Day 7 – 3 May 2025, Saturday

I woke up at 6:25am this morning to 18 degrees C weather and perfectly sunny skies again. As I sat at the long table in the living room to eat my FamilyMart egg sandwich and sip on hot coffee, I admired the beautiful view of the ocean in front of me for the last time. After three nights in Nago, it’s time to say goodbye to this comfy apartment and head back to Naha for one final night before we fly home tomorrow.

At 8:20am, PL and I took our recyclables and trash down to dispose at the garbage station. Japan takes recycling very seriously so you have to sort your waste carefully. We then walked to the TOYOTA Rent A Car shop at the next block to pick up our car. For our drive back to Naha, we booked a Noah wagon, which looks nearly identical to the Voxy we rented three days ago. The Voxy is supposed to have a sportier and more stylish appearance than the Noah but their interior layouts are exactly the same. After inspecting the car, we drove over to our apartment, picked up the rest of the travel party and our luggage, and we were off at 9:00am.

The original plan was to have breakfast at Kouri Island, but we realised that most of the cafes there only open at 10:30am or 11:00am. Hence, we decided to have breakfast at a café nearby before heading to Kouri Island. ZY found a café called Flap Coffee and Bake Shop on Google Maps that looked pretty good, so we drove over and arrived 10 minutes later.

The café wasn’t very big and there happened to be just one empty table when we arrived. We were lucky because a queue started to form after we sat down. It was a Saturday morning so even the locals were out to have a good breakfast to kick start their weekend.

The café was nicely furnished and the ambience was cosy. Besides serving food and coffee, Flap also sells coffee beans from various countries around the world. They commissioned local artistes to create the artwork for the packaging for the beans, and those actual artworks were displayed in framed prints around the shop. Guests can scan the attached QR codes to pull up the artists’ profile pages and learn more about the artists who created them, which I felt was a nice touch.

I wanted to try the French Toast but it was already sold out (just one hour after opening, really?), so IH and I ordered the Eggs Benedict (1,380 yen/S$12.70) and Croque Madame (1,000 yen/S$9.20) to share. Croque Madame is ham and cheese sandwich topped with baked egg. Of course, it’s never too early to have a second coffee so I ordered a tall café latte (650 yen/S$6) to complete my meal.

The food took almost half an hour to be served. The Eggs Benedict was not bad but the Croque Madame was a little disappointing. It looked a bit like what you’d get at a school canteen, and tasted quite ordinary. After building our appetite for a while, it was a bit of a letdown. Overall, the coffee and ambience were good, but the food was so-so. At 10:13am, we left Flap café and headed north towards Kouri Island, about 20km away.

As we drove across Warumi Bridge into Yagaji Island, we experienced a sense of déjà vu as it was just two days ago when we cycled across this very bridge. On that day, we had the option to cycle to Kouri Island but decided against it because of the heavy clouds threatening to pour any minute. On this day, however, the rain clouds were replaced by thin, wispy clouds amid the clear blue sky.

As we approached the edge of Yagaji Island, the road ahead was a long, straight and steep downslope. It gave us an epic view of Kouri Big Bridge rising in the distance. It was one of those moments when you just go “wow”. As we drove across the 2km-long bridge, we couldn’t stop marvelling at how beautiful the scenery was. Everything was picture perfect. It really was breathtaking, with stunning, azure waters on either side of us.

When we drove past several cyclists on the bridge, I remarked “that could have been us”, but PL replied “it’s more comfortable in the car” and we all burst out laughing. Indeed, it was more comfortable to drive because the sun was blazing overhead and the bridge was rather steep. We would have been huffing and puffing to get across the bridge to Kouri Island and back.

We didn’t really have any destination in mind so we programmed the GPS to go to Kouri Ocean Tower. Upon arriving at 10:42am, we parked the car and thought we would just walk around and see see look look, since it appeared to be a major tourist attraction on Kouri Island. We saw that the entrance fee was 1,000 yen (S$9.20), which seemed rather reasonable, so we decided to check it out.

The admission ticket included a ride on the cart, which we didn’t have any idea what it was about. When we reached the line for the cart, we realised that it was a driverless, automated buggy car pre-programmed to move along a designated route to the top of the hill. As we sat on the cart and moved along the winding track, there was English commentary being broadcast over the speakers, describing the sights around us. It turned out to be a pretty cool and surprisingly enjoyable ride. I felt the 5-minute cart ride was worth the admission fee alone.

