After much contemplation, we finally decided to go Okinawa for our year end trip last year. We love Japan, well who doesn't? We can have japanese food all day long every day. But why Okinawa? While we were making plans for year-end trip many places came up - Osaka and Korea for example. But as we have a lil' missy (she's 3 by the way) we do have to consider the activities that we can do to keep her happy and engaged at the same time. Well its cool to go Osaka .. but she is probably going to be sad that she can't go on many of the rides on Universal Studios, Japan (USJ) as compared to disneyland. At the same time, the air-tickets to Korea happen to be on the high side (for some unknown reasons), with the same price we can actually go Europe! In the end, we decide to go explore new places... places which we hardly hear our friends would go... and where air-tickets are more reasonably priced.. and so Okinawa came to mind!
And so the planning begins, people who know us, will know, due to the nature of the Boss's work, our trip are usually planned like 2-3 weeks in advance, but ever since he was desk-bound last year, we were able to plan early for once (Like in a decade), and we managed to get some relatively good deals which I will share along the way.
As I did my planning, Mr Google became our best mate, and I managed to get quite a few good tips from the blog of Bumble Bee Mum .
Being in Singapore, there are no direct flights to Okinawa, except for the occasional chartered flight that Singapore Airlines have. Hence, that left us with transit flights. We haven't tried doing transit flights with the lil' missy so we were quite worried.
After checking out online, we found out that Okinawa, though part of Japan, it is actually nearer to Taiwan and Hong Kong, so it doesn't really make any sense for us to transit via other parts of Japan, and its better, since flights to Tokyo are expensive too, given that its the school holidays too!
So we checked out several airlines, we even considered budget airlines (nothing wrong with traveling budget). As we need to travel from Singapore and given that we have to transit in either Hong Kong or Taipei, we decided to narrow down to 3 airlines, Cathay Pacific (transit in Hong Kong), EVA Air and China Airlines (both transit in Taipei, Taoyuan).
Finally we decided to go with China Airlines, as its the only 1 out of the 3 that will allow us to be able to reach Okinawa on the same day without having to layover overnight. As the other 2 only operates flight to Okinawa in the early morning. The other reason, is of course the price, we paid about SGD 2,730.20 for 2 adults and 1 child (it was slightly cheaper at about SGD 2,400+ , if I could have confirmed the date slightly earlier, again, due to the nature of Boss work, we were delayed, but its still cheaper than the rest).
The only downside from booking the air tickets from China Airlines, is that the website is not as user friendly like the many other airlines we have used. The multi-city option in the website, at the time of booking, only allowed us to fly to 1 city and return from another city. It doesn't allow us to book non-direct flight. Hence, we had to make our booking over the phone or on-site at their office. However, at this time of writing this blog, I've made another attempt to try booking this multi-city option, and finally China Airlines have updated / upgraded their system and have allow for multi-city booking.
As things (or rather attractions), were relatively far apart, it is more advisable to drive in Okinawa. As per the regulations in Japan, we are required to have International Driving Permit. In Singapore, you can either get it via online or in person via AA Singapore.
We managed to get a relatively good deal (we paid about JPY 24,000 for 7 days) for our rental car from OTS. They have very good deals if you book at least 40 days in advance. As we only arrived in the evening, and they do not have a branch in the airport, we opt to collect Tsubogawa branch, where the 'office' is located right at the lobby within Mercure Okinawa Naha Hotel, which we had also booked as our base hotel during our stay in Naha (making collection and return of car easy).
The only downside from booking the air tickets from China Airlines, is that the website is not as user friendly like the many other airlines we have used. The multi-city option in the website, at the time of booking, only allowed us to fly to 1 city and return from another city. It doesn't allow us to book non-direct flight. Hence, we had to make our booking over the phone or on-site at their office. However, at this time of writing this blog, I've made another attempt to try booking this multi-city option, and finally China Airlines have updated / upgraded their system and have allow for multi-city booking.
As things (or rather attractions), were relatively far apart, it is more advisable to drive in Okinawa. As per the regulations in Japan, we are required to have International Driving Permit. In Singapore, you can either get it via online or in person via AA Singapore.
We managed to get a relatively good deal (we paid about JPY 24,000 for 7 days) for our rental car from OTS. They have very good deals if you book at least 40 days in advance. As we only arrived in the evening, and they do not have a branch in the airport, we opt to collect Tsubogawa branch, where the 'office' is located right at the lobby within Mercure Okinawa Naha Hotel, which we had also booked as our base hotel during our stay in Naha (making collection and return of car easy).
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| Our rental car for our trip |
As Naha, has a monorail system in place, its actually quite easy to explore Naha city without the car. It could be lucky that when the Boss was booking the car, he actually miscalculated the days, and we didn't have the car, the following day we arrive, but the day after. So we were left car-less for our day we plan to explore Naha.
As planned, we took the monorail from the airport to the hotel when we arrived, and when we were purchasing our tickets from the machine, by stroke of luck, we realised we could actually purchase a 24h ticket, which means we can have unlimited rides for 24hours, and because we reached past 9pm (due to connecting flight delay), we thought it would a good for us, instead of buying a per trip ticket, also as lil' missy is only 3, she is free.
As planned, we took the monorail from the airport to the hotel when we arrived, and when we were purchasing our tickets from the machine, by stroke of luck, we realised we could actually purchase a 24h ticket, which means we can have unlimited rides for 24hours, and because we reached past 9pm (due to connecting flight delay), we thought it would a good for us, instead of buying a per trip ticket, also as lil' missy is only 3, she is free.
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