Iriomote

For the first time we booked breakfast with the gursthouse but what came with small drawback. We had to get up at 7.30. But for this we got a nice meal with cold yasmin green tea, scrambled eggs with spinach, fish, nori, rice, miso soup and grilled pieces of sausage :-)

Then we had a small nap and started into the next adventure! We took the car and checked out the southwestern part of the island where the road ends and you can get only further by boat. We were told that this part would be the best to watch the wild cats of Iriomote which only live on that island and only about 100 hundred animals are left. But since the island is quite big, the likelihood to see one is very small.
Afterwards we went to another beautiful beach and the architects Richter & Reichmann built a beautful castle out of sand with tall towers, a deeep moat and even a bridge :D Since I got quite dirty during the construction I also had to take a swim in the crystal clear and pleasant water. Coming out of the water and walking towards René suddenly a lot of small fish jumoed out of the water between us which surprised us both a lot! But looking for some shells I was quite disappointed that all nice shells very occupied by crabs... And also didn’t dare to steal there house^^
But constructing a castle also makes hungry which is why we went to next small restaurant and had some ramen with gyouza, some dumplings filled with meat, onions and some garlic. As desert we went to a small store and bougt some ice cream and I ate some quite interesting one made from sweet beens :D

After this invigoration we went to the main attracktion of this day. Initially we were told that one cannot rent or boat or it would not be possible to enter the jungly without a guide. Sonwe had planned to take motorboat up the biggest river in okinawa. But arriving at the quay we saw that we could also rent kayaks and go on our own! So we rented one for two persons and rowed our way into the jungle! The experts already warned us that we need to take care of sandbank but it didn’t take long until we ran on ground in the middle of the river and had to crawl our way out with our hands! Anyway we had loads of fun and an amazing view in the jungle. We were even accompanied by a big white crane which always flew a couple a meters ahead of us and saw some big fish junping out of the water!
A couple kilometers up the river was supposedly a waterfall. But having quite strong head wind and currents which were very hard to predict and to maneuver we didn‘t make it so far. But we found a big sand bank where we could get out of the water and haul the kayak out. There we were surroundet by thousands of tiny transparent crabs and all seemed to run away from the big intruders. We also tryied to go a little bit farther inside but the jungle was too dense and we were to unaware of possible dangers that we just walked up the river beach a little where saw more crabs and beatiful mangrove trees. It would have been great to go farther up the river and explore more of the amazing world but unfortunately we had to return because the ferry do not go that long and we had to catch s flight next morning.
So we turned around and let the current carry us down. Well that was at least what we hoped would happen. But the currents still required a lot of paddling if you want to go straight^^ And while the weather was very nice when we entered the river it got increasingly worse the farther we went inside. The moment we turned strong winds and a thunderstom started to develop with great lightning accompanied heavy thunder! But luckily the storm didn’t hit us directly and the trip back went very smooth and easy.

But after we returned the kayak we were still a little short on time and we had to hurry to refuel and clean the rental car a little and get back to the ferry. The official speed limit in this island is 40 km and our navi told us we would need at least one hour. But thanks to Renés driving skills we made it in less than 30 min and the guy from the rental conpany even dropped us off at the ferry so that we could even get on an earlier ferry we had planned. But the weather got increasingly worse and it started to rain the closer we came to the port. So we were slightly afraid that it would be the same fast rollercoaster boat and this time during the storm. But luckily it was a big katamaren where we hardly felt any wave :-)

On Ishigaki it was still raining and we visitited a couple of very cute present and kitsch stores where we could probe many of the delicious cookies. We stayed at the same hostel as before but this time in the dormitory with six other guys. So we just dropped off our stuff and went to a restaurant with some promised life music. And this bar was indeed very nice. It was wuite full from the start and the people were in a good mood. As usual René ordered the food for us and this time we got many small snacks. Starting with seaweed on the rocks eaten with wasabi, ginger and soy, some absolutely delicious fried fish on sticks, sea grapes which had a very funny feeling in the mouth and sea cucumber. All of very tasty and also new and exciting for me. But I also wanted to try a little more and René asked for another special snack from this region. So got the luck of the Island but didn’t feel ourselves so lucky since it was just some pickles onions and prolly the worst thing we had eaten so far^^ But anyway during the meals a two man band with guitar and Sanshin, the threes stringed japanes guitar, started to play a coulple traditional song which we and the other guests really enjoyed. Clapping and singing along very loudly! They even allowed one of the guests to choose song and sing with them. As usual we were the only not Japanese folks and attracted some attention. What we though of a drunk couple of friends even just took photographs of us. After the performance one of the girls even mustered to talk to us in English and René quickly turned it into a conversation in Japanese^^ As it turned out they were mother and daughter and the girl was living on Malta for a year to study English even though it was still not so easy to talk to her. In the end of course they had to take another picture of us and then left the bar. Soon after we also went back to the hostel which was just too houses away and went to sleep since our flights to Fukuoka the next morning were quite early.Read more