A Trip to Okinawa! (07/16 – 07/18)
I’ve been swamped with work lately and wanted to take a few days off to unwind, so I planned a three-day, two-night trip to Okinawa. I drew a lot of inspiration from Wiwi’s trip to Okinawa. Compared to typical travel blogs packed with sponsorships, ads, and dizzying SEO-driven fluff, genuine travelogues like his resonate with me much more!
We live in Fukuoka, so going to Okinawa is just a domestic flight. It’s about 870 kilometers from Fukuoka Airport to Naha Airport, taking only about an hour and a half to get there.
めんそーれ (Mensōre)!
Mensōre is Okinawan dialect, meaning the same as irasshaimase (welcome). You see it everywhere the moment you step off the plane.
After landing, I stopped by to check out the street piano in Fukugi Hall at the Naha Airport International Terminal. This piano was donated by Alberto Shiroma, the lead vocalist of a Latin band. Realizing it had been far too long since I last played, I just snapped a photo and moved on.
Shisa (シーサー) are the legendary guardian deities of Okinawa. Placed at entrances or on rooftops, the male with an open mouth is meant to ward off evil spirits, while the female with a closed mouth keeps good fortune from escaping. By the way, the character Shisa in Chiikawa is named right after them.
Hotel: Southwest Grand Hotel
After arriving at the airport, we took a bus to the hotel. The most inconvenient thing about Okinawa for me is definitely its transit system:
- Okinawa Bus (local company)
- Accepts OKICA, but not credit cards
- Tokyo Bus: Accepts credit cards, but not OKICA (Okinawa’s local transit IC card)
- Why is there a Tokyo Bus in Okinawa anyway?
- The boarding ticket (seiriken) even said Osaka Bus!
- Monorail (Yui Rail): Accepts SUICA!
We stayed at the Southwest Grand Hotel near Kokusai Dori, a 5-star hotel. It was a bit pricey, but the rooms and service were fantastic. Highly recommended!
Fujiya Tomari Main Branch
Right after dropping off our luggage, we headed straight to the shaved ice shop Wiwi recommended:
Their shaved ice was so, so good. I especially loved the red beans and crackers. I couldn’t help but admire Wiwi’s taste in spots—it aligns with my preferences completely!
Dinner: Burger Revolution Naha
An American-style burger joint featuring Okinawa Wagyu; I ordered a cheeseburger. The bun was phenomenal, but the patty-and-cheese combo turned out a bit too salty. The fries we ordered were also on the saltier side. Overall, it was tasty, but perhaps better suited to an American palate.
On our walk back, I spotted this poster that was very visibly AI-generated. Found it quite amusing, so I took a picture.
At first, seeing such an obvious AI look feels a bit jarring. But thinking about it more, if it saves the shop money while getting the promotional message across, the owners really have no incentive to scrub away that “AI feel.”
Day 2 Breakfast: Umigoya
Another spot recommended by Wiwi. We ordered the exact same set meal, and it was great! Though I did feel the price was on the higher side. Since arriving in Okinawa, I’ve noticed açaí bowls everywhere. An açaí bowl is a dessert made of blended açaí smoothie topped with fresh fruit and granola—super delicious and healthy. That said, I actually preferred the hotel’s açaí bowl, which I’ll mention later.
teamLab Future Park
After eating, we headed over to teamLab Future Park. There was significantly less content inside than I had imagined, but seeing your own drawings appear on the screen—complete with eye and limb tracking to make the interactions more lifelike—was a really neat touch.
Minatogawa Stateside Town
After teamLab, we took a bus to the Minatogawa Stateside Town. This area originally served as housing for US military personnel and their families after WWII; today, it’s home to an eclectic collection of trendy shops.
We visited a fragrance shop where you can blend your own custom scent: THE FLAVOR DESIGN®︎ STORE “OKINAWA”. You can choose any three scents, tweak the ratios and colors, and the staff will craft a bespoke perfume just for you.
