OUR JOURNEY TO OKINAWA! HACKSAW RIDGE & MORE! (JAPAN 2024)

OUR JOURNEY TO OKINAWA! HACKSAW RIDGE & MORE! (JAPAN 2024)

That’s the stuff. [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] It’s telling us to continue ahead 40 m. Tell you one thing, Apple Maps is never correct. That whole time was a courtesy pass. To be fair, it was only like 700 m walk. So, it’s all right. Just want to put this one out there. This was $77. So if the rooms are amazing, recommended so far, amazing. So 77 bucks a night. Unbelievable. [Music] One of the best things about hotels is a room tour. So, I’m going to put on screen our beautiful room. Again, $70. I’ll put on the uh hotel address on the screen as well. You see it’s got two beds. The bathroom is quite small, but hey, we’re in Tokyo. This is a massive room compared to last time, and it is so cheap. The only thing is Narita is probably an hour train out of the actual Tokyo CVD. We’re going to Okinawa, Osaka, and then we’re coming back up to Tokyo for the last 9 days of this 3W week journey. So, welcome to Japan 2024. We will see you guys in the morning. All right, good morning from Tokyo. Today, we’re heading to Okinawa. It’s one of the islands south of Japan. It’s got 150 islands. We’re heading to Naha, the main airport. It’s going to be unbelievable. It’s gonna be so much fun stuff to do down there. It’s going to be around 27 to 30° for the next 4 days that we’re there. We leave there on roughly Thursday, I believe. Again, it’s about a 700 m walk as we learned last night. Beautiful night’s sleep here. I don’t know how good it really was. The pillow was sort of questionable. The beds were not too bad as well, but the air con I don’t think worked at all. So, it was a little bit stuffy at points here. And the TV here in Japan is definitely different to back home. But, it was fun. We got to watch a lot of music videos, so that was cool. But hey, another beautiful morning. The view outside the window is phenomenal. You can see Japanese airline headquarters and you can see part of Narita airport as well. So, it is nearly 10:00 a.m. So, we are about to head downstairs, head to Narita. We’re going to go to the Lawson Family Mart to get a cheap breakfast because that’s what we do best. And then we’re going to be on our way to Okinawa. So, we’re going to see you guys at the airport. Let’s go check this out. So, we’re at the airport. Boys over there drinking candy. It’s like a little cafe. People can get full meals. Dude, this is a gate to fly out just domestically. Welcome to Okinawa. We are staying here at Hotel Andrews in Naha. We have a beautiful view through the window of the port that we will put on top of this clip. But we are in a loft room right now. We are here until Thursday night. This hotel is phenomenal. We walked in and Millie said to me, “Are you sure you’ve booked the right hotel? Are we in the right place?” I said, “We are for sure. We are on the 14th floor. We are right at the top. I’ll go outside in a second and film some stuff here on the camera of how high up we actually are. I’m afraid of heights. We all know that. So, it’s quite crazy, but there’s a rooftop pool just over there. It closes at 11:00 p.m. Sun goes down, lights come up. I can’t wait. I got myself another 196 Santoi. $150. We got some food before the flight here we came on was Peach Airlines. Unbelievable service. It was beautiful. So, I highly recommend it. It’s one of those domestic Japan flights and it was awesome. It was easy to get to. It was easy to get on. The staff were amazing. Everything was just beautiful. Okinawa today is a little bit stormy and a little bit hot. It’s about 27° but it’s cold. It’s like it’s been raining so you can feel that cold coming off the ground. But I’m going to get into this and we’re going to start our Okinawa journey. So come along with us and welcome to Okinawa. All right, welcome to another beautiful day here in Okinawa. As you can see, it is so hot already. It is 10:55 in the morning and I’m sweating absolute buckets. But we are catching the train to the end of the line here. We’re at one of the stations. We’re heading to Hackaw Ridge. The Hacksaw Ridge, very historical. A lot of history behind us. We’re heading there to check that one out. And then we’re going to go up into the mall, which is a long way away. Getting around here in Okinawa is a lot harder than we thought it was going to be. So come along with us as we suffer and you get to enjoy it from home. So, we’re going to catch this straight and we’ll see you guys [Music] there. All right, so we have found oursel at the bottom of Hacksaw Ridge. It’s an incredible feeling to be here. We’re going to climb to the top to show you guys, but this is the bottom. It’s overgrown now after the 70 years after the battle. But just being here and seeing how steeper it is and it still goes further a little bit down. Like it’s it’s an incredible feeling to be here to uh understand what these people went through 70 to 80 years ago. Yeah, it’s it’s weird. Like as you can see, the vegetation has overgrown this place. You can’t really see the depth of the hills. But when you’re here walking up and down these stairs, it’s all been landscaped with paths and everything like that. But back then, they didn’t have anything like that. So, we’re going to get to the top. It’s hot. It’s humid, but what an incredible place to be and a special place to be remembered. So, this will give you guys a little bit more of an indication how steep it really is. We’re down here on the path climbing up the Hacksaw. And that is just steep. half way up the hill to Hacksaw and there’s still these tunnels that remain but they have cave over time where the Japanese would have fallen from but it’s too dangerous to go in but it’s incredible to see look how high up we are intense moment it’s very very windy up here as well but that just seeing that like that’s crazy and this right here is Hackaw Ridge it’s definitely an eerie feeling all the memorials, all the sacred sites, everything like that. It just doesn’t feel real that this was one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific War roughly 80 years [Music] [Music] ago. Just checking out that height. It’s just unbelievable what they went through. I honestly can’t believe it. But this is Axel Ridge. One of the main reasons we wanted to come here to Okinawa is to come to Axel Ridge. So, all right. So, our Okinawa journey has landed us at our favorite place in all of Japan, Kura Sushi. We’re talking $150 a plate of sushi. It’s a It’s a conveyor belt, as you can see behind me, but I will show you guys soon. Basically, you buy your plates and then every five plates, you get to play a game. It’s an amazing place. Everything comes straight out of the conveyor belt behind us. Super cheap, super affordable, super tasty, super fun. Oh man, what a day. We have absolutely loaded up. Even got the One Piece theme stuff. Got myself my first Orion draft, which is the local beer here in Okinawa. [Music] All right, welcome to another beautiful day here in Okinawa. It’s going to be 30° today. You can tell already we are sweating. We are at the base of the former Royal Navy headquarters for the Japanese army during World War II. Became a fierce battle towards the end of the war today. It is a location that sends a message of peace from Okinawa to the world. So, we’re going to head up there now. It is really hot, really sweaty. We walked about 3ks from the train station to get here. So, this is a very special place to be, but I can’t wait to get inside and show you guys. We’re taking a break, having some water, getting some shade because, as you can see, Okinawa is hot and sweaty, but it is so beautiful. We’re going to see you guys at the former Royal Japanese Army base. Let’s go. So, we are here at the Royal former Japanese naval base during the Pacific War in World War II. There’s all these relics that they excavated from the underground tunnels. We are going to go down in the underground tunnel, but there’s rusty weapons, rusty bayonets, army supplies, everything. Uniforms, guns. It’s just a crazy crazy feeling to believe this stuff happened only roughly 80 years ago. So, come along. We head down very soon. But yeah, again, wow. This is us heading underground right now to the former Japanese royal headquarters. It’s steep and it’s small like that. It’s not a very high room. It’s quite crazy. Wow. [Music] Lieutenant General who had evacuated from rear admiral [Music] escape surrounded pending death. The admiral’s message Okay, so that was the former Japanese Royal Navy base. It was a very eerie feeling being down there. It was a lot of history. A lot of blood shed on this island during World War II. So, Okinawa is delivering. Hope you guys are enjoying the video so far. Let’s continue. It’s a beautiful day. It’s hot. It’s sweaty, but it is so worth it. We are here in Japan. We’re off to Osaka tomorrow. What a day. See you soon. Sadly, after this, all the rest of the footage was on a GoPro, which I accidentally lost over in Japan. If you did like this video here in Okinawa, make sure to subscribe because we are heading back in June this year of 2025. It’s going to be summer over there. It’s going to be unbelievable. But I’m going to try to finish this video with some stuff that I managed to save. But thank you so much for watching and we’ll see you in the next [Music] one. Bro, I’m enjoying these way too much. They’re adults. [Music]

