Travel with me to Amami Part2
Amami Travel letter part 2 and thoughts on traveling alone as a women.
After speaking with some friends about my trip to Amami, I realized why Amami is as beautiful as it is. Amami is a natural world heritage (自然世界遺産) and people who live there intend to keep it that way. The best analogy I was able to come up with was the people are just an addition to the island, as opposite to Tokyo, the people are the ones who creates the city not the other way around. The way people try to preserve the nature first was refreshing to see. For instance, they don’t intend to make the airport bigger and have more flights coming in a day for tourism because they will need to destroy the nature to make the airport bigger. The island itself is the main character, and not the people.
Day 4 (A birthday gift from my lovely friends x )
Things to do
-Snorkeling Tour to Kakeroma island/ 加計呂麻島でシュノーケリングツアー
It was hands down the best day! This was a tour I made a reservation with ダンデライオン奄美（@Instagram here) , a tour guide in the south of Amami who are locals from that area that will take you to one of the most beautiful tours to Kakeroma island. For a full day, it was ¥15,000 and I will say it was definitely worth the money. And the most beautiful part of this tour is that my friends gifted me this tour as my birthday present! If you were thinking of a thoughtful present for your friends, I will 100% recommend something like this.
The south of the island is about an hour drive from the city where I was staying (Naze city).
If you want to see the whole day, I made an instagram reel here, so go check that cute video.
-マネン崎展望広場
I just randomly found this observation point, but omg, straight out of a post card!!! So beautiful. On the way to the Yadorihama beach.
Beaches 🌊
-Yadori Hama/ヤドリ浜
After a full day of snorkeling, I was already in the south, so I wanted to check out the beach for the sunset so I headed down to take another dip. (What a day! ) But this place was beautiful as well.
Food ☕️
-Little Bay Coffee& Ice cream (@instagram)
After a full day of Snorkeling, I was desperate to find an ice cream place near by. My google skills are perfect! I found a place! It was lovely modern cafe. I got a coconut and chocolate ice cream with black sugar iced latte.
(I had such a long day, and most of the restaurants I wanted to go was closed… so I didn’t have a great dinner experience so I’m skipping this one)
Day 5 Typhoon is coming and I’m getting tired playing too hard lol
Things to do 🏄
-More snorkeling short tours and SUP
I was getting tired at this point and also the weather was not on my side so I took it easy this day. I went on a short tour to do SUP and snorkeling again because I can’t get enough, but it was raining all day… haha. I used ON SHORE They have a lot of different kinds of tours and the guy was also a local to the area. If only the weather was nice…
Food 🍱
-鶏飯 at ひさ倉
so I already knew this place was a rip off for tourists…. it was good but not great. Go to the other one I introduced you on Part1 if you are looking for 鶏飯！
-徳田農園かき氷
I really wanted to go here so I did a little drive up north but it was closed due to the Typhoon…. :( It looks so good!
So I ended up going back to where I was staying, and had some gelato here. They use Amami fruits and I got coconut and salt flavor.
This day was a whole feast day! I went to this Izakaya for dinner and my oh my! Had lots of different types of 焼酎, had their specialty which was Goat soup, called やぎ汁。Pretty intense if you don’t like the smell and all, but it was something I could definitely get behind.
for a second drink place, I went to this Izakaya because I had a feeling that I will be able to make friends here even if I was alone. I could tell that the owner had a vibe. I was right! I’m always right with restaurants if it will give me the experience I want. I ended up making friends here, and I ended up going there the next day, since the women who was in her 60s said, my family is visiting me so come join us for dinner! lol Of course I’ll go, because don’t invite me if you don’t actually want me there, but I’m also THAT GIRL who gets invited to random families dinner party. haha
This is a huge shout out to the owner here that runs the business with his mom, but please go here if you are in Amami! The food and vibe is great! Can’t recommend it enough!
Day 6 Last full day! but again, RAIN! 🌀
Not only I was so tired driving around and playing too hard, the weather was not on my side anymore… but I did wanted to check out this obscure beach that was recommended by a friend of mine, so I ended up going to somewhere called ‘Jurassic beach’.
-嘉徳海外/Katoku Kaigan
It's apparently a mecca for surfers because there aren’t many rocks near and the waves are huge. Now, mind you, I went right when the typhoon was about to hit… so there was literally just me there… which was great, but they don’t call it Jurassic beach for nothing. It’s very hard to explain, but truly out of nowhere, in the middle of the mountains, suddenly you have a full beach.
I ended up having dinner at the same place from the previous night with the lovely family from Osaka and that concluded my Amami trip. In Japan we have a term called 一期一会。You only meet once, type of thing. Maybe I’ll never meet any of these people again, but I’ll meet similar people in a different setting some day I anticipate those days with excitement. I can’t wait to have more spontaneous trips like this that I was able to truly enjoy solidarity and not feel as lonely as I would have thought.
Lastly, let me lightly touch upon a little about solo travel as a women. It is a very different experience compared to men without a doubt. Not to mention the safety part of course, but more importantly, being alone as a women somehow ends up in other people’s eyes as pitiful and sad. The most asked question I got was ‘You are traveling alone??? That’s crazy! But what do you do for dinner and stuff?’ For some reason, eating alone or hopping on a flight alone as a grown adult means ‘she might be searching for something, like an eat, pray, love thing’. But what if we just like going to places alone? What if choosing where to eat or what to do on your own is way more emotionally easier than being with a friend or a partner sometimes. Can it just be that? Does it have to mean something more? Why do people need to have the tendency of being noisy in a total strangers life and say ‘do you ever want to get married?’ Just because I’m traveling alone at age30, doesn’t mean that I don’t want to get married or have kids. Why are those two totally different experiences and choices some how connected? Traveling alone as a women MUST mean, she just went through a terrible break up or she just got divorced (aka Eat pray love). As Lena Dunham puts it in Alone Time about women being alone,
As though aloneness is an island on which, as punishment for failing to successfully adapt yourself to romantic love, you are marooned.
Yes, I literally went to an island alone, but I refuse others letting me think that going places alone is a sad act. I would keep on proudly say, ‘Table for one please, thank you merci’ .
This was the last bit of my Amami travel and just a little thought about traveling alone as a women. Thoughts? Do you like eating alone or going to theaters alone? Thank you always for reading. Megumi xoxo