Ishigaki, Part Deux

So, during our last full day in Ishigaki, the clouds parted (a bit), and we went to a small island called Taketomi-jima by high speed ferry. In the center of the island is a quaint, traditional Okinawan village. Every house had the distinct Okinawan red-tiled roof, and each was adorned by its own unique "shisa", or the playful guardian "gargoyles" that one often sees on top of (and scattered throughout) houses in Okinawa. Some of them were really quite cool. Here's a picture of a couple miniature shisa that Yuko and I bought while we were there - they are now protecting our apartment in Komazawa! You will notice that the scarier looking one in the back is a replica of my favorite shisa from Taketomi - it has a crazy mane of hair in addition to the typical lion features.

Since Taketomi is such a small island (just a couple of kilometers across), we were able to walk from the ferry landing to a beach called "Kondoi Beach" on the opposite side of the island. And it was beautiful - by far the prettiest beach we had seen in Okinawa. I think the brief respite from the bad weather also made it look that much nicer.

It wouldn't be Japan, though, if weird things didn't still happen, even in this paradise-setting. And sure enough, while we were enjoying the beach and the sun, three vanloads of mostly elderly tourists came roaring down the dirt road to the beach and drove up right to where we were standing, drove a bit past us, then started backing up towards us again, then turned around and drove back the way they came. Each van did the same thing in turn. It became apparent that they were giving tours of the island, but they never actually let people out of the van to enjoy the beach! I felt bad for those people . . .

Anyway, Chris & Mitsuko left early the next day to head back to Nagoya, while Yuko and I had a little more time. We kicked around the Kabira area, near our minshuku, and enjoyed the nice weather - our last day was by far the nicest day we were there. Warm, sunny - we finally got to see why Ishigaki was so popular.