Naminoue Beach

Naha’s Naminoue Beach is empty of that stereotypical beach scene that most people crave. In a way, it’s a good thing because you can just enjoy this relatively small beach for what it is. Just don’t bother to sport a cute bikini, let alone a swimsuit here because despite Okinawa being more laid back than the rest of Japan, Okinawa is still in Asia and bikini clad women are still not a norm here.

To be fair, the lack of people wearing swimsuits could all have to do with the fact that it’s pointless to wear one here. With a highway over the beach, this beach is more of an aesthetic type of place. It’s a decent place to just sit and chill. It’s not really a place you’d go to have fun in the water. I’m not sure what type of personality the water has here, but it was relatively calm when I was there. This may be the reason why a highway was built over the beach. If it’s pointless to surf at this beach, installing a barrier, such as a highway for people to get from one side to another makes a lot of sense.

While there wasn’t anything spectacular about this beach, I appreciated Naminoue Beach for what it was. Naminoue Beach gave me the space I needed to calm down and truly be alone, despite never really being alone. I used this time to reflect and jot down my feelings of being harassed earlier in the day by a dirty old man! In a way, Naminoue Beach was sort of like my saving grace from all that I had experienced earlier.

But alas, nothing is ever perfect. I found that people could not leave me alone, despite me giving off “leave me alone” vibes.

The Kid from Mainland China

There was a kid that kept coming near me and it irked me so badly because him and the rest of his family were most likely from mainland China. (At the time, the coronavirus seemed to be heavily spread by anyone coming from China, so I was really bothered by it all. Cute kid. Just not so cute circumstances.)

I’m not sure why this kid was “attracted” to me but he just could not stop coming near me and seek some form of attention from me. Sure, the beach was small but it wasn’t that small. In other words, this kid had a lot of space to do whatever he wanted, almost wherever he wanted but he just had to do it near me.

At one point, he found something, came near me, dropped whatever he found and looked at me. I squirmed, silently.

While I didn’t leave right away, since I enjoyed my seat that was in the shade, I eventually did decide to leave in order to visit another tourist spot. Funny thing is when I came back, the kid and his family were still there!

That One Guy and His Two Friends

This was more of a turn off than anything. Basically, I was sitting alone, minding my own business when I heard a group of Japanese guys talking near me. They were above me and I was like whatever because I figured they were just viewing the beach. (FYI: The beach isn’t on “ground” level. You have to walk down to get to the beach.) Little did I know, these guys were an obnoxious bunch. First, one guy decided to jump from above and land down, practically next me. All I can say is WTF? First of all, that’s dangerous. To him and to me. If he were to miss, he could’ve hurt me! I wanted to give him (and his friends) the benefit of the doubt but I am pretty sure I was visible from above, so it would be a lame excuse to say they didn’t notice me. Facts are facts, people.

The worst part about this guy would have to be when he was trying to put himself together. He wiped sand off himself which is normal enough. But the abnormal part would be him, standing right in front of me, right after. When I say right in front of me, I mean right in front of me. There was hardly any space between him and me.

I didn’t think much at the time as I thought he was trying to strike up a conversation with me but it never happened. I suppose it also helped that I never gave him the opportunity to do so. But looking back, I can’t help but to wonder if he purposely did whatever he was doing.

The second guy jumped down after, landing not too close to me. It was still close, mind you, but not as close as the first guy’s landing. The third guy, if I remember correctly, had the decency to come down way later by either jumping onto the ramp or coming down down from the ramp. He was probably the tamest of the the three, but who knows.

So, these three guys just stood right in front of me and I’m like wtf. I may not have thought much about it at the time but looking back on it, the whole situation was just awkward, disturbing and wrong. Since the guys didn’t jump down at the same time, I can’t help but to wonder if one of the guys (the “tamest” one) was videorecording the whole thing for whatever reason, unbeknownst to me. I have no clue and I think I don’t want to know.

All I know is that they were rude, rowdy and disrespectful. There’s a saying that you can act a fool when you’re not in Japan because no one outside of Japan knows you and these natives were probably doing just that. Sure, they were still on Japanese “soil” since Okinawa is a part of Japan but if you know anything about how Japanese mentality works, many of them don’t really consider Okinawans as Japanese despite Japan making Okinawa a part of the same country.

A Bunch of Guys

This will probably make a lot more sense once I talk about my shrine visit but for now, let me just share that because I was so absorbed with whatever I was doing on my phone (“reflecting” and typing away my annoyances of that dirty old man), I failed to realize that a lot of guys were sitting near me. It was when I decided to finally leave the beach for good that I noticed a bunch of guys near me. When I say a bunch, I mean a bunch. At first, I thought it was just these two guys and then, when I left and turned around to take a good look at the stadium seats, I was like wtf. Where did all these guys come from? Of course, I don’t think they meant any harm but considering the fact that I was still jittered from that fool of a man and those 3 rowdy guys, I felt weird. And then as I was leaving, after getting onto higher ground, a guy smiled at me. But I couldn’t smile. He seemed like a nice guy but I was like whatever. Fortunately for him, he probably couldn’t figure out whether I had smiled back or not simply because I had a mask on.

So, that was my recount of my Naminoue Beach experience. Do I recommend this beach? I think it’s worth the stop if you happen to be in the area and want to also visit the shrine that overlooks the beach. But if you’re not in the area already, it’s not going to be a big deal to skip this beach.