Japan Travel - 3D3N Miyakejima Day1

Journey to Miyakejima begun when we boarded the ship.
Similar to our previous trip to Oshima two years ago, we could only manage to get free seat tickets, which meant there's no room or seat for us to sit/sleep.
We learnt our lesson well from Oshima trip and quickly made our way to the deck to secure sleeping space before it gets overcrowded.

Wind was awfully strong but I dozed off within 30 mins in my sleeping bag XD 

Only one ship available to Miyakejima from Tokyo: 10:30pm - 5am.

The ocean air felt extra dense and salty this night.

DAY 1 :

Sunrise~The sea looks gorgeous and smooth in black. 

Woke up before 4am which is an hour earlier than the arrival time because some idiotic hyperactive high-schooler kept shouting on the deck. 

Our rental car uncle came to fetch us and another group to his shop.
There's 3 ports (two on the left side, one on the right side of the island) and the ship docks on different ports depending on the weather. The car rental people gets info on their own beforehand and goes to the right port.

After some document stuff at the rental shop, we got the keys to our car and headed off to our camping area less than 10 mins away.

We had our tent set up before 6am! So productive of us.

Lazed around and walked at the beach just seconds away from us. The beach are made of black pebbles.

Different wave sound effect with the pebbles rolling when the wave recedes.

Finally mustered the energy to get our ass off and start going around the island at 8am when the sun got too hot.

The mountain that helped to keep our camp chill until 7am. Camping is fun but NEVER camping in summer again.

We decided to drive around the island clock-wise.

First stop is Shiitori Shrine.
Looks a bit on the fantasy side with the bare branches at the top.
The leaves at the top wiltered from the volcanic gases.
There's another secret-like shrine behind this one.

Second stop is Mt. Sanshichiyama. Remembered it to be a parking lot overlooking Mt. Hyoutan and some scenery. Turned back for Mt. Hyoutan ひょうたん山 our third stop which we missed earlier. Interesting feeling to walk on.

The Caldera

Wanted a nice warm meal for lunch but we couldn't find any restaurants that open before 11am. Ended up buying bento boxes because we were too hungry.

Fourth stop was Choutarou Pond (長太郎池), a tide pool! We were among the first people there this season and the guards were really friendly. There were also free marine shoes and life jacket rental! Never had this service before.

After wading around in the tide pool, we walked to the end of the pavement and XW noticed a lot of turtles in the sea! This photo had 4 turtles coming up to breathe. There were at least 20 of them. I didn't know turtles travel in groups.

We spent the rest of the afternoon hunting for spears to do spearfishing. XW had this 'brilliant' idea that spears and snorkels would be widely sold in this remote forsaken island. Miraculously after asking around and being redirected to several shops, we finally found a pharmacy selling them! We were heartbroken and ready to give up when we didn't see any being sold in the shop. Boy, were we exhilarated when the aunty shopkeeper said they actually do have spears when we routinely asked and she went to the storeroom and emerged with two. We bought the spears and snorkeling masks.

We went back to our camping area Ookubo beach to try out immediately. Didn't have the guts to swim far and I just sticked to shallow areas where I can stand up easily. The fish were around the rocky areas as we expected but the waves were awfully rough around those areas.  I got tossed against the rocks a couple of times and we changed spots. Didn't succeed in catching any fish but was still pretty fun.
There are sinks to wash stuff, toilets are washlet type and acceptably clean, there's open shower with hot water, albeit open.

Dinner was BBQ! We failed to get our coals going (probably wet from our overnight ship trip) but XW discovered that the "maki" wood that was laying around makes excellent coals. *survival skills experience points increased*

Hastily drove to Furusato no Yu for onsen before they close at 9pm.
I remember there were lots of stars that night but we were dead tired and slept soon.

Saipan Day 6 Managaha Island

S.A.I.P.A.N DAY 6

Our last day in Saipan. We thought about doing a dive in Lau Lau after we heard that you can meet turtles there 💓. But when we tried to book yesterday, we found out for the first time that you can't board a plane for at least 12 hours after the last dive. The tiny bubbles in our body from the oxygen tank may expand due to the reduction in pressure with altitude and would cause intense pain💦. So Managaha Island it is.

