Arriving in Ishigaki
Airport shuttle to Haneda
We're on Ishigaki Island!! We arrived on the Okinawan Island yesterday evening after spending some time at Haneda Airport in Tokyo and a short three hour flight. Checkout was at 11am and our flight was at quarter past two in the afternoon. We checked in and then went to explore the airport's "market place", which turned out to be a 6 floor deal, with various restaurants and designer shops. The boys and dad went to sit in the Starbucks while mum and I had a look around but we soon went to join them. The Japanese Starbucks menu had a few interesting Japanese options and I picked a "Coffee Jelly", which turned out to be a very sweet latte with bits of coffee jelly and whipped cream. The drink itself was waaaaay to sweet but if you smashed the jelly bits with your straw so you got bits of it with the latte, it was actually really nice.
So we got onto our flight and flew the three hours to get us to Ishigakijima (Ishigaki Island).
Once there we took a bus to the harbour and from there we walked to our hotel. After we'd schlepped our suitcases up two floors in the Okinawan heat we were shown to the room we'd be staying in. Very spartanly furnished, the room has one bunk bed, two small double beds, one small table, two chairs, and a simple bathroom.
After we had settled in we went out for dinner at a small restaurant, called "Kaika" close to our hotel. We all decided to have some kind of "Don", which is a dish, where the main is served on top of rice in a bowl. I picked the Maguroikadon (tuna+squid) and it was SO good.
Philip's don with salmon and fish eggs
Kaika is a tiny tiny restaurant with a bar-like area with a couple of small tables and bar stools, and one larger (but still small small) room in the Japanese tatami style. That means you have the woven grass mats on the floor - the table is very low and you sit on the floor on wide, flat pillows. The fuse blew twice while we were there and the waitress muttered "not again" every time.
After dinner we had a short stroll through the neighbourhood and popped into Coco - one of the kombinis on Ishigaki - to buy some snacks.
Sleeping that night proved to be a difficult affair, as Michael woke up in the middle of the night, tossing and turning because he was too hot, which woke me up because I was sleeping in the same bed as him. Gradually everyone apart from Philip woke up. Dad was too cold because he was right under the air-conditioning unit, and mum is a light sleeper. So I swapped with mum, mum and Michael took dad's bed and he got theirs. Poor Philip was awoken by the moving around. And then I didn't sleep for two hours. Conclusion: still a bit jet-lagged.
Beach Day
We started the day at around 10am, with breakfast from a family mart - yoghurts and different sweet breads (healthy shit...) We then headed to the bus terminal, from where we took the airport line to ANA Intercontinental Hotel's beach. It was a really hot and sticky day - temperature at about 33°C and air humidity at about 85% - finally getting into the clear turquoise ocean was a relief. It was quite shallow and the bottom was fine and sandy. When we stuck our heads under water we could see some pretty fish swimming around our feet. About three hours and two very heavy rain showers later we decided to head back to our hotel.
Since, we'd only had a small snack at the beach (karê pan (bread with Japanese curry in it) for me and Philip, hot dogs for Michael and dad and a tiny pizza for mum) we were quite hungry once we'd rested at the hotel. We went out to search for a nice place to eat but most of the places we thought looked really good were all reserved or full. In the end, however, we found a lovely little restaurant that served traditional Okinawan food. We all shared a plate of garlic fried tuna with gôya (a really bitter cucumber - I think) and a plate of gyôza (fried dumplings). I had Yaeyama sômen - a noodle broth dish with Ishigaki pork and fish cakes. Philip and dad both had maguro don (what I had the day before), Michael had Ishigaki pork on rice, and mum had fried fish.
The fried tuna & gôya
We went to bed full and happy and I slept through the whole night.
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