Fun fact: more than half the people in the shop while we were there were Taiwanese😂. Whenever the staff greeted customers and asked “Where are you from?”, several groups in a row answered right away: “Taiwan🇹🇼.”
After making our fragrance, we took a break at Cocoroar and ordered pancakes🥞.
These were hands down the best pancakes I’ve ever had in my life! They were closer to a soufflé—incredibly fluffy and with a rich egg flavor (without any eggy smell at all!). I had no idea pancakes could taste this good. If you ever visit Minatogawa Stateside Town, you have to try them. And they were super affordable too, remarkably just 800 yen.
Dinner: Ryukyu no Ushi
What I was looking forward to most this trip was definitely yakiniku! As I’ve gotten older, instead of all-you-can-eat buffets, I prefer higher-quality meat and stopping right when I’m comfortably full. That said, the portions here were on the smaller side, so if you care a lot about bang for your buck, you might want to look elsewhere.
A few things I really liked about this place:
- The seasoning grinders were electric! Press a button and it grinds fresh salt or black pepper.
- Their grilling method was unusual—placing meat on the grill didn’t produce loud sizzling or smoke.
- All the sauces were house-made and absolutely delicious.
Orion Clear Free!
Orion is Okinawa’s signature beer brand; whenever you’re in Okinawa, you see it virtually everywhere. Tons of shops even sell Orion merch like T-shirts.
I only learned from Wiwi’s blog that Orion actually makes a non-alcoholic beer (non-aru)! I don’t drink alcohol myself, and my current favorite has always been Asahi Dry Zero.
Seeing Wiwi’s recommendation, I decided to give it a try. I was initially disappointed after not finding it in convenience stores, but lo and behold, I tracked it down at a drugstore!
Flavor-wise, it’s slightly crisper and more refreshing than Asahi, but overall I still prefer Asahi Dry Zero.
Day 3: Heading Home
For breakfast, we ate right at the hotel’s restaurant, A LONG VACATION. They also serve pancakes and açaí bowls. While the pancakes weren’t quite as mind-blowing as the ones from yesterday, they were still delicious! I adore this style of fluffy pancake.
Their açaí bowl was an absolute masterpiece! The smoothie base was noticeably richer than Umigoya’s, and it came with fresh blueberries. The combination was incredible.
Next up was souvenir shopping. If you can only bring one thing back from Okinawa, it has to be the Beni-imo (purple sweet potato) Baumkuchen from Fukugiya (ふくぎや). I bought two this time, and I’ve already devoured one of them.
After picking up souvenirs at Naha Airport, we went upstairs for lunch. After mulling over the options for a while, we settled on Shiki.
This dish looks and tastes a lot like Taiwanese braised pork (lu rou), but it’s actually a classic Okinawan dish called rafute (ラフテー). I heard authentic rafute is simmered with brown sugar, though I couldn’t really taste it. Either way, it was delicious. After all, finding braised pork in Japan is hard enough—let alone good braised pork😭.
Here’s also a picture of the Dongpo pork I had the last time I visited Okinawa. It was ordered at a hotel restaurant; just looking at the color and glaze, you knew this cut of meat was something special.
Final Thoughts
Even though it’s still domestic travel within Japan, Okinawa always gives off such a vacation vibe. Because of our routes this time, we ended up riding TOKYO BUS, Okinawa Bus, and the monorail, which really made me realize how annoying it is not having a unified payment method—back in Fukuoka, you can get around everywhere using just a SUICA.
Also, it felt like the density of Taiwanese tourists in Okinawa has gotten even higher. Walking down Kokusai Dori, almost all you could hear were Taiwanese accents, and the same went for inside the yakiniku restaurant. Looking up the official stats, in the single month of December in Reiwa 7, visitors from Taiwan numbered 85,100, accounting for 39.7% of all foreign tourists and ranking #1. So that feeling was definitely backed up by real numbers.
If you ever get the chance, come visit Fukuoka sometime too!