araha beach park

after our brief but wondrous stint in ishigaki, it was time to head back and enjoy the mainland. okinawa is dubbed as japan's hawaii for its pristine beaches and tropical climate and so even though we were visiting in the winter, i wanted to squeeze in a beach day. there are a lot of beautiful beaches in okinawa, it was so hard to pick the best one to visit (given the circumstances). however, the moment i saw what was in araha beach, i knew it had to be it.

we had a somewhat rocky start when we arrived. i arranged for the hotel to pick us up from the airport at an extra charge, but it was already 30 minutes and nobody was there. there was wifi in the airport, luckily, so i was able to exchange messages with the hotel via booking.com. a few minutes later, i got a call from a booking.com agent but the conversation was difficult because she barely spoke english. in any case, i made it clear that we have already waited 30 minutes anyway, so might as well just wait a bit more until the driver arrives as we were assured that he was on his way. it took another 40 minutes before he showed up, and when he asked if i was cindy, all i could mutter was "oh thank god you're here." i was disappointed because the japanese people in the hotel industry i've known in my 3 previous visits all had exemplary customer service and were always on time. the man explained using a translator app that he was caught in a traffic jam and that he was truly sorry. 

as we arrived in the hotel, the staff were very apologetic and have declared that they would waive the airport transfer fee because of the delay. fantastic! anyway the moods have already swung to the brighter side before we even reached the hotel as lovro and i had a good view of the beach and also - what we came for - the pirate ship in araha beach park.

we took the least possible time settling in because someone was already excited to head out. 

then off to the ship we went! lovro had a blast exploring his ship as he declared that he is captain lovro 😃 when he had enough of it, he switched over to the playground where there were more kids playing.

we had a lovely stroll along the beach too, but the sun was getting too intense and i could feel my face getting crisp. why i didn't put on sunblock on the sunniest day of our trip, i had no idea.

lovro was finally tired, and he took a quick nap so i missed viewing the sunset. i asked the staff about the best way to get to the mihama american village. not that i was missing american food at all, but it seems a good place to go for entertainment and night lights to amuse lovro. tatsuto, the hotel receptionist, told me that i can just tell him what time would like to go and that he'd drive us there! perfect! even more so because lovro demanded pizza for dinner, so tatsuto looked up where the pizza place is and dropped us right there. 

after dinner we walked around and spent some time at club SEGA because, arcade games. it was 100jpy per game for most of the games, so it wasn't exactly cheap. i told lovro he could only use 600jpy so he had to pick wisely. we played racing games mostly, but when he saw the fish plush toy and wanted to UFO-catch it, i had to say no. 

he wanted that fish. weirdo.

we continued to walk around and went inside the dragon palace arcade. this was somewhat more suitable for his age as there were more toddler rides. i let him pick two, and he chose the F-16 jet and pikachu.

when he was getting bored (mostly because i was saying no to everything haha) i suggested ice cream. blue seal ice-cream is all over okinawa so we had to try it! tatsuto, who promised to pick us up, arrived shortly after we got our ice cream. he said he parked the car, so we could stay longer if we wanted. so i bought him ice cream too, and we chat for a while, mostly using a translator app, but it worked!

the next morning we came back to the park for a final round of playing before we checked out. i found the beach photos to be nicer in the morning. 

when we got hungry i asked where we could walk to and get a good japanese lunch. kiki, another staff of araha beach arapana resort, offered to drive us to a nice but cheap restaurant. he also collected us from there. then, while discussing the best way for us to go from there to urasoe dai (south of chatan-cho where we were, more than half an hour drive out), he offered to drive us again! awww!

it was valentine's day and i know that in japanese culture, the ladies are the ones who give chocolates to guys as a sign of love, courtesy or social obligation. i thought it would be a nice gesture to give them chocolates for making sure we had a good stay and not have to worry about getting around! so i went to the nearest convenience store; they had a shelf full of valentine's day chocolates and got a couple of boxes. when lovro handed the gifts to them, they were so delighted. tatsuto said, "we hope you come back in a month!" they have this celebration called white day, which is exactly a month from valentine's day, when it is the guys' turn to return the favor and give gifts. i definitely won't be back next month, but if i ever would come back, i'd make sure that next time it will be on a summer. 

exemplary service at araha resort arapana, c/o tatsuto and kiki