Travel day to Okinawa

After getting back to our hotel Wednesday night just after 10 we had to re-pack our stuff for our trip to Okinawa.  China was cold, mostly below freezing, while Okinawa is tropical, much like Hawaii.  So we had to unpack our winter clothes and pack our summer clothes. This is part of the reason we had 4 pieces of checked luggage when coming to Japan.  We packed in under an hour and hit the bed and fell asleep pretty quickly.

We slept in a little bit, maybe until 9:30.  Our flight to Okinawa was around 3:30 but it was out of Haneda Airport in Tokyo.  That would be an hour and a half by bullet train and another 15 minutes by local train to the airport.  Japan airlines has a special fare for foreigners:  10,000 yen each way anywhere in the country.  The trick is you need to buy your tickets before arriving in Japan.  Okinawa, despite being far, is still part of Japan so we planned on spending a weekend there while we were on our trip.  We figured we would catch a train by 11 or so which would give us plenty of time to potentially miss our connection to the local train in Tokyo and would still give us plenty of time to check in at Haneda.  Before we left we had to once again store our luggage at the Marriott, and once again they sent a 90 pound 4 foot 8 woman to pick up our  500 pounds of luggage.  We hit the ATM again, bought our tickets, and headed for the train by about 10:50. 

It was a clear day and we got some amazing shots of Mt. Fuji from the train. Chris swears that if we are ever here during climbing season (July and August) we will climb it. We also shot a cool video of the scenery racing by from the bullet train.

Taken at 186 mph

 

We arrived in Tokyo right on time and transferred to our local train to Haneda airport.  We had no issues checking in and after quickly drinking the last of our water before getting through security we checked in.  When we did get to security we were surprised to see that you could bring as much liquid as you liked on to the plane.  The regulations of no more than 3 oz. that we have in the U.S.A  does not seem to apply in Japan.  If you do have liquids they have a special machine they put it in before they let you board.  We would remember this for the return flight.  We also grabbed a quick sandwich and some tea while we waited for our flight.  Chris especially likes these tiny crust-less sandwiches they have in Japan and he swore they didn't have them in the US until we saw some at LaGuardia on our trip home.  The 300 yen price ($3) is better in Japan than LaGuardia though.

Our flight to Okinawa was fairly uneventful except for the great views of Mt. Fuji from the plane just after takeoff.  Japan Airlines proved to be superior to every US based airline we have ever flown but it was not as nice as Korean Air.  The seats were a little smaller but the boarding and deplaning was just as quick.  We enjoyed an Okinawa beer, Orion, on the flight down as well as some green tea.  We did notice something very interesting on both takeoff and landing:  Japan airlines has a video camera mounted on the landing gear.  When the landing gear is down they show the live feed in the cabin.  So as you are taking off and landing you can see what the pilot sees.  This was pretty cool. 

After landing we headed for the rental car office.  The ladies at Chris’s job helped us reserve a rental car and they gave us very detailed directions on how to get to the rental car office.  When we got to the bus they called us by our name. They had a detailed list of who they were expecting and when  Chris saw the list of names we were the only name on there with non-Japanese characters.  When we got to the rental car office a couple of miles from the airport we presented them with our international drivers permit and they reviewed the car and how to use the GPS with us, and we were on our way.  We drove on the wrong side of the road and arrived at our hotel just after 8.