MIYAKO OKINAWA DAY 2 - SUNAYAMA BEACH

MIYAKO OKINAWA DAY 2 - SUNAYAMA BEACH

• January 25, 2017

After making the mistake of going to Maehama beach without refreshments yesterday, we start the day by stocking up in the convenience store outside our hotel. We've slept in and missed breakfast at the hotel but nothing the convenience store can't fix.

Our selection of goodies.

Okonomiyaki bread. Sweet Japanese BBQ sauce, mayo, and seaweed flakes.

Ham, cheese, mayo and pepper roll.

Boiled egg toasted bread.

I cannot stop eating these, spam and egg onigiri are the best kind of snacks at any time of the day.

Fried chicken. Coz I just had to.

Buns with a crispy sweet top.

We are having a real lazy late morning and after a classy meal in our room, we have a little nap. Midday is too hot to head out anyway we say to ourselves.

Sunayama beach is the beach we've chosen for the day, so after calling the taxi driver uncle we met yesterday, we're off for a few hours of sand and sea. Sunayama beach is a small one especially compared with Maehama, but it ended up being our favourite beach in Miyako. It was secluded and intimate and apart from another one or two others at the beach during our 3 hours there, it felt as if it were our own little private beach.

We get dropped off at the carpark and helpfully told to walk over the sand dune to reach the beach. As we make the uphill climb, dozens of beautiful butterflies are darting in a out of the greenery along the path.

A 5 minute walk and we can see the beach.

The sand dune and beautiful rock formations.

The skies were threatening to open up in the first hour. With dark grey clouds hanging over our heads, the sea looked dull and lifeless but as soon as the sun peeped out from behind the clouds it was instantly transformed into the most intense turquoise.

The waves at Sunayama are far more ferocious than Maehama and we have a whale of a time letting the sea crash into us and wash us roughly back to shore.

Time flies when you're having fun and before we know it, our taxi is waiting for us. We head back to the hotel for a shower first and then we're off to check out eating options in town.

It's a 20 minute walk into town from our hotel and town is made up of a couple of streets running parallel to each other. There are fast food restaurants, restaurants that the locals hang out in, a convenience store and some souvenir shops. We have no idea which restaurant to pick, but this one seemed like a nice one so we head on in.

An English menu is always welcomed!

Nibbles on the house. We've worked up a huge appetite and go crazy with ordering.

And that's dinner for 2, we are absolutely stuffed. The pork belly, wings and squid were delicious. Pork belly was melt in the mouth tender with a deep rich flavour, my favourite.

Most of the shops are closed by the time we leave the restaurant, so we waddle slowly back to the beach outside our hotel. The beach is filled were a few groups of friends and some young children with their parents.

It's incredibly peaceful and calming, and the night sky is filled with millions of stars! I have never seen stars so clearly defined before and without the pollution and bright lights of the city, our view is razor sharp. I saw a little flick across the dark sky and was pretty sure it was a fly, until G insisted I took a better look.

And it was then I realised it was a shooting star! My first ever shooting star and so many of them too, all busy shooting away for a good 2 minutes. It was the most amazing meteorite shower for us to treasure forever and I thought it was a fly!

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