Our Adventures in Japan: Ishigaki-jima

December 26, 2014

Our flight from Osaka to Ishigaki departed at 7:30 am on Friday morning. We arrived in Ishigaki around 10:30 am and headed for our accommodations. We took the bus into the city and got off at our stop. After leaving the bus stop and trying to follow our printed google map, we discovered just how hard it is to find a place in a country that doesn’t have street names or house numbers. We asked a couple local people who live in the neighborhood, but they couldn’t help us. One gentleman was extremely kind, took the map in hand, and searched with us. He also couldn’t find it, so he called the lady we were renting from for us! After that brief phone call, we see this lady running towards us waving her arms. We couldn’t have done it without him. First off, we didn’t have a phone and even if we did, we couldn’t have communicated with her since she only speaks Japanese.

The lady we were renting from was very kind, we managed to communicate with the little English she knew and the little Japanese we know. She owns two apartments, lives in one and rents out the other. Basically our apartment was one room and a bathroom. It was nice though since it had a fridge, stove, and balcony.

After settling in we decided to find the church and then go to the beach. The beach we went to was at a resort and was the only beach within walking distance from where we were staying. The city is connected to the port with is basically a bunch of industrial looking things on the ocean. The weather was fairly cool and cloudy and the beach wasn’t that nice, so we didn’t go swimming. The resort was nice though. We walked along the beach and then into town to the tourist information.

This actually wasn't a bookstore at all.

December 27, 2014

The weather was cloudy again, but we still bought ourselves a pair of snorkeling gear. We took the bus to Kabira Bay which is a really famous “sight” because of the beautifully coloured water. It was really beautiful too, the disappointing part was that if you walk a little down the beach it’s covered with garbage. We found garbage on a lot of the beaches. I think part of the problem is that Japan doesn’t have many garbage cans. People are expected to keep their garbage with them.

Kabira Bay

After a short picnic lunch at Kabira Bay, we headed off to Yonehara beach to snorkel. Our plan was to walk there as the buses run infrequently around the island. We thought it was about 5km. I’m not sure how far it was, but it was far. In some ways, it was a really pretty walk. We could see the ocean along the highway and subtropical vegetation. As I was getting tired and it started to rain, this lady yells out her car window to ask where we’re going. She ended up driving us the rest of the way to the beach! As it was cold and rainy, neither of us ended up venturing into the water, but we did walk along the beach a little.

Our walk to Yonehara Beach

Yonehara Beach

December 28, 2014

We got up and headed for church. We went to the church we had found when we arrived. It was open, but there was no one else there and while it looked like a church, there was something missing- it didn’t have an altar. A man greeted us and asked us if we were going to attend church and something with the word “Christian”, he seemed very glad to see us. I managed to ask if it was a Catholic church, which was when we found out it was Seventh Day Adventist! This kind man (who I think was the pastor, he also only spoke Japanese) drove us to the Catholic Church! This church was obviously Catholic with a big statue of Mary on the outside.

The rest of the day it rained, so we headed to Ishigaki Limestone cave. I’ve never been in a cave before so it was a cool experience.

Heading into the cave

Apparently there's bats and large insects that live in the cave. We only saw
one spider.

December 29, 2014

We packed our snorkelling gear again and headed to Taketomi Island for the day. The ferry runs every half an hour and it only takes 15 minutes to get there, which is a good thing because I don’t think either of our stomachs could have handled much more. The ferry was a fairly small boat and the day was windy big waves.

Taketomi Island has a circumference of less than 10km, so we were able to easily walk everywhere. In fact, Adam renamed the island Take-tiny. :) On arriving, we went to Kondoi beach. The beach was beautiful and we tried to go snorkelling- by tried I mean we both were in our bathing suits and walked out to about our knees. The fact that the wind was blowing against us just made it feel too cold to go further. We walked a little further down the beach and came to the star sand beach (Kaiji Beach) where we saw all these people collecting star sand. My understanding is that star sand is actually a dead star shaped crustacean. This star sand supposedly brings much happiness to young couples. One lady we know reassured me that Adam and I would have much happiness now ;). We spent time relaxing on the beach, eating lunch, and reading. We walked to the third beach on the island and then took the ferry back. This time the ferry was a bigger boat and we had a smoother ride.

People trying to find star sand.

Adam picked up a handful of sand and found a star sand!

This is about how far we got in to the water.

December 30 and 31, 2014

Ah sunny warm days, so we went to Yonehara beach to go snorkelling. This was my second time snorkelling (the first was on our honeymoon in Florida) and it was amazing. You’d just be getting into the water and put your face in and see fish everywhere. The reef started really close to shore and I always stayed close to shore. I think it was better for me to be in shallower, and thereby closer to the fish, since I’m pretty blind without my glasses. The water was actually a good temperature, but getting out of the water and into the wind was pretty cold.

I'm all geared up and ready to snorkel.

By the beach there were these shops displaying and selling
island art peaces.

You can buy these little handmade clay statues.

This was outside of the store.

Behind the story they had this whole field of different art statues.

On the evening of December 31^st, we attended vigil Mass at the parish. At the end, Father blessed a bunch of wine and these little cardboard plate things with a scripture verse on them. They drink the wine and they hang the scripture verse in their homes for the next year. We were given one in English and Japanese and a bottle of wine which Father told us to drink at the birth of our first child J.

January 1^st, 2015

We attended 10am Mass at the parish. At the end of Mass, Father went into the parking lot with holy water and blessed everyone’s vehicles. It was interesting to see how the New Years’ traditions are different.

For the afternoon, we went to Fusaki beach and ended up walking back into town along the ocean. It was really beautiful. We came by a temple and saw everyone lined up waiting their turn to ring the bell. New Years is a big deal in Japan, and it’s one of the only days they go to the temple.

Fusaki Beach

A wee bit windy

This is a tomb that was built to commemorate a shipwreck by Ishigaki
that had many Chinese laborers on it.

Food vendors at the temple.

The line-up to ring the bell and pray

People buy their fortunes and then tie them on the ropes around the Temple.

Walk along the coast

Interesting flowers

On our way walking home, we stopped to eat at a Japanese restaurant. We ordered eel (my first time trying it), soba noodles (which is traditionally what Japanese eat on New Years and which I’ve decided are delicious- I made them for lunch today), and the famous Ishigaki beef with some vegetables.

Eel

Soba noodles

Ishigaki beef

Since Ishigaki beef is famous, we wanted to buy some at the grocery store, but this is all we found.

January 2^nd, 2015

First, we thought about kayaking and took the bus to the mangrove forest, but finding many kayaks, but no one to rent them to us, we took the bus back and went to Yaima Village. It’s similar to the Heritage Park of Calgary, but smaller. We got to observe mochi pounding and eat it after. Mochi is rice all mushed up. We had tried it before and hadn’t really liked it, but having it fresh was really good. There was a house where you could do calligraphy, dress up in kimonos, have tea, etc. They also had a squirrel monkey park of which I wasn’t particularly fond. Two monkeys jumped on Adam, without him doing anything to cause this behaviour, so I was a little uneasy about the place.