I discovered that I had enough points to book 5 nights at Hilton hotel. After a quirky destination choices, I finally settled on Okinawa. This was back in December, hehe.
Planning activities without a car, here is a couple of sites that I am finding useful:
- Soranews24: always full of ideas, especially good restaurant for seafood and local choices.
- Visit Okinawa site has interesting 2-day full itinerary on bus.
- This page by ms travel solo also has well-written blog about visiting Okinawa in 1 to 5 days.
Okinawa is the southern most prefecture of Japan. The main island is where its capital city, Naha is. The prefecture spread across 1,000 kilometres and finding where to spend time amongst the choices can be confusing.
I am going to be traveling with my elderly parents and our favorite activities are food, sightseeing, and onsen. Okinawa is said to have one of the highest life-expectation in Japan and in the world. So we will be keeping an eye on the culture and how people life in this paradise.
Food
This site proclaims that "In Okinawa, food is life." :) Delicious cuisine being the hallmark of Okinawa, it is famous for bone-soup, ice-cream (I heard it from an ex-colleague who grew up in Okinawa).
Okinawa has a special Japanese word, nuchi-gusui, which roughly made up of characters for mind and body. Food as medicine? Exploring nuchi-gusui. That means food is not just the source of energy and taste, but also well being. Approaching the right habit of mealtime is also observed. Okinawa has a habit of eating until 80% full, which is practiced in my family. They called this hara-hachi-bu.
It seems that typical Okinawan cuisine has a lot of Chinese influence, due to prevalence of trade for centuries, and its proximity. Such as pork belly braised (rafute), champuru (stir-fry veggie with bitter gourd), and Okinawa soba (with wheat noodles rather than made of buckwheat). It even extends to the drinks such as Okinawan sanpin-cha or Jasmine tea.
Unique Okinawan dish is goat-meat (Yagi) sashimi and mozuku tempura. Mozuku is a slimy brown seafood, unique to Okinawa that is superfood. Unique liquor is Awamori made from long-grain Thai rice with black koji unique in Okinawa.
Getting around
It seems that car is the most popular way to get around. However, if you avoid driving, bus is a convenient and plentiful with clear maps. There is a monorail line that goes around Naha. As well as you can take ferry or fast boat from Tomari port. There is many sites in Japanese, here's a few useful information.
Fast boat for Naha to Motobu, 75 mins. Takuma 3 is operated by this company, website --> here.
From my research, there is plenty to see and do at Okinawa. Normally people would start by the following order:
- Naha, the city centre itself. On the main island, Honto, it's the center of the economy and activities, and where the ancient capital of Ryukyu kingdom, as well as plentyful castle ruins, museum and shopping. 2 sites that are popular in addition to the Shuri castle and city centre are Urasoe (around the north), and Tsuboya (ceramic centre). It seems also easy to get around with monorail, or buses.
- Motobu are towards the northern part of the main island. This is where Ocean Expo park and the site for Aquarium, the largest tank aquarium in the world. Some people combine the trip to Nago (where there is pineapple park) and nearby beaches at Kouri and Navi (Nene). The area is around 2-3hours out via car, but there is fast boat or ferry option available. There is also a lot of tour bus available including those that organises day-trip, including airport bus that goes straight from Naha airport to the area in the morning.
- Mihama and Chatan area which is near the American bases. There is a lots of good cafe and American cuisine restaurants available. Seems like a very chillout place.
- After that mainly is the visit to the islands, for example Ishigaki (also famous for its beef) for snorkelling, diving, mangrove, and other beach activities. Kerama island seems closer to Naha than Ishigaki which is around the Yaeyama grouping.
For foodie, a special mention is the Ojima island towards the south, 40 mins drive from Naha airport. This article describes the beauty :) of the Okinawan tempura due to its influence from China and Southeast Asia.
