Going to Okinawa from 07/16 to 07/18!
I’ve been really busy with work lately, so I wanted to take a few days off and planned a three-day, two-night trip to Okinawa, using a lot of the spots from Wiwi’s Okinawa trip as reference. I feel like travel blogs like this are much more moving than the kind packed with sponsored content and ads, or articles optimized for SEO until they become a visual headache!
We live in Fukuoka, and Okinawa is a domestic flight from here. From Fukuoka Airport to Naha Airport is about 870 km, and it takes around 1 hour and 30 minutes to get there.
めんそーれ！
Mensoore is an Okinawan dialect word, and it means the same as いらっしゃいませ. You can see it everywhere when you arrive at the airport.
After landing, I went to see the piano at the fukugi hall in Naha Airport’s international terminal. This piano was donated by Alberto Shiroma, the vocalist of the Latin band ALBERTO城間. I realized I hadn’t played piano in ages, so after taking a photo, I left.
Shisa are the legendary guardian spirits of Okinawa. They are placed at front gates or on rooftops. The male, with its mouth open, wards off evil, while the female, with its mouth closed, prevents good fortune from escaping. Chiikawa’s character Shisa is named after these guardian lions.
Hotel: Southwest Grand Hotel
After leaving the airport, we took a bus to the hotel. The most inconvenient thing about Okinawa for me is its transportation system, mainly because:
- Okinawa Bus (an Okinawan company)
- You can use OKICA, but not credit cards
- Tokyo Bus: you can use credit cards, but not OKICA (Okinawa’s local transit card)
- Why is there Tokyo Bus in Okinawa?
- The ticket says Osaka Bus
- Monorail: you can use SUICA!
This time we stayed at Southwest Ground Hotel, near Kokusai Street. It’s a five-star hotel. It was a bit pricey, but the room and service were both excellent, so I’d recommend it.
Fujiya Honten
After dropping off our luggage, we headed straight to the shaved ice shop recommended by Wiwi:
The shaved ice here was seriously delicious. I especially liked the red bean and cookie flavors. I couldn’t help but admire Wiwi’s taste in picking places—these are exactly the kinds of spots I like too!
Dinner: Burger Revolution Naha
An American-style burger place featuring Okinawan wagyu. I ordered a cheeseburger. The bun was really delicious, but the combination of the patty and cheese was too salty. The fries were also on the salty side. Overall, it was tasty, but it might suit American tastes more.
On the way back, I saw this very obviously AI-generated image and thought it was funny, so I took a picture of it.
At first, I thought the AI vibe was too strong and kind of annoying. But then I figured that if it helps the shop save money and still gets them publicity, then they really have no incentive to get rid of the AI look.
Day 2 Breakfast: Umi no Koya
Another restaurant recommended by Wiwi. We ordered the exact same set meal, and it was great too! But I do think it’s a bit pricey. After arriving in Okinawa, I kept seeing açaí bowls quite often. An açaí bowl is a dessert made by blending açaí berries into a smoothie and topping it with fresh fruit and oats. It’s super tasty and healthy. Still, I liked the hotel’s açaí bowl even more, which I’ll introduce later.
teamLab Future Park
After breakfast, we went to play at TeamLab Future Park. There was less inside than I expected, but I thought it was really thoughtful that drawings you make can appear on the screen, and that it even detects your eyes and limbs to make the interaction feel more real.
Makiminato Foreign Housing Area
After teamLab, we took a bus to the Makiminato Foreign Housing Area. This used to be housing for U.S. military personnel and their families after World War II, but now it’s home to all kinds of shops.
We visited a shop where you can freely customize your own perfume: THE FLAVOR DESIGN®︎ STORE “OKINAWA”. You can choose any three scents, adjust the ratio and color, and the staff will mix a perfume that’s uniquely yours.
By the way, when we were there, more than half the store seemed to be Taiwanese people 😂. After greeting customers, the staff would ask, “Where are you from?” and several groups answered directly: Taiwan🇹🇼.
After making our perfume, we stopped by Cocoroar to rest and ordered pancakes 🥞.
These are the best pancakes I’ve ever had in my life! They’re more like soufflé pancakes, with a very fluffy texture and a strong egg flavor (absolutely no fishy smell!). I never knew pancakes could be this delicious. If you ever get the chance to visit the Makiminato Foreign Housing Area, definitely give them a try. And they’re incredibly cheap too—just 800 yen.
Dinner: Ryukyu no Ushi
The thing I was looking forward to most on this trip was yakiniku! Since I’m older now, I prefer quality meat over all-you-can-eat, and I like ending the meal when I’m just about full. That said, I thought the portions were a bit small, so if you care more about value for money, you might want to try somewhere else.
Here are a few things I liked about this place:
- The seasonings are electric! Just press a button and it freshly grinds salt or black pepper
- Their grilling method is a little unusual—the meat doesn’t sizzle or produce smoke when you put it on the grill
- The sauces are all homemade, and they’re delicious
Orion Clear Free!
Orion is an Okinawan beer brand. If you come to Okinawa, you’ll see it everywhere, and many shops even sell Orion merchandise like T-shirts and more.
I only learned from Wiwi’s travel diary that Orion also makes a non-alcoholic version! I don’t drink either, and my current favorite is Asahi Dry Zero.
So when I saw Wiwi recommend it, I wanted to try it too. I was a little disappointed when I couldn’t find it at convenience stores, but then I found it at a drugstore!
Taste-wise, it’s a bit fresher than Asahi’s, but overall I still prefer Asahi’s Dry Zero.
Day 3: Time to go home
For breakfast, we just solved it at the hotel’s A LONG VACATION. They also have pancakes and açaí bowls. While the pancakes weren’t as delicious as the ones we had yesterday, they were still very good! I really love this kind of fluffy pancake.
Their açaí bowl was absolutely excellent! The smoothie was noticeably richer than the one at Umi no Koya, and it also had fresh blueberries. The combination was really delicious.
Next came souvenir shopping. If you can only bring one thing back from Okinawa, it has to be the red sweet potato baumkuchen from Fukugiya. I bought two on this trip, and I’ve already finished one.
After buying souvenirs at Naha Airport, we went upstairs for lunch. After a long hesitation, we finally chose Shiki.
This dish looks and tastes a lot like Taiwanese braised pork rice, but it’s actually an Okinawan dish called rafute. I’ve heard authentic rafute uses brown sugar, but I couldn’t really tell. Anyway, it was delicious. After all, finding braised pork in Japan is hard enough, let alone braised pork that’s actually good 😭.
Here’s a bonus photo of the dongpo pork I had on my last trip to Okinawa. I ordered this at a restaurant in a hotel, and just looking at the color and sheen, you can tell this piece of meat was something special.
Thoughts
Even though it’s all within Japan, Okinawa always gives me a vacation vibe. Because of our route this time, we rode TOKYO BUS, Okinawa Bus, and the monorail, and I really felt how annoying it is that you can’t just use one unified payment method. In Fukuoka, you can get by with SUICA for basically all forms of transportation.
Also, it feels like there are even more Taiwanese people in Okinawa now. When walking along Kokusai Street, you can almost only hear Taiwanese voices, and you hear them in yakiniku restaurants too. I looked up the data, and in Reiwa 7, the monthly number of visitors in December was 85,100, accounting for 39.7% of all foreign tourists, which ranked first. So yeah, that feeling is backed up by real numbers.
If you have time, come visit Fukuoka too!