One of the drawbacks of using miles to redeem flights is that you are often subjected to availability and hence there’s a risk that you need to take a slightly less direct flight. This happened on our trip to Okinawa.
Through LifeMiles, we booked our flights on ANA’s business class which connected via Haneda – from the map perspective, it meant that there’s a slight backtrack.
The good thing was that flying this way meant that you leave Hong Kong late at night and arrive into Naha Airport (Okinawa’s International airport) early in the morning. Our first flight was NH 840 – which departed at 1am – meaning that Ms. Buddha and I had a nice dinner at home before heading out – since that ANA is part of Star Alliance – business class passengers can use the Singapore Airline’s lounge.
I didn’t feel like any food but Ms. Buddha somehow still managed to have some desserts – the gift of having an incredible metabolism.
The flight itself was pretty smooth – and menu was distributed shortly after take-off – you can also select the breakfast you want – but because it was still the middle of the night – so I gave breakfast a miss – the options were decent and ANA normally has good food.
As we approached Haneda (Tokyo’s airport) – the sun was slowly coming up.
Haneda Airport is split into many sections and have traditionally served as Tokyo’s domestic bound flights – ANA actually has its own section where it’s pretty much all operated by ANA – we arrived at about 6am and our next flight (NH 463) was just before 8am – so time for breakfast! One tip is don’t go for the first ANA FESTA shop you see (because there’s always a line) – there are plenty of them dotted around the terminals.
To my delight, they have a simple egg sandwich (with a dash of mayo) – one thing you’ll find if you visit Japan enough is that they take their travel foods seriously – and the sandwich was tasty – bread was fresh and soft and the eggs had a good balance with the mayo – Ms. Buddha took the last piece.
After a bit more rest, we boarded our flight and because the domestic leg didn’t really have a business section – the seats were quite cramped – that said – the flight was pretty short and we saw Naha in no time!
Naha Airport is small – and you get out of there very quickly – we proceeded to the ORIX shuttle to the hire car spot and you’re allocated a ticket and then get ushered into a van – apart from the fact that everything is in Japanese – the process is very smooth and we were in our hired Prius before we knew it!
Buddha Explores 
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