In this vlog, we explore Okinawa, one of Japan’s most unique and beautiful regions.

This was my favourite part of our 2024 holiday.

We stayed south in Naha, the vibrant capital city of Okinawa Prefecture.

We stayed at the beautiful Androoms Hotel in Naha Port — a stylish, modern spot right near the harbour with great views and easy access to local sights.

We visit the historic site of Hacksaw Ridge, where one of the most intense battles of World War II took place during the Battle of Okinawa. It’s a powerful and sobering location, known for the heroic actions of medic Desmond Doss, who saved dozens of soldiers without carrying a weapon.

We also explore the former Japanese Navy Underground Headquarters, a preserved bunker system used by the Imperial Japanese Navy during the final stages of the war. It’s a sobering experience, with original tunnels, command rooms, and artifacts that highlight the desperation and gravity of the conflict. It gives a deeper look into Okinawa’s wartime history beyond the battlefield.

In this video:

Our accomodation in NAHA

Hacksaw Ridge (Battle of Okinawa site)

Kura Sushi (Our fave!)

Former Japanese Navy Underground Headquarters

+ More

Have you been to Okinawa or is it on your travel list?

What’s one place in Japan you’d love to visit?

Interested in more WWII history travel content? Let us know below!

👍 Like and subscribe if you’re enjoying the series — more Japan travel vlogs coming soon!

TAGS:
#Okinawa, #Japan2024, #JapanTravel, #TravelVlog, #HacksawRidge, #BattleOfOkinawa, #WWIIHistory, #DesmondDoss, #MilitaryHistory, #WarSites,
#JapaneseNavy, #NavyBunker, #UndergroundBunkers, #JapanHistory, #OkinawaVlog, #NahaOkinawa, #KuraSushi, #SushiTrainJapan, #FoodInJapan, #OkinawaFood,
#OkinawaTrip, #OkinawaIsland, #HiddenJapan, #ExploreJapan, #VisitJapan, #AsiaTravelVlog, #BackpackingJapan, #JapanVlogger, #WartimeJapan, #JapanWarHistory,
#WW2Sites, #PacificWar, #YouTubeTravel, #JapaneseCulture, #HistoricalTravel, #JapanDocumentary, #HistoryBuffs, #TravelSeries, #CinematicVlog, #JapanAdventure,
#JapaneseBunker, #MilitaryTourism, #WWIIJapan, #HistoryInRealLife, #TravelAsia, #MustSeeJapan, #WorldWar2, #OkinawaBeaches, #NatureAndHistory, #ThingsToDoInJapan,
#HistoryVlog, #CultureVlog, #RealJapan, #JapanUnderground, #Okinawa2024, #WarMemorial, #TravelFilmmaking, #JapanExplained, #CulturalHeritage