Thursday, July 20, 2017

Trip to Okinawa in 2015 - Day 1



My auntie in Hong Kong was looking forward to travelling abroad with us including my mom, my brother and me. Since my mom was already over 65 and my auntie was over 75. I had to plan a trip that would fit their energy level ... hehe. Finally we decided to let our auntie have a relaxing vacation in the beautiful tropical island Okinawa (有東方夏威夷之稱的沖繩) J

It was from November 22 to 27. Since we travelled there by ourselves (自由行), lots of preparation and research needed to ensure the trip would be running smoothly! First was the flight which we decided to fly with Hong Kong airline (香港航) instead of Cathy Pacific (國泰航). Guess how much we could save by choosing Hong Kong airline? Both offered direct flights - Cathy was about $4000 HKD each while Hong Kong airline was $1500 HKD per person. 4 of us would save $10,000 HKD!!! Probably around $1700 CAD ...

On November 22, we departed from Hong Kong around 11:45 am and arrived Naha airport around 3:10 pm. Once we were in Naha airport, we were looking for the station to purchase our bus tickets as we would be taking shuttle bus to Rizzan Sea-Park Hotel. I could not find the station at first cause it was located in the domestic terminal but we were in the international terminal. Finally we were able to buy the tickets and it took us 1 hour 15 minutes to bus to the hotel. We paid 6400 yen (1600 yen per passenger), around $80 CAD.

Our hotel was in the resort in Onna 恩納村 (http://www.rizzan.co.jp/english/index.html). It was the largest and the most economical hotel in Onna although it was not the fanciest one. Staffs were very friendly and some of them especially the front desk people can speak English J


The room we stayed was for 4 guests with ocean view and it was extremely huge (over 530 square feet)! Here is the picture of a 4 person room from its webpage.





Here are the pictures taken by me:







By the time we checked-in and settled everything, it was 7 pm already so we had our first Okinawa dinner in Chinese cuisine Mandarin Court (中國菜自助晚). Service was very good since they automatically found a Mandarin speaking lady to serve us.






















Since Okinawa has tropical climate, we enjoyed the desserts a lot - almond tofu pudding, mango pudding, jello cups. Overall the buffet was quite nice and cost around $38 CAD per person. After we paid, we received coupons to use in the hotel's convenient stores, like a 10% discount.




After dinner, we passed by a show stage so we watched the traditional Okinawan dance as entertainment!




Just like all standard hotels, Rizzan provided hair brush, tooth brush with toothpaste, shower cap, etc. I always appreciate how hotels provide all the necessities, on the other hand it creates more pollution as the wraps and supplies will be thrown away when guests leave. Alternatively we can bring our own sets for each trip instead of using the toiletries offered by hotels.