Okinawa

[SOFME]

Hello all. I wasnt sure where to post up a "new guy's first post." so i decided this would be best. I'll just turn it into an "Okinawa Adventure thread".

I guess to start, i found myself here with my wife due to military service. With in a week I picked-up a 99' blue on silver Pajero iO. The intent for this truck was two fold. First; camping, scuba, and getting off the beaten path. but secondly it had to get good gas milage. At first i was thinking i would have to do quite a bit of worl to get this little guy trail worthy, however it has impressed me a few times. Plans for the truck will be a simple leveling kit (which i have to fab up myself as this is not a strong player in the off-road aftermarket) once this is done i pop on a set of 225/75/r16 BFG A/T's to it. I also plan on fab'ing up a flat roof rack specifically to mount my big agnes tent. Other than that i'm just going to drive the **** out of the little guy and keep on the lookout for a non-rusted 91' 80 series Land Cruiser or 91' Pajero with a diesel motor.

here are a few photos from our adventures thus far:

Farming road about 2 clicks north of Nago City on 58

Beach trail just south of Hedo point

Farming road off 70 on the northeast side of the island, lead me to an avocado orchard

unmaintained, paved road throught the mountains of 58 about 2 clicks south of hedo point

waterfall on the same road as above

beach overlooking the east side of Hedo point

My wife an i made this sand castle after a picnic on a secluded beach on Yonashiro Ikei Island

Ikei Beach

Katsuren Castle

Kouri-shima Island

access road to the beach

Nago City Castle

Farm Land on Kadena AB (you cant tell be i am on a double track road, its just a bit over grown)

Rice Fields in East Okinawa City

Seculded beach near Motobu City

Orion Beer Fest

Cape Hedo

Kadena Marina

Sunabae sea wall, the day before our first Typhoon hit. (the water looks a lot closer than it is)

 

[TangoBlue]

Lived there for a few years and had a Subaru Domingo AWD van. Loved it there and there was no place that little van wouldn't go. Okinawa is very bike friendly too, just be sure to bring plenty of water and some energy bars to avoid the bonk as it gets Africa-hot there. We lived in Kawasaki and Nishihara, Uruma City, and Camp McTureous. What a fun, safe, laid-back little place; the kids really grew up there and have fond, home-like memories, moe than the US. Biking can take you to some of the small outer islands off of White Beach, transported by old LST's no less for a few yen; it's a walk back into history. I used to bike from McTureous to Hansen and ended up getting there faster than driving.

I'd recommend against performing any modifications to your truck - juice isn't worth the squeeze. You can't take it back with you, safety inspections will be more challenging as a gaijin, and you'll make reselling it when you PCS difficult. Save that COLA for a real overlanding vehicle when you return to CONUS. There's no place you can't go on that 67 mile long island with that little truck and if you're someplace where the trail is that difficult you probably shouldn't be there anyway and looking forward to aggressive civil prosecution and a few UCMJ charges. Treading lightly will be highly respected by the locals when you're out in the more rural northern parts of the island. As a former IRO at the Joint Brig I know of what I speak.

Are your last 2 pics at the Sunabe Sea Wall? Watch yourself there... always lost a couple knuckleheads every year to waves. Something about typhoons and wave action draws the curious to the sea wall and we get to hear about it on AFRTS and then the mandatory knee-jerk safety-training stand-down. There is so much to do there since I was stationed there in the late ninety's -- have a great tour!

 

[d67u57]

great pictures, and fun little truck.

is it that hard to find a decent 20+ year old vehicle and bring it state/canuck side?

and last q. when you saw the number of 4x4's available with a diesel motor, how did it feel?

 

[TangoBlue]

great pictures, and fun little truck.

is it that hard to find a decent 20+ year old vehicle and bring it state/canuck side?

and last q. when you saw the number of 4x4's available with a diesel motor, how did it feel?

Back in the day, for military and DOD personnel, it was specifically not allowed in Permanent Change of Station (PCS) orders; in other words the government would not pay for it. It generally wouldn't be worth it; for example, I saw no Land Cruisers and vehicles often did not fair well in the hot, humid, sunny, salt air of this island prefecture. Also, then, 4WD vehicles were rare and costly and diesel-fueled passenger vehicles were equally rare.

But hopefully the OP will log in and give us an update.

 

[d67u57]

my geography just failed me

being in japan,ok a 'few' miles down south, i still expected the normal relative diversity, vehicles wise.

boy it seems i was wrong!

 

[bjm206]

There is a road up north off 58 at Benoki Dam that goes around a reservoir. It is pretty neat because of the isolation (by Oki standards) and how dense the canopy gets (at least it did 3 years ago). Watch out for the Habu if you explore on foot. The only ones I ever saw were up there. Also there are nice roads around Hedo point.

The Toyota Hilux Surfs were plentiful and cheap (and capable) a few years ago. If you need something bigger there's always the Mitsubishi Delica 4wd diesel vans if they are still around.

