Where I stayed in Okinawa for 14 days - Naha area

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🤗 Naha

Closest to the airport, with the only bus trolley on the island, it is the easiest to get around and an area traditionally visited by tourists.

There are many shopping and dining spots, and most of them are centered around Kokusai-dori (aka Okinawa Nanking Road), which is within walking distance and car-free friendly.

Some people may think that Kokusai-dori is too touristy, and most of the things you can buy are just small goods with no special features. But in fact, some of the stores with fancy-looking facades and a little bit of dirt, carefully rummage around there are also good things to find.

I was interested in Okinawan handmade pottery for a while, and I saw several designer consignment stores in Kokusai-dori.

Some of these kilns are open for tours, with coffee shops, and if you're lucky you'll meet an artist, but most of them are accessible by car. So if you just want to buy some specialties, Kokusai-dori and its surrounding small streets are definitely shopping for foreigners.

After all, the store owners know that those who are willing to spend money on traveling will definitely pass through Naha, so even young/niche/fashionable stores will try to show their presence in Naha if they can afford it, or even if they can't afford it, they will put a counter in Naha.

For example, when I went to the Sakurazaka Theater, I found that Munakata's bread was on sale at the counter. Munakata is a famous natural yeast stone kiln bakery in Okinawa, and its main store is in Ginowan, a little north of Naha, so I was wondering if there was a way to buy some on the way to the north, but now I found it in Kokusai-dori by accident, so I can arrange for a purchase directly without having to make a detour to the main store.

So unless shopping is completely off the table, Naha is worth a stay.

And while hotels in Naha are generally just budget-friendly hotels that fulfill transit and shopping needs, with small rooms and low prices, it's hard to find more interesting options. The following two, although I'm a bit connected in it, are still considered to be operationally and design ideas, and I recommend trying them out.

📝 OMO5 Okinawa Naha by Hoshino Resorts

Opening in 2021 Keywords: convenient transportation, local information, multi-person rooms The good thing about OMO is that each of them is pretty easy to get to, and this one in Naha is an 8-minute walk from the tram station and a 10-minute walk to Kokusai-dori, which is a good way to spend an evening after eating on the street.

The public area is small and compact, with a large map of the neighborhood with OMO signage on the wall of the entrance Lounge, and a small chalkboard for guests to post their own recommended spots to visit, but this time we had already searched too far ahead of time for places to visit to refer to this area.

The front desk is attached to the bar and fronts the breakfast room, so there's no wasted space at all. The entrance staircase goes up to the second floor where there is a larger Library area with displays of local culture and a quieter area to work.

I always love the convenience of a hotel with a laundry room, and in addition to the washer and dryer there is also an ice machine and hot water dispenser and vending machine and microwave, which provides a sense of “staying” rather than just sleeping. This is true even in my home country, and if I can get back to the hotel or find the right place without having to navigate, I'm especially happy, as if I've become a little bit of a local.

But why do you want to become a local? Is it that when you pass through an area, it's not enough to just take a superficial look around, but you have to probe deeper into the real life of the place in order to stir up a richer and more varied content, and then it's possible to create more dimensional links with yourself, and only then can you really become a “me” experience.

Let's take a look at the room. The OMO Classic High-Low Room is smaller than the one in Kumamoto, but it has all the basic amenities, so if you don't mind, you can fit 4 people in it. Therefore, even if the price is higher than the same hotel, single discount is still cheaper.

However, one thing to note is that only 1.7m under the compartment will hit your head, which may not be very friendly to tall people, so you can only sit down as much as possible when you are on the lower floor.

The MiniBar will have canned local beer and jasmine tea for a number of people.

Another update for ceramics lovers. Naha OMO5 opened a handicraft room in November with 100 pieces of local ceramics for guests to experience while staying at the hotel. For more detailed information, click on the original article in the lower left corner and visit the Hoshino Group's Twitter account.

