A day on the ferry

Okinawa is the prefecture in the very South of Japan, about 1000 km from the mainland. I had already planned to go there during my trip too since I heard it's a nice, laid-back tropical paradise. I decided to go to Okinawa by ferry. The plane tickets are really quite expensive that time of the year and also I generally enjoy being a sailor :) So I took the Marix Line ferry from Kagoshima to Okinawa on Sunday evening.

The whole trip down to Naha takes 24.5 hours, so more than one day. It sounded a bit dull, but I packed my Japanese book into my hand luggage and my iPod of course. Well, it turned out to be a really fun trip with a lot of oral Japanese language practise.

With the cheap ticket I bought I was allowed to stay in a tatami (Japanese floor mats) room with futons to roll out at night. A very packed room full of people, but comfortable enough. I went to buy some food then because I had forgotten to bring any. The ferry shop's supply of Bento was exhausted unfortunately and I had to content myself with a dry cheese and ham sandwich.

I sat on deck for a while, listening to music and enjoying the sea breeze. Then two Japanese girls came to talk to me. Having seen my Japanese textbook they had guessed that I'd speak some Japanese. I found out it's good to signal somehow that you are somewhat able to speak the language, since people generally don't speak or are afraid to speak English. Then Keichi, the guy who had priorly excelled at stripping and getting dressed again in the ferry terminal came to chat with us. When it got too chilly outside we switched to the corridor. Most people were already sleeping at 8.30, that's crazy.

We sat in front of a private room and at some point an elderly guy opened the door. I have expected him to shout at us and say something like "shut up and get lost", that's what you would experience back in Europe at least. But no, he said "maybe it's not so good to sit in the corridor, you should come to my room and chat there. There are also enough beds for all 4 of you to sleep." I was quite shocked, that was absolutely not what I expected... We are making noise in front of his room and he invites us in to keep on talking inside!

In the morning I met Rina, a girl who moves to Okinawa for University. A guy invited us both for breakfast in the small restaurant. I spent the rest of the day chatting in Japanese and it went surprisingly well. I also revised two chapters of my textbook and learned some new kanji. So it was not a dull ferry ride at all!