December 10, 2025
Day 99 — Ginoza to Naha
Well, it saddened us deeply but we did have to leave our discount resort and get back on the bikes. We briefly toyed with staying another day, but, c’mon.
Adding to the lack of enthusiasm for ending our vacation from our vacation was the fact that our ride would be into Naha, which we (correctly) anticipated to be a slog of busy suburban and urban roads from the countryside into an urban core, which we’ve had enough of to know what an absolute chore they are.
The preparation for this was simply to get into a Zen headspace about it. Yes, roads will be busy, and sidewalks in poor shape. Yes, traffic lights will take forever, so progress will be slow. Yes, navigation will be confusing and frustrating. Ommmmm.
Not much interesting to relate about the 50 km from the resort in Ginoza to downtown Naha, other than we got there, but it took a long time. At one point we had gone 8km in just under an hour, simply due to traffic lights (agonizingly long in Japan) and convoluted navigating along and across busy thoroughfares and slow going along sidewalks.
The ride was punctuated by regular passes from American fighter jets, doing their sorties to nowhere in particular in order to retain the American presence in the area. Also every once in a while a small convoy of massive American Humvees would appear in a line of traffic among the teeny Japanese box cars and little white Suzuki pickups. It felt a bit like a scene from Andor.
Few pictures were taken — it really wasn’t that kind of day. The Zen prep seemed to work, and we arrived in relatively decent spirits to our hotel in downtown Naha. Even better, the hotel had free “welcome drinks” at 4:00, which included an open keg of beer. Halleloo.
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Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 4,817 km (2,991 miles)
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