Musings of a Drunken Monk: Individual Entry Archive

This past week I spent a few days down in the southernmost part of Japan, a few small islands that are part of Okinawa known as the Yaeyama Islands. I'll be separating my accounts of trip by island. So to start we first stopped at Ishigaki, which is the main island of the group merited by the fact that it actually has an airport and a smattering of roads.

As a matter of fact, for the majority of the trip we found ourselves traveling beneath lead sky; the rainy season has just begun in Okinawa, and though we saw very little rain, the dark sky made for some less-than-brilliant photographs.

Ishigaki is seeing a major population influx, mostly in the form of retirees. New construction was everywhere, though for a while we thought it was buildings going to disrepair. Since not only during a slow season but also during the week, the place seemed desterted; it was great! We rented a small car and set about exploring the island. We took pictures for a very enthusiastic couple, found hairy (yes, really hairy!) crabs at low tide, ate Okinawan Taco Rice, and got sunburned. This is unfortunately where an unwanted guest, a hair of some sort inside my camera lens, made its first appearance. You'll see it featured throughout, much to my dismay.