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Published: April 1st 2006
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Sunday 26th March
On Sunday Belinda, Tomoko and I tested out nearly every type of Japanese transport! We
drove to Shizuoka station to catch the
Shinkansen to Tokyo. From there we caught a local
train, and then the
monorail Haneda Airport. We
flew to Okinawa Island (south of Japan - 2hrs 45 mins), got on a
bus to pick up our cool
Toyota rent-a-car! The hotel was beautiful and had lots of nice restaurants. The first night, we ate at a grill restaurant where you cook all your own meat. It was fantastic and delicious! The seafood salad, of course was all raw, so I just cooked it! Not the most sober we have ever been, we had a bit of trouble getting back to our room because we caught the elevator from a different wing. I thought I had found an exit door, so the girls followed, but after we saw the same door again, 5 minutes later, we realised we were just going around in circles! So funny, but you had to be there!
Monday 27th March
Much needed buffet breakfast the next day, huge selection, from miso soup and rice, to pastries, and custom made omelets!
All new cars in Japan have the GPS navi screens. So all we had to do when going somewhere was type in the phone number or place name and the computer would guide us all the way there! The Japanese lady talking before every turn did become a bit annoying, but I have two new words to add to my Japanese vocabulary! Hidari (left) and migi (right)!
First stop was the Galleria, a brand new multi-level duty free store. I’m not sure why you can buy duty free in Okinawa (a long time ago it did use to be a seperate country), but I took advantage of it and purchased some Gucci sunnies for myself!
We then drove to the bottom of the island where there is a huge memorial peace park. It is a memorial for all who died in The Battle of Okinawa at the end of WWII. We found a cool museum too with a huge Buddha statue.
Thanks to the GPS we were able to find a beachside café that was pictured in a guidebook. It was picture perfect, except for the cloudy weather.
We arrived back at the hotel just in
Jumbo
Our seats were upstairs on the upper level...cool! I didn't expect such a big plane. time for our 1 hour pamper session - foot spa and foot, back and head massage! Beautiful!
Dinner was at the hotel again, at a Chinese restaurant on the 13th floor. After we had finished eating, the staff from the restaurant brought out a birthday cake for me and sang! Belinda and Tomoko had organised it without me knowing - I was very surprised, it was great!
Tuesday 28th March
It wasn't the same as being home for my birthday, but I had a fantastic day anyway! Big buffet breakfast again then we checked out of the hotel. We drove halfway up the island then drove across ‘sea road’ to another small island. We found a beautiful beach with white sand and aqua blue water. Today was the sunniest day, so Belinda and I made the most of it and went for a swim. I think it was only about 20 degrees but we didn’t care. I didn’t particularly like paying 400 Yen to use the beach and 300 Yen to use the shower, however.
We spent the rest of the day travelling. At the airport, I picked up my sunnies from the duty free counter and
Tomoko also picked up something - her and Belinda had bought me the perfume I was eyeing off the day before - how nice! We boarded our huge jumbo again and flew back to Haneda Airport. I said goodbye to Belinda, then caught a bus by myself to Tokyo station and the Shinkansen back to Shizuoka. It was a super express train which only took 55mins!
I finally arrived back at The Mansion at 10:30pm to be greeted by Amy!!!! It was very surreal but fantastic to see her!
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