We booked our trip for parasailing+round trip to Managaha (includes snorkeling equipment). They let us do the paragliding while driving us to the island. It was XW's first experience and it was a thrilling ride especially for him. I remember my first one in Sabah includes submerging the passengers into the sea for a brief moment before speeding up and flying us up into the sky again. Here they only submerged our feet before pulling us up again. Yuan lai Sabah's marine sports were overall more daring/exciting/cincai.

 Managaha Island

They dropped us at the pier, reaffirmed the pick up time for the return trip and left.

So this is where all the people were. It's similar to Redang Marine Island. There're shops and restaurants. And the tourists normally stay at the main island and come here for a day trip.

There's two snorkeling spots by the beach. Not much fishes. The swimming hole at Forbidden Island had more. No corals too though the water is clear. Redang Marine Island definitely had a lot more colorful pretty fishes.

We snorkeled, had an ice-cream & fries break, had our second snorkeling session and it's time to leave.

Taxis to airports can be asked from the hotel.

Look what I bought at the airport. Anna Sui perfume.

First ever perfume I bought for myself!

Goodbye Saipan, the first US area I ever visited.

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Sea horse: Managaha round trip + parasailing = USD60 per person

Saipan Day 5 Forbidden Island, Massage & Food

S.A.I.P.A.N DAY FIVE

Forbidden Island was so SO PURTYYYY. We booked our half day Forbidden Trek tour with Marianas Trekking. This is also another place which requires strenuous effort to reach - 40 mins of trekking. The reviews of Forbidden Island are like 'the place is so beautiful but never again'. I guess no one expects to be sweating themselves out trekking when they're having their vacation at an island resort. Also definitely not a suitable activity to bring along old parents/young children. The main attraction is a tide pool with lots of fishes to snorkel in. And a secluded tide pool hidden in a small cave (pic above)*ohmygodohmygod*

In the morning, we got worried when there was still no sight of the Marianas Trekking's driver 15mins past the pick-up time. Turned out the staff had mixed up our room number and when the driver arrived earlier and called the wrong room number, he went back after getting no answer. They realized their mistake and the driver came again and brought us to their shop. After that we switched into a 4WD and our guide, Nicole drove us to the Forbidden Island (or as close as she could anyway because we could only get there by trekking).

Btw never the outdoorsy person so I didn't know the difference between hike and trek:
"The main difference between the two is that hiking is mainly a leisure activity which is done by walking on well-made trails and man-made roads. However, trekking is more rigorous, and a more challenging activity. It tests one's physical ability, endurance, and even their mental or psychological capacity." www.differencebetween.info

Our trek was not that rigorous and fortunately did not reach the level where we have to put our psychological capacity to test. However, there wasn't any man-made trails and there were some steep, slippery areas where we had to use our hands to steady ourselves.

View after we emerged from the forest trek. That's the Forbidden Island. Island is an exaggeration. I'd say it's more like a humongous rock or small hill XD.

We were apparently the first people to come here today because there were still lots of spider webs in the trekking path back in the forest *internal screaming*. Nicole led the way and moved the spider webs out of the forest path so that we don't get them in our faces. This was a mind blowing experience for me. Like she doesn't just swipes and destroys the web, she plucks the web and sticks it at a safer place out of the way. クモのお家の引越し~~ I did not know that was possible (and nor do I hope the day will ever ever come when I have to do it).

At first glance it looks like XW is putting his arms around me *awwww*. But upon closer inspection he's just resting his arm on my backpack -.- 

We weren't sure if we would be able to join this tour at first because we only had crocs and no proper sports shoes. But it turned out crocs were good enough and Marianas Trekking provided us water bottles, backpacks and hats. For this tour, it was just XW & me, another couple and our guide, Nicole. Marianas Trekking was a bigger, more organized, proper tour shop compared to the ones we used for other activities in Saipan. One part I thought they could improve on was we could have saved more than 40mins if they had brought us directly to Forbidden Island instead of bringing us to their shop which is based at Mariana Resort, north of the hotel we're staying at, only to go all the way down south to Forbidden Island. Then I would have been able to have more precious sleep XD.

We made it all the way down there finally 😊😊

Before we snorkeled at the main tide pool, Nicole offered to show us a secluded tide pool hidden in a small cave (which I had no idea about before). It's not mentioned in the tour package so she had no obligation to bring us there but she's just absolutely the best 😫!!

We had to climb over this hill

We get to jump through these rocks which doesn't tire me at all. A lot of fun compared to just walking endlessly in the humid mundane (in my opinion) forest. 