After alighting from the cart, we entered the Tower & Shell Museum. The Shell Museum contains a huge collection of over 10,000 sea shells from around the world. The shells were painstakingly categorised, labelled and displayed neatly in glass cabinets. I recognised many of the shells from my dad’s stamp collection but I had never seen them before in real life. Some were really huge and exotic, while others had brilliant hues. The collection was very impressive. There was also a gift shop selling accessories and jewellery made with shells, which all looked very pretty.

The Tower is located next to the Shell Museum. The Tower stands at 82 metres above sea level and it provides a panoramic view of the island and Kouri Bridge. The first floor houses a museum explaining the history of Kouri Island (which means “Love Island” by the way); the second and third floors are indoor observation areas with large glass panels where you can enjoy the view in air-conditioned comfort; the fourth floor is an open-air observation deck.

The view from the top of the tower was superb, especially with the beautiful weather and sea breeze. The water looked really inviting and it would have been nice to go for a swim in the sea, but we didn’t have time to do so. We spent a few moments soaking it all in before going down the tower to meet PL, who was hanging out at the restaurant and having another cup of (lousy) coffee. At 12 noon, we left Kouri Island and commenced our drive back towards Naha, some 87km away.

We decided to take the more scenic coastal route, which has no tolls but it’s longer. Traffic was quite heavy at some parts, probably because it was the weekend of Golden Week, and many locals were heading north to enjoy the nice beaches there.

You can’t do a proper road trip without good music, so I was the Spotify DJ for the day. I blasted music from my mobile phone – classic Mandopop and Cantonese tunes, songs we grew up with in the 90s. After what felt like a long time, we arrived at San-A Urasoe West Coast Parco City just before 2:00pm. In the end, we saved 940 yen on tolls but the drive took 30 minutes longer.

Parco City is a huge shopping mall with about 250 stores spread over three floors. All the big brands are here – Uniqlo, GU, Daiso, Muji, ABC Mart, HMV & Books, Murasaki Sports, Hands, 3COINS, H&M, Zara and the anchor tenant San-A department store. There is also a huge cinema, supermarket and dozens of restaurants and cafes. As we had to drop our luggage at the hotel before returning our rental car by 5:00pm, we didn’t have much time so we split up to do our own shopping and agreed to regroup at 3:45pm.

I made a beeline to HMV & Books but the selection of International music CDs was limited so I didn’t manage to buy anything. I visited the Village Vanguard shop, which sold lots of trendy and interesting products but nothing caught my fancy. I then stumbled upon a shop called Standard Products, which I had never heard of before.

Like 3COINS, Standard Products sells useful home and lifestyle products in the vein of Muji, but the designs are trendier and more stylish. But best of all, the prices are very affordable. I bought a ton of eco shopping bags in all the various colours to gift to my friends and colleagues, as they were only 300 yen (S$2.76) each. I also bought some travel packing cubes and other small stuff like a water bottle and sling bag. They were mostly under 1,000 yen each.

I later found out that Standard Products is related to Daiso because I had to make payment at the self-checkout machines over at Daiso, which was just next door. I also discovered that there are a few outlets of Standard Products in Singapore. However, when I visited the outlet at Great World City one month after returning to Singapore, I saw that the prices were essentially double of that in Japan, which makes it unappealing because the main selling point is the low prices. No point buying the same product in Singapore when it’s twice the price.

Before our time was up, I briefly dropped by the GU store and bought a cute T-shirt with illustrations of different types of sushi on the back. I loved shopping at GU during my last Japan trip in October 2024. They have lots of good quality products at great prices. By the way, GU is the sister brand of Uniqlo, and we don’t have GU in Singapore (yet). At the moment, I can only satisfy my craving for GU when I visit Japan.

It was a pity we only had less than two hours to shop at Parco City because I barely covered half the shops there, and I didn’t have time to eat my lunch too. You’ll need to allocate at least five hours at Parco City, especially if you want to have a meal and claim tax refund if you intend to do lots of shopping.

After regrouping, we left Parco City at 3:50pm and hastily drove towards our hotel in Naha city, about 6.5km away, mindful of the potentially heavy traffic. For our last night here, I booked The Orion Hotel Naha, located just off the main drag of Kokusai-dori, and very near Makishi Monorail station. We dropped IH, KP and ZY at the hotel with all our luggage so they can check in to the rooms first. PL and I then drove to the TOYOTA Rent A Car shop at T Galleria mall at Omoromachi, arriving in good time at 4:37pm.

