Okinawa - Italian Japanese

Farewell to a new favorite city 👋

Goodbye to Seoul, I wake up at 6 a.m., the flight leaves at 10⁴⁵. Check-in at the accommodation is at 18³⁰ and in between there is work to be done. Not ideal, but not bad either.

I will miss Seoul a little. The city and the people treated me well and showed me a lot. And the city has ammunition for months to offer. It is also a candidate for a return.

However, there is one thing I am glad about: uninstalling the Korean apps. Using them blindly and still failing from the front and back.

I have half an hour on the train. I can also use the time well. So I grab my phone and manage to book two accommodations and the flight from Tokyo to Singapore in that time. Holy moly, you have to realize that. The smartphone makes so many things easier and more efficient. It's funny that the time gained as a result is multiplied by 4 into the same device.

I take stock. The money is exactly calculated. I still have 64 cents on my T-Money card and not even 4 euros in cash.

For my 16 days in South Korea, I spent the following:

- Ferry: €170
- Accommodations: €690
- Food & Souvenirs: €420
- Excursions: €210
- Transportation: €50
= Total: ~ €1540 => €96/day

Of course, I could have done it cheaper. If you give yourself Starbucks at least once a day, your "food" naturally increases. But I could have made so many other decisions. 😁

New friends and old music 🤖

I wander through the airport and discover a new friend. She stands a little lost in the area, looks at every passerby as if she is looking for a new friend. I think for a moment, I'm about to go on after watching the spectacle. But something stops me inside. 'Fuck it, just talk to her. When will you get exactly this opportunity again? Probably never!'

Her name is AGR, Airport Guide Robot, she speaks several languages, but I decide to start with Korean. AGR accompanies me from the airport station to the gate. Yes, she talks quite a lot and plays me a melody, but I don't understand anything in Korean anyway. Later she speaks to me in English, which turns out to be annoying. The Korean voice has something cute about it.

Arriving at the gate, I leave AGR. We had a good time, I already miss her. As I sit there, music starts playing at some point. Something in the direction of trance or techno. The beat is okay and on point, but the pitch is terrible. It's annoying that people have the audacity to let something like this play loudly. But I can't find the source. Eventually, the beat changes and then a click is added. The click of realization. This music is played by a dot matrix printer. 😅

The flight 🛫

I am surprised on the plane. It is a B737-800, we board from the front. I have row 38 and realize that the rows start at 30. Is this normal? 🤨

The flight went smoothly. Upon arrival, I realize: no matter which side of the globe you are on, it's always the same. As soon as the seat belt signs have turned off and the plane hasn't even stopped at the gate yet, people are already standing up. The only difference here is that they are really efficient and all stood up within a split second. Almost like a rehearsed choreography. Somehow impressive.

Arriving here was much more relaxed than in Tokyo. There, I was busy with the check-out for two hours, here for 20 minutes.
To my surprise, I find out that I can check in two hours earlier. 16:30 instead of 18:30.
Later in the evening, Google News will also feed into my feed that I could have saved myself the PCR test a day later because Japan loosened the entry requirements... 🙄

Aloha, Okinawa 👋

I take the monorail - by now I should have ridden everything in Japan except for cars and ski lifts. When the monorail stops and the driver looks out the window as usual, I have to restrain myself from grinning. Yes, like all other railway employees, he wears a uniform. But what a uniform. 😁 The monorails are also beautifully designed, each with different motifs.

I get off the monorail and I'm glad I'm wearing short clothes and flip-flops. I go to the nearest 7/11 and somehow get a feeling of the South Sea version of a familiar 'coming home'. I get my favorite drinks from 'back then'; a vitamin C booster and a lychee salt drink. After that, I start Google Maps and can finally navigate as a pedestrian as usual. Gosh, I missed certain things here and there.

First of all, arriving at the house 🏠

When I ring the doorbell at the accommodation, I almost fall backwards out of my nonexistent socks. Why? Because the door comes towards me when I open it from the inside. I had never experienced that before either. This area must be really safe, because when I leave the house, there is a sign on the inside of the door saying 'Do not lock!'. The key doesn't fit in the door either, it's just pulled open from the outside. Crazy.

I quickly hop into the Family Mart and pick up a package that was delivered there. If you don't get it in new ways, just fall back on what has proven to work. I will be happy about the content later. Among other things, a screen protector for my phone. You can either be annoyed daily about those scratches on the display, or take matters into your own hands and fix them.

Later in the evening, I explore the city a bit. I notice a building on the horizon. I saw a video about the architectural style of brutalism these days. I'm pretty sure I just found that style.