Tsushima Escapades: Ishigaki Adventure Part 4: Taketomi Island and Shisha

While I spent most of my time in Ishigaki underwater (or preparing to go underwater or recovering from the energy that scuba diving seems to zap from you), I spent one day on land. There are many ferries from Ishigaki that go out to nearby smaller islands, and I took one to Taketomi Island. There isn`t much to Taketomi Island, which is prehaps for the best because I still managed to get lost a few times. Luckily, there are a few unmistakable landmarks on the island, including a few high towers that you can climb to get your bearings. This is the view from the top of one of them-- red roofs, green plants, and blue ocean.

Oh, and perhaps my favorite part of Taketomi Island-- the awesome dark coral-block walls lining the crushed-white coral roads.

The coral-block walls were especially striking with flowers blooming all over them.

...even without flowers, the short walls gave the houses a classic look--

Eventually I meandered through the labyrinth of `downtown` Taketomi and made it to the Western Pier. Reputed to be a good fishing spot, I went mostly to see the wonderfully clear, blue water.

You can see Ishigaki island in the distance--

Wandering down the back-coral road a little bit, I came to Taketomi`s claim to fame: the Star-Sand Beach. This beach, while not a great swimming location, boasts the discarded exoskeletons of zooplankton mixed into regular coral sand. They are adorably star-shaped; sifting through the sand and findind star-shapes is considered to be lucky.

The beach was lined by these enormous, draping trees, too--

Searching for star-sand was much more work than I`d thought. They were very small and difficult to separate from the regular sand. But I found some!

The beach has a rule that you`re ONLY allowed to take star-shaped sand; you can`t just scoop a bunch into a baggie to sort later. So there were a lot of Japanese tourists on the beach with me, sifting.

On my way back to town-- the road that connects the Western Pier and the Star-Sand Beach was quite lovely, lined with palm trees and flowers. While I took my time walking around the island, most of the Japanese tourists rented bicycles.

Back in town, I ran into one of Taketomi`s touristy things: ox-carts. There`s a wagon full of Japanese tourists behind this one.

...I really loved the flowers on the walls in town ^^

Here`s another piece of Okinawan culture that I saw a lot of in Taketomi-- Shisha! These `lion-dogs` come in pairs. One ususally has its mouth open and one has a closed-mouth. In Taketomi, they can usually be found posing on opposite sides of a rooftop or gateway into a private residence. I saw a variety of shapes and poses around Taketomi Island---