Interisland hop

Interisland flight

We woke to stunning weather today.  Damn!  We could have done with this yesterday for our exploration, but today all we’re doing is a short interisland hop by flight from Ishigaki to Naha on Okinawa island.

We left our hotel by foot around 0850, slightly ahead of our intended 0900 departure time.  We got to the port earlier than expected as well, and hopped straight on to the departing bus to the airport.

The bus was an old normal street bus with no room for luggage.  It was very awkward and it’s an example of how simple and non-wasteful Japan is in maintaining old buildings, public amenities, transport etc.

We arrived at the airport 2h30 before our 1205 departure.  The check-in lady looked Malay rather than Japanese but she’s probably a native Okinawan.

As with our previous domestic flight, no identity checks were carried out by the airline or security at all.  We killed some time airside before boarding the Japan Transocean Airlines B737-800 15 mins before departure.

Landing just over an hour later at Naha, we took the monorail to Asahibashi station where we had to kill an hour before our nearby Mr Kinjo Hotel opened for check-in.

Fortunately, we were able to wait at the comfortable bus station where we grabbed some lunch.  Even more fortunately, we managed to book a rental car with Banana Car Rentals upstairs.  It was an hour truly well spent!

The castle

After a brief rest, we hit the monorail again for Shuri-jo, the castle.  It was stinking hot and humid.  As the monorail glided through the city, I imagined this is what Singapore or Penang would be like if Japanese rule had continued there.

We were super sweaty by the time we had walked from the monorail to the castle entrance.

The guidebook had explained that this was a 14^th Century castle that had been reconstructed.  However, it was an old guidebook and I had missed up-to-date information that the castle burnt down soon after reconstruction.

All we saw was a huge temporary building that housed the reconstruction work.  OK, we enjoyed the hilltop view of Naha, but that was more or less it.  It was a total sightseeing fail.

We could here the roar of a military fighter jet above.  It was loud despite being just a speck in the sky.  That was a reminder that Okinawa is still home to US forces.

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Kokusai-dori area

We took the monorail to the Kokusai-dori which was a happening place lined with many shops.  There were also three significant arcades one of which had the public markets.

Like many markets in Asia, the downstairs is a wet market while the upstairs had eateries.  We found some good food upstairs for dinner and we cooled ourselves down with a much-needed cold beer.