Okinawa Trip without Car: Part 7: Sightseeing Bus Tour (1) Kouri Island and Kouri Bridge

[Introduction]

I traveled to Okinawa for four days and three nights. This time, I visited Okinawa Main Island, mainly Naha area. My concern was that I don’t drive, which might make my trip difficult, but I enjoyed the trip very much by using monorail and taking bus tours. In this article, I will write about Kouri Island as part of Day 3.

[Visit Places (series of articles)]
* Day 1: Fly to Okinawa
* Day 1: Surijo Castle Park
* Day 1: Surijo Castle Park (Light-up)
* Day 2: Naminoue Beach & Fukushuen Garden & Shikinaen Garden
* Day 2: Kokusai Street
* Day 2: Kokusai Street (Night Walk)
* Day 3: Kouri Island [This article]
* Day 3: Churaumi Aquarium
* Day 3: Busena Marine Park
* Day 3: Mihama American Village
* Day 4: Sefa-utaki & Mibaru Beach & Himeyuri Peace Museum
* Day 4: Ashibinaa & Chura Sun Beach
* Day 4: Senagajima Umikaji Terrace & Return Home

[Travel Date]
2017.07.01-04

[Main Part]

The third day of my Okinawa trip for four days and three nights started. To begin with, I have a breakfast at Hotel Rocore Naha.

This is the second breakfast at Hotel Rocore Naha. I wrote about breakfast at Hotel Rocore Naha in details on the second day, so if you are interested it, please see the following article.

Okinawa Trip without Car: Part 4: Naminoue Beach, Fukushuen Garden and Shikinaen Garden

FYI: although I didn’t take photos, there were three kinds of Blue Seal’s ice cream and I ate all of them 🙂

One Day Bus Tour

On the third day of the Okinawa trip, I will participated in a one day bus tour. I would like to visit Churaumi Aquarium and Kouri Island, which were located in the north Okinawa main island, and found it would be difficult to visit them without cars, so I decided to look for a bus tour.

There are various one-day bus tours from multiple travel companies. Among them, I chose “B-1 course Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, Busena Underwater Observatory, Kouri Island and Mihama American Village Tour” in the Okinawa HIP HOP BUS operated by Jumbo Tours, as this tour met my hopes better than any other tours.

In this tour, I will visit the following spots.

Kouri Island and Warumi Bridge (View from the bus window) – this article.

Ocean Expo Park and Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium – the next article.

Busena Marine Park, Underwater Observatory and Mihama American Village – after the next. (8/20 edit: due to large volume, it was divided into two articles)

Start the Bus Tour

Now let’s start the bus tour. One of the boarding point was in front of the Okinawa prefectural government building. Since the venue was near Hotel Rocore Naha, it was convenient for me.

In the bus. This bus had enough space and free Wi-Fi.

This tour was unique in that it provided multilingual audio guide. In fact, more than half of participants were foreign tourists.

There was also the guide book written in multiple languages.

This is Chatan Park where we stooped by for a rest.

There was a baseball stadium.

Kouri Island

It took about three hours to reach Kouri island, the first spot of the tour.

Kouri island is located north of Yagaji Island in the northern part of Okinawa’s main island. Traditional rituals have been handed down since old days, so it is often called “God’s island”. Ferries used to be the only way to move between Okinawa main island and Kouri island. However, since Kouri bridge and Warumi bridge were built in 2005 and 2010 each, it has become possible to move by land. In addition, Kouri bridge, which is 1,960 meters long, has gained attention as a magnificent drive road recently.

Although I had just 30 minutes for free time, I will go around Kouri beach.

I found other tour buses parked at the parking lot in Kouri island, so I say lots of tourists there.

This is 1,960 meters long Kouri bridge. Unfortunately, the weather was not so good.

There was a market selling local fruits.

These fruits represented Okinawa, as a tropical island.

Fishing boats.

Cafe near the beach.

Then, I trturned to the bus and moved to the next destination, Ocean Expo Park and Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium. The photo below was Warumi Bridge viewed from the bus window.

[Closing]

That’s it for the article about Kouri Island as part of Day 3 of my Okinawa trip.

Kouri island is often featurd in guide books, as access from Okinawa main island to Kouri island has become easier since Kouri bridge and Warumi bridge were developed. When I saw pictures in Kouri island, I was fascinated with them and decided to visit it. I was satisfied with the scenery of Kouri island 🙂

In the next article, I will write about Churaumi Aquarium as part of Day 3.

(FYI)
If you would like to gather information on bus tours, I would recommend “Tabiplusone” since users are able to search for tour information across tour companies. For example, here is the link of the one-day bus tour I participated in.

[Map]

[Related Link]
Visit Okinawa Japan – Official Travel and Tourism Information
Okinawa Labo
Okinawa HIP HOP BUS | Jumbo Tours

I would appreciate it if you could share my article via the following SNS buttons.