I Moved to Okinawa!

Hey Everyone!

Sorry for the lack of posts the last few weeks. I moved to Okinawa, Japan! It has been a total whirlwind. I booked my ticket on October 10th and left October 15th. So I only had about five days to get packed and ready and say goodbye to the few people that I could. 

My husband booked us an apartment on Airbnb for the first few weeks that is so adorable! The only downside is that is doesn't have wireless internet. So that put a halt to posting as well. The next place that we are staying does have wireless internet, so hopefully I will be able to start posting more regularly.

Okinawa is so beautiful! I am absolutely in love with it here

First day together in almost six month! FINALLY :)

This is so tasty! Not as sweet as the pumpkin spice latte in America. 

The first day we went to the Nago Pineapple Park. Kind of a tourist trap, but it was super fun! It takes you on an automated golf cart that takes you to see growing pineapples, bromeliads, spathiphyllum and anthuriums. 

After you get off the golf cart, you walk down a long corridor and its samples galore. There are all different types of samples, pineapple wine, fruit juices, pineapple pound cake, pineapple cookies, fresh pineapple. Lastly, there is an area that sells the usual touristy stuff, like t-shirts and more boxed foods. 

There are so many orchids here, everywhere! Which I think is crazy, because growing orchids in Michigan isn't that easy. I think the climate here is just perfect for growing them.

This is the view from our apartment, not anything special but I love it! You can see the ocean!

 This is a beach on my husbands base, Camp Schwab. 

 We found a secret beach by our apartment that I think is soo pretty!!

(excuse my hair, it was windy!)

 This is a sushi-go-round. Basically you sit at a booth and there's a conveyor belt with all different types of sushi on it that you can grab. The best part is that each plate is only 95 yen (which is 80 cents American)

Found a dirt bike racing track! My husband and his buddy just recently got dirt bikes. They had a blast, and I got some great pictures. 

                       

Hope everyone enjoyed this post about my first week in Okinawa! I can't wait to make more posts about the island!

Best Travel Websites

Hey Everyone! 

So since my husband and I have been long distance for a little over two years, he has lived in Japan for over a year now, and I'm still back in Michigan, I have researched for probably days which are the best travel websites. I always want to find the best deal so I can to save some money (so I can buy more makeup probably haha) and I wanted to share with you guys what I have found to be my favorite sites and also one I didn't find so helpful. 

Hipmunk

"Find cheap flights and deals on hotels with Hipmunk. We search hundreds of travel sites to find the best prices and take the agony out of travel planning." www.hipmunk.com

I love the layout of Hipmunk! I think that it is the easiest website to see exactly how your day of traveling will be. It shows when the plane takes off, lands and how long you'll be traveling with little bars (see the photo below.) It sorts the flights by Agony, which takes into account price, number of stops and flying time. You can also sign up with your email to have them notify you when a certain flight you want drops in price, which I find super helpful!  I also have found that Hipmunk pulls the most amount of flights from all different airlines. 

I booked my flight to Tokyo last Christmas through Hipmunk and saved thousands! I actually ended up getting a direct flight from Detroit to Toyko which was VERY easy. 

Hopper

"Hopper analyzes billions of flights to help you find the best deals and the best times to fly and buy. Start your flight research with Hopper to save time and money." www.hopper.com

Hopper is an app that predicts when it is the best time to book a flight to a certain destination. So say you've always wanted to go to New Zealand, but you don't know when it would be a good time to go price wise, Hopper will help! It breaks down the coming months into four colors: green (cheapest flight), yellow, orange and red (most expensive.) And in each of the four color breakdowns, it shows what the prices would most likely be. Green would be the best price and red would be the most expensive.

At the bottom of the app are some extra tabs that help out a lot too. The Prediction tab will give you a prediction with how the price will change in the future, for example, the prices will vary over the next three weeks, dropping $150. There is a Tips tab that will give you helpful advice, like if you flew out of a different airport that is nearby, or if you fly two days earlier it would save you money and if you made good choices with the travel dates and the arrival airport. The last tab Flights will show you actual flights that you can book from the app.

Seat Guru

"The ultimate source for airplane seating, in-flight amenities, flights shopping and airline information. The free app lets you access over 700 seat maps from nearly 100 airlines. It features advice and insights drawn from over 45,000 passenger reviews, so you can always find the best seat before you fly." www.seatguru.com

I really like this website/app to help me choose which seat to book! You can enter your flight information and it will take you to a seat map for that specific airlines plane. Then from there it breaks down each seat, either just a standard or will give it a red, yellow or green color based upon reviews. It will list the in-flight amenities and where power ports and bathrooms, ect. are. So nice!! I know that I am not aware of all of the little details on planes even though I have flown quite a bit, and this website knows everything!

On my flight to Tokyo, I was able to book a seat where I had a power port, personal tablet in the headrest and LOTS of room :)  And I didn't have to pay to upgrade to economy plus or anything!


Airfare Watchdog     ("Let Down")

One website that I found to be not super helpful was Airfare Watchdog. I had really high hopes for this website! It is supposed to show the user great deals on flights, which are unbelievably cheap usually, and you are able to subscriber to a certain destination or flight and receive email alerts when the price drops. However, whenever I clicked to actually find the flight, it would always be more expensive and have lots of restrictions on the flights. Maybe it was because I am from a place that isn't a big airport travel hub for the United States, like New York or Los Angeles. I'm not sure if anyone else has had any better luck with this site.  

Hopefully this will help one of you guys take an awesome trip in the future and get a great deal!!

Let me know what your favorite travel sites are!

Talk to you guys soon