📝 Hotel Anteroom Naha

Opening in 2020 Keywords: art hotel, harbor view

Since its first store in Kyoto, the company has been collaborating with Nawa Kohei, and this time in Naha, it has simply made the entire building into a motif for its Direction series.

The direction series looks like this, and the one below is a random #308, so you can see that the facade is pretty well restored. There are also paintings on display in the actual hotel, but I won't put them out because they're too ugly to photograph.

I also searched and found that the one put in the Nawa room in Kyoto Andiru is also DIRECTION, so I really don't forget about it.

Speaking of the name and Kohei may not be familiar with some friends, but if you put this glass ball deer will not be a little impression? Back then it was because the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York collected a prismatic deer, so that the name and a moment the value of a great rise.

Continuing the gallery function of the Kyoto store, this one is also a two-story gallery as soon as you enter the door, but unfortunately, it was probably off-season, and there were no exhibits on the second floor, but it was okay to take pictures.

The second floor gallery is connected to the front desk and breakfast restaurant, the whole floor-to-ceiling glass is facing the harbor, breakfast time has a view of the window. I tried the breakfast for you, the buffet price is 2,500 yen for adults, and 2,280 yen if you make a reservation the day before, there are not many varieties, so it's okay to simply eat, and the coffee is quite good. Of course, I would choose to go out to eat next time.

When I checked in in the afternoon, I saw that the lounge was full of people who work remotely, and most of them even hold video conferences here, and there are monthly coffee cards in the menu.

To add a background, unlike many of our freelancers who go to coffee shops to work, coffee shops in Japan generally cannot sit for a long time and don't have power supply, so there is another kind of business called share lounge, which is a combination of coffee shop, shared office, library, etc., and charges according to the time of use. However, there are not many similar facilities in Okinawa, my local friends often complain that there is no place to work, and once in a while I find a coffee shop where I can use a computer, but it closes at 5 or 6 o'clock, and doesn't open for three days.

So anteroom presumably saw this gap and put out space that is usually underutilized to increase revenue.

The outlet is conveniently located on the countertop, and I can't help but be in the mood to work (eek). The most annoying kind of deep under the chair, you have to kneel on the floor and head in order to use the power supply ... ... Geographic location of this will be slightly more remote, out of the door is not the business district, but the local living area, although there are some sporadic food and beverage outlets, but at night from the main street into the hotel this section is particularly quiet.

But it's also remote for Okinawa, the actual walk to Kokusai-dori is about 20 minutes or so, and it's located close to the mooring port, and ships that want to island hop to the Keiranma Islands usually leave from the mooring port, so it's pretty easy to get around from that point of view.

Back to the rooms. The room is divided into standard room, art room and concept room, simply put, the concept room is for famous artists, probably a total of 3 sets. Art room is for small artists to show 1-2 pieces of work, the number of rooms is also more, so in fact, the price of art room and standard room is about the same, off-season standard room is basically 300-500 like, on the price of ordinary business hotel, may be three or four tier cities in the country's all-season price than it is high, that in this side of the more can cultivate some art cells, I am willing to visit again in the future.

Most of the hotel rooms made by this development company are skinny and long, including the Indigo Hotel in Beijing and Tokyo, so if you are interested, you can search and see. The basic idea of this room type is that the aisle is just enough, not too wide, so that the extra area can be extended vertically to make more functional divisions, such as putting a small sofa or something. And also saves the face width, the limited landscape surface allocated to more rooms, can be said to be the ultimate use of space, so that operational efficiency, and then reflected in the price of the room to the advantage of the customer I think it is also a good thing. After all, apart from the fact that the rooms look a bit strange when you first walk in, there's nothing inconvenient in terms of use or experience. The balcony also has a small view of the harbor.

The water remains too clear even near the harbor.

🤗 Naha

📝 OMO5 Okinawa Naha by Hoshino Resorts

📝 Hotel Anteroom Naha

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