This is the entrance to the cave where you have to climb down. I would have never known 😮

and tadah~ 

My spirits soared at the sight. Doesn't it look amazing??

The water is so clear ~💙.  There are two tide pools here. This and another one just at the back of this pool.

The tide pool at the back. Isn't this super instagram worthy?? 

I hyperventilated at the sight. Swimming in these natural swimming holes made me felt like I was adventurous😈. Also, there was NOT a single soul besides us here (at the whole Forbidden Island area actually). Definitely one of the perks of the difficult accessibility. Normally a stunning place like this would be swarmed by tourists and I would probably stress myself out just trying to take a clean scenery picture without people. It felt so serene to be swimming and snorkeling in these pools overlooking the ocean. I wish I could have a secret spot like this where I could go chill in the weekends. 

Our guide, Nicole outdone herself once again. I really wanted to grab a photo here at the rear tide pool but none of us had waterproof cases. Thought about wading through the first pool while holding my phone above the surface but it was too deep and my lousy swimming skills were not sufficient to keep one hand above without sinking completely. While I was regretting over mistreating my Xperia in the past making it no longer waterproof, Nicole toss her own smartphone into her backpack and proceeded to swim through the pool while holding it above her. Even she herself was not confident about being capable of keeping it dry throughout the swim but she risked it anyway. With her own phone to foot! I mean this isn't even her permanent job. How could anyone be so kind and selfless T_____T ? 

Here's our awesome bright guide, Nicole from US, and her peculiar hobby of collecting floats. I sure did not expect our diving guide and trekking guide to be women. Women working in Saipan are freakin' strong.

After our swim in the cave, we climbed over this hill again to get back to the main open tide pool.

There's the iconic rectangular flat-top Forbidden Island.

And tadah~ the main tide pool

There were lots of fishiesss to my surprise. The waves inside were small and gentle making it a relaxing snorkeling session. The other couple did not seem very interested in snorkeling but then again, they are currently living in Guam so they are probably bored of it by now.

Green, clear water😍. Not all the beaches in Saipan had beautiful water like this though, only certain spots. The water at the beach by our hotel, Grandvrio Resort certainly looked nothing like this.

This whole trip made me feel like I was an explorer

After a total of an hour and a half down here, we started our way back.

Climbing back up into the forest trek.

Nicole drove us back to Marianas Trekking shop where we returned our trekking stuff and watched a slideshow of photos Nicole took with the shop's camera while waiting for our ride back to Garapan.

We had the driver dropped us at Spicy Thai Noodle Place, another place Rie recommended for lunch. 

For the rest of the noon, we couldn't summon the energy to do anything and we decided to go for a massage at Healing Stone, a massage parlour which Nicole recommended for the best & reasonably priced massages (USD20 for an hour!). Like Nicole mentioned, it seems like the reasonably-priced massages were something only the locals know. The massage menus available on their website only listed massages for > USD60 an hour. When I called to make a reservation (a must at least an hour beforehand according to Nicole), I made the mistake of asking the price to confirm it was USD20. The receptionist went like 'Oh, you're not local?' to which I was caught off guard and lied that XW's local and I was just visiting XD. The lady contemplated a little then said it's USD25 for me (prolly because I know the local price). 

The masseurs were Chinese and didn't communicated great in English. At one point they suspected me being Chinese and asked if I was one (in mandarin) to which I feigned ignorance (to avoid the mundane  conversation like where are you from blabla). The masseurs gossiped a lot to each other throughout the massage thinking we don't understand and I got slightly paranoia about how they would react if they found out that I do speak mandarin 😜💦.  

The aroma oil massage was awesome btw.

Dinner at Gentle Brook Cafe, another place Rie recommended for the tonkatsu sandwich and good steak at an affordable price. The chef/owner is Japanese and worked in some high class hotel before (Hilton perhaps?).

The volume is crazy O.O 

This restaurant is not walk-able distance from Garapan and requires 12 mins by car. But they have pick up service from your hotel :). Their staff picked us up and for the return trip, the Jap wife sent us back and we had a good chat and learnt a lot more about Saipan and its politics.

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Marianas Trekking Package Tour: $130 for two
Healing Stone: $25 for 1 hour aroma oil massage
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Reached Parking Lot and Started Trekking: 9am plus
Reached Forbidden Island: 10am
Started Return Trek: 11:30am