 

[Old Sarge]

OMG, this brings back fond memoires from years ago! We were stationed there from June of 70 - Nov 73! Was there when the states gave the island back to Japan . I'm an Army brat, dad was SF. He was assigned at Camp Hansen which severed as a jail/prison camp for soliders waiting to go to trial for crimes against the locals. The marines were ALWAYS causing problems at 4 corners! I have considered several times a trip back there to take my wife to show her what growing up on an island and on a military base was like! Had forgotten how beautiful the island really was. Please post up more pics as you can!

 

[Dave Bennett]

Love Oki, spent some time there myself. Agree with Tango, leave it stock and use the heck out of it, buy something else when you get back to CONUS. Go light on the Habu Sake

Enjoy!

 

[trump]

Subscribed.

Loved my time out there as well. Wasted a bunch of money on my dream car at the time... no regrets. If it weren't for the size of my dogs, I might have been there now instead of San Diego. I'll look forward to your updates.

 

[SOFME]

great pictures, and fun little truck.

is it that hard to find a decent 20+ year old vehicle and bring it state/canuck side?

and last q. when you saw the number of 4x4's available with a diesel motor, how did it feel?

Its not hard to find a Land Cruiser, Surf, or Pajero... however it is hard to find one without rust. However i have found a few local guys who find your desired vehicle from mainland Japan. I am super excited to be able to scoop up a diesel 4x4 =)
As far as bring a truck back, my understanding is that it must be 25 years old. This is why I'm looking for the 90'/91' model year. I'm just lucky enough that Toyota put the diesel in the 80 series for that year and the Japanese variant (unlike the US market variants) had a lockable center diff.

There is a road up north off 58 at Benoki Dam that goes around a reservoir. It is pretty neat because of the isolation (by Oki standards) and how dense the canopy gets (at least it did 3 years ago). Watch out for the Habu if you explore on foot. The only ones I ever saw were up there. Also there are nice roads around Hedo point.

The Toyota Hilux Surfs were plentiful and cheap (and capable) a few years ago. If you need something bigger there's always the Mitsubishi Delica 4wd diesel vans if they are still around.

Good intell on the dam road.
The Surfs are cheap and plentiful for sure, the Delicas not as much. I agree the Surf, Delica, Pajero, etc are much more capable (especially if they have the locking rear diff) then my little iO, but from what I've seen so far there isn't much need for all that. The trails I've been one are quite small, (mostly old farming roads. The locals love the Jimnys, and the farmers/construction workers use 4wd jingle truck/van with tiny economy tires. The big boys would not be a nimble getting around. It would also be much more difficult driving around the cities. I will stick with the Paj iO for now. as I said earlier I only want to get slightly larger tires (current- 205/70/r16 to a 225/75/r16) and this is mostly for sand. The sand out here is very odd. I'm not new to sand personally (done some wheeling in Hurricane Utah and a lot in Little Sahara Oklahoma). The slightly larger tires combined with the locking center diff should take me anywhere I want to go on this little island. Plus I couldn't agree more with this:

… There's no place you can't go on that 67 mile long island with that little truck and if you're someplace where the trail is that difficult you probably shouldn't be there anyway and looking forward to aggressive civil prosecution and a few UCMJ charges. Treading lightly will be highly respected by the locals when you're out in the more rural northern parts of the island…

I will add some more photos and caption the current ones. Thank you all for the welcomes and I will for sure keep you all posted.

 

[TangoBlue]

I will add some more photos and caption the current ones. Thank you all for the welcomes and I will for sure keep you all posted.

...excited for your reports... subscribed!

 

[d67u57]

good luck with the search and dont forget piccies and thread when you bring it stateside!

 

[Frank]

I spent 3 years there and on an island only 70 miles from tip to tip and 20 miles at its widest point, the amount of things to do and see there is absolutely incredible.

I wish I could continue my life there. It is an amazing place.

 

[BurbanAZ]

We go to Japan every chance we get, never gotten to go and take my truck though. Not sure how well my 3/4 ton suburban would fit alot of places there lol. Looking forward to more pics of ur adventures.

 

[SOFME]

So a quick update. The wify and i found a nice French place to eat at the other day by chance. We started out looking for a Korean joint we had a leaflet for however the place had moved a few days before we got there. We gave up that day due to hunger and decided to pick the next place we could find...

The White house
View attachment 147285

It was lunch time, and not very busy. we decided on the four course meal (forgot to snap a photo of the salad), it was chopped with a garlic cream sauce and raw tuna, along with a few other typical salad items.

The second course; a potato soup. The taste was perfect, which ginger i believe adding a nice flair to it.


I went with a brazed chicken. Very moist, and well seasoned with thyme springs.


My wife went with mahi mahi. it was garnished with a Spanish-flared salsa.


my desert, creme brulee. almost perfectly done (just a tad bit too watery


wife had a chocolate cake. garnished with roasted blueberries and vanilla ice cream.




The food was spectacular all in all. And for the price (about $35 usd) you couldn't beat it. The white house offers a 7 course dinner so we will be hitting them up again on a date night.

Now i must revert out of pintrest mode.