Day 1: Naha International Airport --> Cape Hedo --> Daisekirinzan Park --> Okuma Private Beach and Resort
So after 3 years of planning and amidst all the initial Covid-19 uncertainties, my parents and I flew on a red-eye Jetstar flight to Naha, main city of Okinawa. The flight to Naha was not a very pleasant one, but through no fault of Jetstar.
Essentially, my mother and I just don't do well on red-eye flights. It's just way too noisy and disruptive for us to fall asleep. Unfortunately, other than Jetstar, there were no other direct flights from Singapore to Okinawa. I tend to prefer direct flights because I don't really believe in wasting time on transits unless I had to. Had we chosen to fly with other airlines, we could have found better timed flights and transited in Japan. But times like this, boy am I glad we didn't choose that.
Other than not being able to sleep well on red-eyes, it was also unfortunate that we happened to meet with a really inconsiderate passenger who decided to throw her shawl over her headrest into my mom's personal space on the plane! I honestly have no idea what make these people think that it is all right to do so? We had the flight steward ask her to stop and yet despite that, we still had to separately tell her again. Otherwise her shawl would have swept into my mom's meal on the tray table. And given how she was disinfecting her own sitting area, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't want us to keep moving her shawl away if we had to reach for our things in the seat pockets. It was a good thing that she eventually put her shawl away without much drama.
Since I knew we couldn't sleep, I ordered meals for us; we got either chicken rice or the turkey croissants. For an airplane meal, the chicken rice was decent enough. The highlight though was the chocolate Udders ice-cream. Yup. Ice-cream and watching the sun rise from the window. Else, it would have been a really dreary flight.
We arrived at Naha International Airport right on the dot. I was too tired though to bother getting any photos of the airport. I've to say, Naha Airport is pretty small for an international airport. After collecting our luggage and clearing immigration, it took me only about 10 minutes to get to the domestic side of the airport.
Reason why we needed to walk over to the Domestic side: To redeem my Klook vouchers for the Okinawa Main Island Enjoy Pass at the JTB counter. We had to wait a little though since JTB was only open at 9 am but we were already done by 8:30 am. Had I known that, I would have skipped the meal on the airplane and instead bought the famous pork tamago onigiri. Didn't realise that the store was just right across from JTB! In hindsight, I could have bought one to-go, but I guess the lack of sleep does a lot, not just to your brain power, but to your appetite as well.
The Okinawa Enjoy Passes were great and definitely worth the purchase! I saved quite a bit on admission tickets with the passes! On Klook, there were options to choose the number of passes you can purchase depending on how many of the designated attractions are on your itinerary. The only problem was that I had bought the passes together with tickets to Charaumu Aqaurium. Because of Covid-19, the Japanese government decided to close Churaumi Aquarium and made that announcement the day before I collected my Enjoy Passes. I was prepared to let the tickets go to waste but thankfully didn't have to.
With regards to this matter, I think Klook did a pretty good job with their customer service. Once the aquarium closure was announced, Klook very quickly sent out a notification email and to offer the option to cancel and get a refund. Unfortunately, I only read the email after I landed in Okinawa and it was too late for me to cancel and re-book the passes. But after some explanation about our situation, Klook was able to partially refund the costs for the aquarium portion of the passes. Much appreciated! And kudos for the willingness to work things out!
Collecting the passes from JTB was a fuss-free affair too. I had pre-printed out my vouchers, so all I had to do was pass them the vouchers to exchange for the passes. Once that was done, off we headed to start our Okinawa journey! I had hired a driver for the trip and will post more about that later.
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