I expected Okinawa to be a bit more...tropical. But in fact, it is, like Taiwan, just one big city from South to North.

Well, it's not that bad, and to be fair, it was much cleaner and organized than anywhere I've been in Taiwan. The buses ran right on schedule, and everyone waits at traffic lights. I probably confused a number of drivers when I waited for them to pull in front of me at crosswalks, but they stopped to wait for me instead.

There are wonderful beaches there, and lots of posh luxury hotels overlooking them. But it takes hours to leave the city behind, and even then it felt more like suburbs than countryside. I'm sure my three-day visit didn't do it justice, but if you're longing for a beach holiday, and have loads of money to spend, it might be quite nice.

There is also, unfortunately, a huge U.S. military presence there. It's good for the local economy, but they tend to get into mischief, when they're off the base. Also, there's the matter of the 250,000 locals that were killed in WWII. But, I didn't get any grief, even though these days I look like a soldier with my homemade haircut. For me, the military is a mixed blessing, because they do broadcast many popular American TV shows for the soldiers (and out-of-towners with TVs in their hotel rooms), but in place of advertisements, they have some absolutely wretched Military-Information-Officer-Produced service announcements and information segments. It seems like they could just air the shows without commericials. I watched David Letterman for the first time in years on Friday night.

Because the tickets are cheap from Taiwan, Okinawa is a good place for a visa run. I added a page to my website detailing how to go about it, because I couldn't find anything on the internet before I went. The best advice I got was at the tourist information counter in the Naha airport.