AT THIS time of year pack ice grinds the beaches of northern Japan, but in the Ryukyu Islands in the south farmers are cutting sugar cane. The Japanese archipelago spans an immense distance: from Cape Soya in northern Hokkaido a smudge on the horizon reveals Sakhalin in Russia’s Far East. From the tiny island of Yonaguni, last in the Ryukyu chain, you can sometimes make out the mountains of eastern Taiwan.
Over lunar new year the Ryukyu Islands, which together make up Okinawa prefecture, were heaving with holidaymakers. Okinawa has a growing reputation as an island paradise for all tastes. Package tours poured families from mainland China into the airport at Naha, the capital, for winter sun, duty-free malls and hearty stir fries—spam is a speciality. Some 400km farther south, a cruise ship nosed between coral reefs into the main port of Ishigaki island and disgorged Taiwanese tourists in search of the local black pearls. A few adventurers even made it to Yonaguni, where they dived among the hammerhead sharks or stood on the quay in Kubura to watch the fishermen bring in their daily haul of swordfish. The island lies in the middle of the life-giving...Continue reading
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