my snoring, debating about everything, taking forever to decide whether to buy a Montbell bag, and we took some nice pictures in the art gallery called Borderless. 
I am proud to say that we survived the test of being travel partners. Or perhaps a longer trip together would break the friendship. We will find out next time.
That’s the little summary of my 6-week Japan trip, and I’m already longing to return in 2025, likely with a bunch of other Malaysians for AOUGC.
One thing I realized is that I did not miss home when I was away. I do enjoy life being on the road, but partly because I am able to work remotely and really there’s no commitment at home that awaits my return.
Another thing is, I find it increasingly difficult to share my experiences with my friends without sounding like I’m flexing on them. But in fact, I do genuinely want more people to feel the magical feeling that I experienced in this solo trip, but at the moment, I don’t know how. So maybe a blog like this would do the justice.
As I am finishing this blog, I’m on my way to Chile for another adventure in South America with Wee Kiat and Yin Li, and hopefully it will be a fruitful one! Ciao!