After alighting from the Prefecture Office Monorail Station, we made our way to Hotel Gracery, a mere 5 minutes walk. As we were still very early, we could not check into the hotel first. The check in time is 2 pm, so we left our luggages with the reception.
We walked along Kokusai Street, as it was morning, a lot of shops were not open yet. Most of the shops open around 10 am and closed around 10 pm.
The street was very clean and beautiful. The weather at this time was very cold but unlike in mainland Japan, there's no snow here. Okinawa looked so different from Tokyo or Osaka, most buildings are modern looking, not many ancient Japanese houses or temples we could see.
A short walk from Hotel Gracery is Makishi Public Market. It is easy to locate, turn right to the alley opposite Hotel JAL. This market building is only temporary cause the original market is underoing some renovation.
There's restaurants upstairs in the market, one can buy seafood from the stalls on the lower level and bring up to the restaurants to cook for a fee.
Next to the market is a sheltered shopping arcade, there's lots of shops in here and we found one shop selling local products very cheaply. Most shops sell almost identical snacks and the prices vary.
This shop in the sheltered arcade sell the cheapest. Will post the address of the shop in later post. We were in Okinawa for 6 days, so we waited the last day to buy the local prodcuts, so we had plenty chances scouting the best prices for the local products haha.
Easily spend few hours here, cause there's three alleys of sheltered shopping arcade here but most shops dont open early cause they closed quite late at night.
The hotel was quite new about couple of years old. So everything here is new and clean. The space for hanging clothes does not come with doors, they provide bedroom slippers everyday.
They provide free bottles of mineral water daily.
The sink is outside and the toilet and bathroom are separate.
Do not stick any of these cards outside the doors if you want them to clean the toilet and room daily.
Fruits were not cheap in Okinawa, but after 8pm some fruits were sold at 30% discount. We bought some pineapple and strawberries.
On the upper level of Ryobo Department Store, were some restaurants.
We walked along Kokusai Street, as it was morning, a lot of shops were not open yet. Most of the shops open around 10 am and closed around 10 pm.
The street was very clean and beautiful. The weather at this time was very cold but unlike in mainland Japan, there's no snow here. Okinawa looked so different from Tokyo or Osaka, most buildings are modern looking, not many ancient Japanese houses or temples we could see.
A short walk from Hotel Gracery is Makishi Public Market. It is easy to locate, turn right to the alley opposite Hotel JAL. This market building is only temporary cause the original market is underoing some renovation.
There's restaurants upstairs in the market, one can buy seafood from the stalls on the lower level and bring up to the restaurants to cook for a fee.
Next to the market is a sheltered shopping arcade, there's lots of shops in here and we found one shop selling local products very cheaply. Most shops sell almost identical snacks and the prices vary.
This shop in the sheltered arcade sell the cheapest. Will post the address of the shop in later post. We were in Okinawa for 6 days, so we waited the last day to buy the local prodcuts, so we had plenty chances scouting the best prices for the local products haha.
Easily spend few hours here, cause there's three alleys of sheltered shopping arcade here but most shops dont open early cause they closed quite late at night.
Decided to have MacDonald breakfast with a great view of the airport runway.
After breakfast, we went to look for the monorail station which is located near the domestic terminal. It is very easy to locate, just follow the signs.
We booked our hotel in Kokusai Street, so we need to alight at Prefecture Office Station, the fare is 270 yen. Transportation is expensive in Okinawa, if there's four people sometimes it is cheaper to get a cab.
The monorail ride from Naha International Airport to Kokusai Street is only ten minutes. Great view along the way.
Finally we arrived at Prefecture Office Monorail Station. We took the lift to the street level, from here, we drag our luggages to Hotel Gracery which is about 5 minutes walk away. Very convenient and easy to locate the hotel. Good location.
