Day 4 of Singapore's Circuit Breaker and I have friends who are now freaking out about the latest measure where you can't drop off your kids with their grandparents anymore. I'm probably echoing what others have said, but man. It's only the second week of April but it already feels like a decade has passed in these short times.
Writing this blog has in a way helped remind me that my trip was just a month ago and I still have much to be grateful about.
When planning for this Okinawa itinerary, I came to the realization that I would need to hire a driver. If I had just stayed in Naha city, then ok, I could still just wing it with public transport. But there are so many other stuff outside of Naha that I was interested in, and to get there, I'd need a car.
And with no idea where to look this time round, I wrote in to the Okinawa Tourism Multilingual Contact Center to ask for recommendations. Boy. I am so glad I wrote in. They not only responded with recommendations of 2 local travel agencies, a taxi company, they even emailed me a list of where to go since there was a flower festival going on! Loved the extra mile and the hospitality!
Only 1 of the 2 travel agencies responded to my emails but I am so glad it all worked out with Jino Tours. I've to say this was one of the better experiences I had! I corresponded with a Luca Sartori who would reply my emails promptly and he was absolutely a delight to work with. He worked with my proposed itinerary, provided advice where he could and just made this planning a dream.
The only thing I did not expect was a daily change in our driver. No complaints though, just meant that we didn't have to make friends in a way, although we did come to know one of them better since he spent a seond day with us. Loved our ride though. We didn't ask for a guide and the drivers didn't speak English either. But they had an app installed in the car that would play an short introduction of our destination each time we reached. Wow. Its not a lot but its these little touches that show you that they are trying to make your time a good one. The drivers also spoke with us through a English-Japanese translation app they had installed on their phones, so communication was still good.
My mom loved the service and has already decided that when we eventually return to Okinawa to visit the Churaumi Aquarium, we getting Jino Tours to work with us again.
No comments:
Post a Comment