oHacorte Bakery (Okinawa)

Rated #1 bakery in Naha, pictures of oHacorte's fruit tarts lured me to the shop on Saturday at 9 a.m.  The cafe was full and we had to put our names on the reservation list. However, it took barely a few minutes before we were brought to our seats. It had a very comfortable and relaxing ambience- perfect for lazing the day away.  We didn't realise initially but later found out that their shop occupied several levels, each...

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Hotel Pesquera (Okinawa)

1. Location  The location of the hotel is good. It is around a 15 minutes taxi ride to the airport (which will cost anywhere between 1200 yen to 1500 yen). While it is not right smack in the shopping district of Kokusaidori, it is around a 15-20 minutes walk. It is also around a 5 minutes walk to MaxValu (a supermarket) and a 7 minutes walk to Fukushu-en Garden (rated #5 on Tripadvisor but I didn't feel that it deserved such a high ranking).  No...

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Alaise De Bale Ishigaki (Okinawa)

1. Location Alaise De Bale Ishigaki is around a 30-40 minutes drive from the city centre, which means that if you wanted to have a meal at one of the more popular spots in Ishigaki, it would take you at least an hour to and fro. If you want to stock up on items from the convenience store, do that before you reach the hotel because we didn't see any convenience stores in the vicinity.  It is a good location if you want to be near beaches-...

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Builders

Builders was in the news last year, but for the wrong reasons. Despite that, my family who had tried the food at the cafe really enjoyed the meals, so we decided to have lunch there on a weekend. Apparently, there is a minimum order for groups exceeding a certain number of people. While we were not informed of that when we were there (not sure if it is because we didn't hit the minimum number or whether the policy is still in place), they...

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