Day 7: Palette Kumoji & moving on to Ibis NorthPoint, Hong Kong

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Friday, 25th January 2013

There were still a couple of hours for me to spare in the morning in Okinawa before my 3pm flight to Hong Kong. I decided to head to Kencho-Mae station where the Palette Kumoji shopping mall was located.

This was home to the Naha City Museum of History and the upmarket Ryubo Departmental Store. Among the shops worth a look were the Japanese lifestyle stores Muji & Francfranc.

For lunch, I went back to my favourite Ramen store at Oroku and ordered gyozas that went really well with my delicious Ramen. This was certainly a nice meal to end my trip to Okinawa. All great things came to an end in the afternoon as I baded farewell to Japan for my flight bounded to Hong Kong.

As usual, I was thankful to the great hospitality and service shown by the Japanese over the past few days as well as the assistance that I received from complete strangers. Language barriers was an issue but it was easily overcome with some simple phrases and gestures which certainly went a long way.

Arrival at Hong Kong International Airport at 5.30 in the afternoon, it took a bit of effort for me to locate the A11 bus-stand which would take me straight to the NorthPoint Bus Station. As usual, the mediocre service at the airport information counter did not come as a huge surprise to me.

The whole bus journey (HKD 40) took more than 75 minutes stopping at numerous stops from Central across the Hong Kong Island. It was already nightfall by the time I checked into my room at Ibis NorthPoint.

This was a typical self-sufficient local neighbourhood with all the usual shopping amenities and food options. There was no reason for me to travel out of NorthPoint to get my usual fixes. Like most parts of Hong Kong, the streets were really crowded on a Friday evening teeming with people doing their new year shopping.

While there was really not much reason for me to cheer about, I'm certainly looking forward to the following day as I would be checking out 2 museums in the suburbs that were normally off-the-beaten paths from most visitors' agenda.

Hopefully, I would be seeing less crowds and more smiles this time.

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