Trip to Okinawa in 2015 - Day 4

Happy New Year! It's been a super busy year for me in 2018, but I haven't forgotten about my trip three years ago. Let's continue on …

Do you still remember the hotel we stayed in was very spacious? The guest room was over 530 square feet! Here's its bathroom, also considered big compared to Japanese standard size hotels.

The room had lots of storages. After we put our stuff away, there was still some empty space. I would say the storages are better than the new constructed condos/townhouses in Vancouver!

In the morning of November 25, 2015, we enjoyed our last breakfast in Rizzan Sea-Park Hotel. I believe it was a Japanese/ Western style breakfast buffet in Seaside Restaurant Tancha Bay. It was a huge restaurant with 50% of the tables occupied. I love the hotel very much since it never got crowded due to its tremendous size.

I recall there was a chef preparing eggs (?) for guests so my brother and I got one each. We tried to use the pepper and salt but we couldn't figure out how to use the pepper. With little knowledge of English, the chef used body language to show us how to use it. We looked like bumpkins 大鄉里, very embarrassed 😐 When we returned to our seats, we saw pepper and salt on our table...haha!

My mom met a woman while she was watching an entertainment show in the hotel the other day. During the breakfast, the woman and her family sat beside us. What a coincidence! She was originally from Shanghai and currently resides in Tokyo, a very sweet and friendly lady 🙂

Later on just before we left the hotel, we saw her again in the lobby so we exchanged contact information. Now I only know her name is 上野新子. In case she will see my blog, I would like to tell her: thank you for your warm and friendly greeting to my family 😊

After we finished breakfast, we left the restaurant  and passed by a supermarket/ souvenir store with a sharp red male underwear by the window. I decided to buy it for my uncle 三舅父 hoping to bring him luck 😃 He passed away the year after but I still wish him luck in his next life!

We stayed three nights and at least two mornings we put a green sign on the door which means the staff didn't have to clean the room. As a result, we gained 2,000 yen tokens to use in the hotel 😉

I was addicted to the hot spring every time when I had a chance to stay in a hotel in Japan where the facilities existed. Just before the departure, I went to the hotel's hot spring by myself.  There was a charge of 400 yen (around  $5 CAD) which was reasonable. As the description on the hotel's English website, it was really a "bath with panoramic view of the aquamarine sea",  very soothing and relaxing.

Time to go after the relaxing bath. Remember the driver who drove us around on November 24? He kindly offered to give us a ride to our next destination Naha. But then he received a call from another customer so he asked his Japanese friend (also a taxi driver) to give us a ride instead.  

As promised, his friend drove us to Lazor Garden,the most beautiful crystal church I have ever seen! Thank you to both drivers 😊 I know Okinawa has many beautiful churches for weddings. Without the drivers, I don't think we could see it in person.

There is a hotel right by the church, must be very expensive. 

After about 1 hour and 35 minutes, we arrived at our destination Villa Coast Nishimachi guesthouse (apartment hotel). Although the driver could not speak English, he was polite and provided good customer service. For 48 km of ride, we paid 4000 yen (around $50 CAD).

We checked in at our guesthouse two hours earlier than expected. The manager there was a young man who could speak English since he studied in Canada (I believe in Ontario) before. Yeah! Friends from Canada! He was super friendly and let us go to our guestrooms right away since they were vacant 😃

I reserved two guestrooms on Booking.com - one for my brother and me, one for my mom and my auntie. Each room had 2 twin beds and cost $80 per night. The rooms we stayed were on the 7th floor, units 703 and 705.

Let's go to unit 703! Needed to remove shoes and wear slippers before getting on the laminate floor. Right side was the kitchen with microwave, small fridge, sink, stovetop and a kettle.

Bathroom on the left side. There were mirror, sink, washer (National brand) and bathtub.

Let's take a closer look at the kitchen. The microware model was Sharp RE-T13 and 2 cups were provided. Fridge brand was Sanyo. Are we heading to the bedroom now? Not yet, don't forget there's a toilet on the left side after the bathroom, it was separated from the bathroom though. 

As a typical Japanese toilet, it had a control panel to wash your butt (spray or bidet), adjust the water pressure (front or back, weak or strong), it also had a button for deodorizer, etc.

Have you noticed a water tap on top of the tank? How it works? We flushed first, then washed our hands there, the used water would be collected into the tank for the next flush. What a brilliant idea to save water 😄❗

The cons is the room was very narrow, like a toilet in the plane so my elbows kept hitting the walls when I moved around.

Finally is the bedroom: got a small table with 2 chairs for dining, a desk with computer desktop plus another office chair and a closet with some hangers. The last picture is an air conditioner.

Here comes the most important part of the room - nice clean twin beds! The complete floor plan from Villa Coast Nishimachi can be found on Booking.com 🙂

At night we went out and grabbed some food as dinner from a supermarket which was around 10-15 minute walk. There were food samples of dumplings that my mom loved but we were not sure what kind of meat they contain. Because my mom had gout, she could not eat beef. None of the people there could speak English ... BINGO! I found pictures of cow, pig and chicken, let's take a photo of them and show it to the staff. It worked, she pointed to the pig.

After dinner was time for rest and relax. Accidentally found cartoon on the computer. No idea what they were saying (all Japanese) but it was very cute, like back to my childhood time.