[JP; 2025] Day 1 - Okinawa | Roaming around Naha City
This will be a long travel series as it will cover 3 countries / cities: Japan - Okinawa; South Korea - Busan; Vietnam - Hanoi.
I wanted to cancel this trip as it was like 3 months after my Austin episode where I had zero confidence to fly. But we bought non-refundable tickets like months ahead of the trip so no turning back.
Day 1: Japan, Okinawa
Flight to Okinawa
We flew during May 2025 - where Jetstar was still servicing Singapore. I exchanged my Qantas points for the one-way direct flight tickets.
Arriving Okinawa
It was a red eye flight, so we had plenty of time to wander around the airport after arrival. There was a stamp rally activity where you can get a pretty postcard out of it!
We took the monorail to the city:
You can pay via mastercard / visa; so it was very convenient, save all the hassle buying tickets using coins or get a transport card.
We enjoyed the city view on the monorail ride!
Checking in Hotel
This hotel was a good find on google map - I booked via Rakuten because the price was too attractive! It looks rather new and everything was in order. Loved the PJ provided by the hotel, was so comfy.
We booked a room with balcony... and tub! Well there wasn't much view from the hotel but it was still nice to have late night chats outside.
Toilet facilities in the room was great - expensive TOTO toilet bowl and a multi-function shower which really impressed us - Japan standard:
For long stays, they have a laundry room with washers and dryers, reasonably priced. We didn't use it as we loaded our dirty clothes with us to Busan (where we had a combi washer / dryer in our room - share more later).
Highly recommend if you need a stay in Okinawa, Naha city. Not too far from the monorail station, just 5 mins walk. The shopping district is walkable in 15 mins. Very peaceful and nice neighbourhood.
Brunch
We were looking for something to eat and found this on googlemap:
健康朝ごはんの店 あさとん食堂 泉崎店
It seems to be a very popular place for travellers, everyone in the store was not local.
Gyoza was their specialty and it was yummy:
We also ordered like grilled fish & abalone porridge - they were average:
But loved the side dishes - they had bittergourd!
Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum
We wanted to go one of Okinawa biggest mall, but we were attracted by this Hello Kitty exhibition halfway through our journey and decided to divert.
Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum (Okimyu)沖縄県立博物館・美術館（おきみゅー）
Actually none of us were Hello Kitty fans, we just wanted to wander around the Naha city:
I do think it was a good find - I enjoyed taking many photos for my sister (oh yes, this is a sisters' trip). And some of the free exhibition was informative! We didn't go for the Hello Kitty exhibition as we weren't that into it after seeing the admission fee.
Shopping
We stumbled across two shopping areas near the museum:
1. San-A Naha Main Place
It was quite a local shopping mall with some familiar brands like 3coins, hands, muji etc; and another bunch of more local brands. It was quite interesting mall to shop! And it was my first time encountering a Hands Cafe - I thought they were just stationery store!
2. Ameku Ryubo
There were a series of bigger shopfronts located along this supermarket called Ameku Ryubo. Brands like Uniqlo, Daiso etc were all there. I didn't take a photo of that place because our hands were full of shopping stuff.
Ameku Ryubo天久りうぼう
But we discover a new yummy drink over there!
Back to Hotel
We headed back to the hotel to put our shopping loots, and stopped by this mini stand right at the monorail exit:
MILK TEA TIME
If you ever need to stop-by Asahibashi Station, please add this place in your list of things to eat/drink. Their drinks were perfect, and the cakes were yummy. We left the cake for 2 days and it was still good!
Early Dinner
Feeling a bit exhausted for the flight + all shopping; we decided to go for an early dinner and recharge for the next day!
Daisuke創作うどんの店 だいすけ
It was quite a local stall, the owner could speak simple English and they had English menu too.
We had the soup and also the dry udon:
This pretty much wraps our first day in Okinawa and day 1 of our long multi-countries trip!
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