When we picked up the car this morning in Nago, we were instructed to top up the petrol tank before returning the car, and we were informed that the gas station is just beside the entrance to the T Galleria mall carpark. However, as we turned in, we saw the sign for the gas station but it wasn’t clear where the gas station was. We drove straight in to the building and found ourselves already in the carpark, in the line to return the car. The staff then asked us to turn out again to top up the tank before coming back.

After turning out, we spotted the gas station. There it was, to the left of the carpark entrance. We were expecting a conventional petrol station but it was really just two inconspicuous parking lots within the building, and you couldn’t even see the pumps. We topped up the tank full and it cost 1,173 yen (S$10.80).

After the staff inspected the car to check that everything was in order, we went back to the TOYOTA Rent A Car counter at level 2 of T Galleria mall to return the ETC and JAF membership cards. With that, we were done, all before 5:00pm. Perfect timing. PL and I then took the Monorail to Makishi station, just two stops away. From there, it was a short 3-minute walk to Orion Hotel.

We booked two rooms for the five of us, so PL and ZY took one room and I shared a room with IH and KP. Our room was actually a Twin Room with an extra bed added, so we had to rearrange some of the furniture to make space for our luggage. The room was modern and nicely furnished, certainly big enough for two people but a little cramped for three. After staying in large apartments for the previous six days, the room felt really small.

I booked Orion Hotel because of its great location, reasonable price and…free beer! The hotel is managed by Orion Breweries so all guests get free canned Orion beer and Orion Natura (fruit juice liquor) in their rooms, already chilled in the refrigerator so you can enjoy it anytime. On top of that, each person is entitled to one cup of free welcome beer at The Orion Beer Dining room located at the ground floor of the hotel. For those who don’t drink beer, non-alcoholic options are available – jasmine tea, lemon tea or lime juice. After freshening up, we went to redeem our free beer and drinks at 5:45pm.

Besides hotel guests, The Orion Beer Dining Room is open to the public as well. PL, IH and I got the beer while KP and ZY got lime juice. It turned out to be not one glass of beer, but three types of craft beers served in three medium-sized glasses. There was a Weizen (5% alcohol), Pale Ale (5.5%) and IPA (6.5%). The Weizen was a bit sour so I didn’t like it that much. My favourite was the IPA, which tasted a bit fruity.

Three glasses of beer were too much for me but I finished most of it. However, as I drank on an empty stomach, I got a little drunk after that. When we left the hotel at 6:25pm to walk to our dinner venue, I felt very jollier than usual but was still able to walk in a straight line, though the guys had to stop me from crossing the road when the green man had already turned red haha.

For tonight’s dinner, IH booked a yakiniku restaurant called Briand, specialising in charcoal grilled, high-quality A5 grade black Wagyu beef. We initially wanted to cancel the reservation because we had been eating a lot of meat for the past few days, but it was too late to cancel without forfeiting the reservation fee (2 days in advance required), so we went ahead with it.

The restaurant is located a short walk away from Kokusai-dori. When we arrived at 6:45pm, the staff greeted us cheerfully and led us to our private dining room. Technically, all the tables in the restaurant are partitioned so they are not really rooms but private dining areas. Each table will also have a dedicated attendant to cook the meat for you.

Each diner is required to order one set course. Each course includes free refills of salad, soup, kimchi and rice, and one dessert. You can also get a free drink if you follow the restaurant on Instagram or write a Google review. Since it was our last night, we went all out to celebrate. We ordered two 300g courses of Chateaubriand (19,800 yen/S$182.16 per course), one 200g course of Chateaubriand (15,800 yen/S$145.36) and two 300g courses of tenderloin (14,800 yen/S$136.16 per course). So in total, we had 1.4kg of Wagyu beef, which was a lot!

Before this, I had never heard of Chateaubriand. From the menu, I learned that Chateaubriand is a rare part of the cow, from which only 600 to 800 grams, or 3%, is obtained from each cow. It is also part of the tenderloin but it is more tender than tenderloin. Hence, Chateaubriand is so prized and so expensive.

