Ishigaki with the Steins (April 2012)

In April, Chris' sister and her family came back out to Oki for round 2!! We started off the visit by taking a short flight over to Ishigaki Island; it's about halfway between here and Taiwan. We stayed at hotel with a really sweet freezing COLD pool!

Hannah and I decided to act like we were beached whales. I love acting like a kid :)

We got everyone in on the beached whale action!!

Jenny enjoying the nice weather.

That evening, we went to eat at a great Yakiniku restaurant. Yakiniku means 'grilled meat'. You are served prepared raw meat and veggies and then you grill it up yourself! This place was called Maru, and it was probably some of the best meat I've ever had. It's famous for the Ishigaki beef.

After dinner, we went to check out a cool park. Once we figured out where it was, we decided it would be extra fun to go back after dark to check out the stars! Well, it was cloudy, but we did have a lot of fun up there both nights we tried to see the stars... we checked out wierd bugs that had bioluminescent butts. Yes. That's right. Their butts were glowing. They were all over the hillside, but it was very difficult to photograph b/c they were moving too! And we also checked out a creepy egg building at night and took some fun photos. Oh, and most importantly, we saw our first Habu snake! Yes, the famous Habu that is deadly but hardly anyone sees while they are here in Oki. Ours was not in such a deadly spot, but still creepy to see it slithering along the road.

The Steins at the top of the park.

The 'egg' building

Glowing bug butt. :)

Night photo fun!

The Habu Snake!!!!! 

On day 2, we took a ferry ride over to Iriomote Island... yes, it's pretty remote, just like it sounds. We checked out the famous Hoshizuna no hama, or the Star Sand Beach. Some of the sand grains are actually minute protozoan fossils! Pretty cool. The beach itself was a gorgeous place for some swimming and snorkeling as well.

The star sand...you'll have to blow this one up to see the star shapes!

The beach

After hitting up the beach, we went on a boat ride down the Urauchi River in Iriomote. It was very serene... we felt like we were in the Amazon!

Oh, and supposedly there are wildcats that live in Iriomote... Hannah and I were on the hunt! Check out the one we found hiding in the woods...

We even found a special wildcat sign!

We wandered around the river for a little while where Hannah did some serious crabbing...

Mangroves

Sinking in!

Rawr! Watch out for the Iriomote wildcat!

A few pics from the ferry ride there and back... the way back was on the very loud 'work' ferry. I think construction workers use it to travel between islands. 

The loud ferry! 

Dinner at a Hawaiian restaurant. Hana means flower in Japanese. We forced poor Hannah into this photo op!











The next morning, Chris and I got up early to go hike Mt. Nosoko, one of two 'mountain' hikes on Ishigaki. It was pretty foggy, but we decided to go for it. The entrance looked a little sketchy, and I actually thought the hike was pretty creepy!! We had to break a ton of spider webs on a trail that was often buried in pretty thick foliage. Chris also spotted another Habu!! This was a little more scary this time since we were out in the woods. We also saw lots of lizards...who all seemed to have great little lizard personalities :) And we definitely heard some serious rustling in the woods! I think it was an inoshishi (Wild Pig)!!! We did make it to the top to find that it was socked into the clouds and mist. It was still a nice way to enjoy the morning.

The entrance

Can you spot the Habu???

Spider webs. Ick. But pretty cool looking!

My hero, the web breaker!

Foggy view from the top

 

Mt. Nosoko as we were leaving!! Just missed out on the view.

Ishigaki was a great trip... beautiful island full of farmland and sugarcane fields. We headed back to the mainland of Oki on day 3. There's still another adventure ahead for this Stein visit...