Amateur Traveler episode 823. Today the Amateur Traveler talks about

castles and World War II, sake and vipers, baseball and beaches as we go to the island of Okinawa.

This is Chris Christensen from Amateur Traveler.

Let's talk about Okinawa.

I'd like to welcome to the show Mike De Jong who's a professor of journalism in

Japan and has come to talk to us about Okinawa. Mike welcome to the show.

Thanks very much Chris. I've enjoyed listening to the show for a while and I really enjoy it

excellent well why are we talking about Okinawa what's your connection with

Okinawa to be frank it's my favorite place in Japan I've lived here now for 14

years in the Tokyo area and I love places like Kyoto and

Hokkaido and of course Tokyo here but I've been to Okinawa several times and I just love it there.

I just love the people, the culture, the food, the music and it's like the Hawaii of Japan because the beaches there are just frankly amazing. They're the best beaches in Japan I think.

Interesting. I think you've started to get into my next question, anticipating it here, why should

someone go to Okinawa? Well I think the main reason, Chris, is that Okinawa is so different from mainland Japan.

Everything is, it's still Japanese, they still speak Japanese on the Okinawa Islands.

You couldn't get farther removed, either geographically or culturally.

The music, the people, everything is different from mainland Japan.

Somebody who's visited mainland Japan, Tokyo, Kyoto,

and it's had there fill of shrines and temples on the mainland or the main islands.

Go down to Okinawa.

It's only a three hour flight from Tokyo, and it's like going to tropical country.

That's what it is. It's a series of tropical country. That's what it is.

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