the last full day in okinawa was spent on taketomi island, this really small island about 10 minutes away from ishigaki by boat. we were lured there by its description in lonely planet:
A mere 10-minute boat ride from Ishigaki-jima, the tiny islet of Taketomi-jima is a ‘living museum’ of Ryūkȳū culture. Centred on a flower-bedecked village of traditional houses complete with red kawara (tiled) roofs, coral walls and shiisa (lion-dog rooftop guardian) statues, Taketomi is a breath of fresh air if you’re sick of concrete.
In order to preserve the island’s historic ambience, residents (one-third of whom are over 70 years old) have joined together to ban signs of modernism such as asphalt. As a result, the island is criss crossed by a series of crushed-coral roads that are ideally explored by the humble push bike. Taketomi is also refreshingly free of other eye-sores such as the ubiquitous convenience store, though there are plenty of adorable ‘Mom & Pop’ shops scattered around the island
at LP’s advice, we hired bicycles – they were really expensive – to cycle around the island, and it reminded me of pulau ubin in terms of its remoteness and village-ness. perhaps because of that, the island didnt really seem as magical and alluring as LP made it out to be, even though it was definitely pretty and a nice place to spend the day.
contrary to its description, it does has asphalt roads, one of which also happened to be the first road we encountered on the island. more accurately, it is that the centre of the island is criss-crossed by crushed-coral roads, which were pretty but somewhat of a bitch to cycle on – the trick is to only go straight ahead, as trying to move forward diagonally would mean you falling off your bike.
there werent that many shops on the island either; there were a couple of eating places and one “mama store” that sold nostalgically old-fashioned ice lollies. it was also interesting that while taketomi island is famous among the japanese for one of its beaches that has star-shaped sand, there wasnt any mention of this beach in LP despite the fact that busloads of tourists spend a fair amount of time on that beach searching for star-shaped grains of sand to bring home as souvenirs. in fact, LP is somewhat disappointingly inaccurate when it comes to certain information on okinawa, so just watch out when planning your trip there.
people searching for star-shaped sand above, and an example of it below. searching for it is fun (i think), but it wasnt that easy as it might appear to be, and it’s far more convenient to buy a bottle of it for 100yen from the souvenir shops on the island and on ishigaki island.
the beach had lots of stray cats too – a total of 7 or 9, which is by far the greatest number i’ve ever seen in one place, as stray cats arent common in japan anyway!
it wasnt till i’d been to okinawa that i realise how many images of the island seen in stores such as Loft are actually from taketomi. Pictures of shiisa, for example, which are the guardian statues common in okinawa, are very often actually those residing on this particular house on taketomi:
its precisely because its images are sold as postcards and so on that photography is prohibited.. not like there was anyone there to stop us though..
i was too busy relaxing on the beaches of taketomi that i didnt take many photos, but there’re about 3 good beaches and 1 area that has a good view, and the following photos are of the last place:
these pics seem a bit dark, but the weather was awesome that day. bright and very sunny weather that got us both sunburnt..
check out how clear the water is!
look at how tanned i was… and this was just in the middle of the day around noon!
here’s an example of the crushed-coral roads on the island:
stone walls and pretty flowers:
there were also some sights on the island; though what exactly some of them were, like this one, we werent too sure:
another peace bell:
taketomi also has a viewing tower, although it isnt very high nor is there much to see. it was still an experience though, as the steps up the tower were very very steep and narrow:
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