We were all taken aback when our platter of raw Wagyu beef arrived. On the plate were five huge slabs of thick Wagyu fillets, beautifully marbled, with sesame seeds artfully strewn across the meat. I had never eaten such a thick slab of meat before. It was quite scary, to be honest. When they brought out portable lights for us to take photos of the raw Wagyu beef platter, you know that they take presentation and marketing very seriously.

We were happy to let someone else do the cooking so we didn’t have the chance to ruin the expensive meat. When our pretty attendant placed the first slab of beef fillet on the grill, it gave off a satisfying sizzle. Instead of a knife, she skillfully used a fork to tear the meat apart, demonstrating how tender it is. After cutting the meat into smaller chunks, she took great care to cook each piece evenly, making sure they were not overcooked or burned. Once it was almost cooked, she placed each piece of meat on a small piece of cabbage, pre-cut into perfect squares. The cabbage prevents the meat from burning, but it is also delicious to eat with the meat.

When I put the first piece of Chateaubriand in my mouth, it just melted in my mouth despite being so thick. It was so soft and juicy, just the right doneness, cooked to perfection. Paired with some Okinawan pink salt and wasabi, it was simply heavenly. It was hands down, the best beef I have ever eaten in my life. We took our time to savour each piece fully.

After cooking the three portions of Chateaubriand, we asked the attendant to take a break. They replaced the grill plate before cooking the last two portions of tenderloin. The tenderloin was not as melt-in-your-mouth as the Chateaubriand, but it was also excellent. By the end of the dinner, we were stuffed, but very satisfied.

The total bill came up to 101,753 yen (S$936). It was a very expensive dinner, but we all agreed it was worth it because we know we will definitely have to pay more than S$187 per person for such good quality A5 Wagyu beef in Singapore. I also liked that we didn’t have to cook the meat ourselves because we would probably not be able to do it as well as the attendant. It was a great dinner to end our trip, kudos to IH for finding Briand!

After finishing our dinner at 8:30pm, we went to Kokusai-dori to do some last-minute shopping. We went to the Calbee store to buy snacks – the Jaga Pokkuru snack that my mum loves, made of Hokkaido-grown potatoes. The shop was closing at 9:00pm so we just went in and grabbed as many boxes as we could.

We also went to the drugstores to buy plasters and nail clippers (!), a very Singaporean thing to do. We wanted to eat Blue Seal ice-cream one last time but there was a queue so we didn’t have it. I later bought a Blue Seal chocolate biscuit sandwich from FamilyMart but it didn’t taste as good as the fresh ice-cream cone.

By the time we returned to our hotel at 10:20pm, I was extremely tired but I still had to pack my luggage. It was a real challenge because of all the Calbee snacks that I bought. I couldn’t fit everything into my suitcase so I opened several boxes to discard the bulky packaging. We also toyed with the idea of having one last bowl of Ichiran ramen but I was too tired and lazy to go out again, so in the end, only KP went on his own at 12:15am to eat it. End of Day 7, one last sleep before we return to Singapore.

Day 8 – 4 May 2025, Sunday

Woke up at 5:30am this morning and checked out of The Orion Hotel Naha an hour later. Dragging our suitcases along, we walked to Makishi station and took the Monorail to the airport. The fare was 320 yen (S$2.95) for the 18-minute ride, and we arrived at Naha airport just past 7:00am. It was still rather early so we browsed the shops at the public area before going in around 8:00am.

Immigration and customs clearance were smooth. Most of the shops and the food court in the airside zone only open around 9:00am so there wasn’t much to do inside. At the duty-free shop, there is also Jaga Pokkuru and other famous Japanese snacks like Tokyo Banana and Shiroi Koibito being sold, so you can do some last-minute shopping here, but make sure everything fits within your hand carry luggage.

Our Jetstar flight 3K792 was originally scheduled to depart at 9:20am but it was delayed. As a result, I got to eat Blue Seal ice-cream one last time. I chose the Beni-imo soft serve, made from Okinawan sweet potatoes. It was very creamy and yummy.

Our flight finally departed at 10:10am. I was so tired I fell asleep immediately upon take-off. The meal was served an hour later and I had the Channa Masala with chickpeas and basmati rice, a butter chocolate cake and a small bottle of water. We touched down safely at Changi Airport Terminal 4 at 2:04pm, more than half an hour later than scheduled. And with that, it was the end of our Okinawa adventure. Another great trip in the books, looking forward to next year’s instalment of cycling vacation!