Day 1.5

Today was my first full day on Ishigaki, since I spent most of yesterday just getting here. However! That's not to say I didn't do anything my first half day! The guest house I'm staying at, Maetakaya, offers dinner and breakfast, so I figured I would sign up for both, though personally, I think dinner is a little steep seeing as how cheap you can buy taco rice from local restaurants and stuff. An well. At least it's always pretty good. And actually, given that it's a set meal and that so far, it's come with some form of seafood, it would probably cost around the same price in a decent restaurant. Last night there was sashimi and pickles with I think champuru (a stir fry with Goya, and ours had ground meat and tofu and veggies). Plus dessert. Plus it's the closest I've had to home cooked food (of the Japanese variety) that I've had for a while. So other than the fact that I can't quite justify eating more taco rice, I really can't complain about the food!

Anyways, I was ready to write off last evening as a kind of dude "go to bed early" day but after dinner, the chef guy (who actually worked/lived in CA -the OC- and later Maui as a sushi chef) drove a few of us out into this jungle thicket area, where we were advised to suit up in long pants, long sleeves, and boots if we had them or close toed good shoes. We got there during dusk, so we killed time by spraying ourselves with bug spray to avoid being eaten alive. After night fell, we trumped through the jungle on a small muddy path to this small grove, where we were privileged enough to observe magic happening. Truly, it was amazing.

Though it was nearly pitch black, small light green and yellow lights floated in the air, while others seemed to sparkle in the distance. I had no idea there was more than one kind of firefly. The shiny ones were so pretty! It reminded me a bit of Christmas. The regular ones though... I dunno, there's something that just makes them seem so magical when there are ten or more floating around high in the air. So pretty. :)

But yes! That was my evening. :) I honestly cannot think of a better evening. Or well, okay, we'll I mean I can, but that ranks up there in the top. It's kinda nerdy, but I would choose to go watch fireflies like that over going to a club any day.

Today though, I got to go diving! It was ridiculously fun, even if we didn't go to the manta point. Kinda disappointed about that, to be honest. The waves were pretty choppy at our first dive site, and they said that they would probably be choppier at the manta point. As a diver, choppy waters make surfacing a pain in the ass, but it doesn't really matter once you're underwater. Our group, however, also had some snorkelers (waves, as I'm sure you can imagine, are not so great for snorkeling), one of whom got seasick at the first point. Having been with people who freak out with choppy waves (I swear, one day, that post about the Philippines will be finished), and knowing how scared people can get.... and the fact that the poor lady was seasick, I didn't want to be the douche and decide that the whole group is going to go to manta point. Despite the fact that I would have loved to go there and see manta possibly twice.... since I'm going tomorrow I decided to be a nicer person and let them take us somewhere calmer.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the second dive as well. Actually, we saw a bunch of really cool things that almost made up for not seeing manta. Almost. Among the fish we saw, we saw a couple of cool lionfish, a b ch of small tiny black fish hiding In an anemone, loads of clown fish, and a moray eel. But. Y far, my favorites were a sea snake I swam behind for a while (seriously, those things are so awesome! It was at least as long as my whole arm, and possibly as long as my leg, though it was hard to tell since it was swimming). That was freaking sweet. I don't think it was (too) dangerous (and by dangerous I mean poisonous). It was white with black stripes. I'll have to look it up later.

Oh! And the other rad thing we saw was an electric.... clam! Who knew clams could be electric! I didn't that's for sure. This one was a bright vivid orange color, and was I a small crevice-like hole inside a small cave/tunnel thing we went into. It had long tentacles coming out of it and when our guide, Harvey, shine his light on it, it was like watching lightning streak around the outside! Freaking sweet.

What else did we see that was awesome.... Hm... well, we also saw a puffer! They're actually quite large; I was kinda surprised. And we saw oh! We saw an octopus, though it wouldn't come out of its hiding spot. Lots of sea slugs, an orangutan crab, ghost pipe fish... Those were cool. Really large Nemos. Angelfish. I think I saw all the fish from the Tank except for Peach, though I did see some starfish, some no bigger than your thumbnail. Oh! And some awesome spikey sea slugs.

I also met a fellow JET from Fukuoka, where I quickly established that I suck at geography lol. Apparently, she came the same year I did. She was part if the snorkeling team, and we had a good time chatting away in English :)

Our trip finished way earlier than I expected though, so I was left with an over abundance of time on my hands... So I walked around Kabira, the name of the city/area I'm staying at, for a bit. They're well known for their cultivated black pearls (less known for their soba) so I visited one of the vendors there, learned about how they inject oysters with irritants in hopes that it'll take and produce a perfectly spherical pearl, and window shopped hahaha. I also walked around the beach a bit, before going "back into town" and grabbed some ice cream and checked out the souvenir shop. They had a bunch of cute things! They also had Jasmine gelato! It turns out, Sanpin-cha is Jasmine Tea - had I known this last time I would have only bought that lol!

Actually, when I went to eat my gelato, the cashier lady came up and started talking to me, and we chatted for a bit in Japanese before she introduced me to her coworker who spoke English and lived in Pennsylvania! We chatted for a bit in English hahahaha. It was really weird, but I keep hearing from Japanese people that they don't like the states much, or places where there aren't many Japanese people to talk to and stuff. That was fun though. I also got into a conversation with the vendor of a glass store who lived in South Africa for a while; he spoke English, and I spoke Japanese. Super good practice! It was a lot of fun too (also apparently according to him the unemployment rate is 50%, or was when he was there, so it was super dangerous in the city he was in).

Actually, that's why I enjoy traveling alone sometimes. I find that I get into more random conversations like that (and will even start some myself!) which, if the conversation is in Japanese, does amaz g things for my Japanese. :)

OH YEAH. ALSO TODAY A COCKROACH THE SIZE OF MY THUMB WAS CRAWLING ON MY ARM. MOST DISGUSTING THING EVER.

Oh also, so I learned a little bit today from the local man at the glass shop about the kind of places you can stay here in Japan. I knew most of them.... Just not about guest house, which is what my place is.
Hostels are super cheap of course, and feature dorm style housing. Guest houses, however, while still economical offer individual rooms and stuff apparently? That's what Maetakaya is.

Anyways, for future reference, if anyone ever decides to go to Ishigaki and stay in Kabira, here's a rundown of the place I stayed:

Maetakaya guest house
Regular price: ¥4700/night
W/breakfast: +600¥
w/dinner: + 1600? I think.
Dinner & breakfast: 6300¥

Good points: Own Room. Clean. Close to Kabira (everything). Good food (albeit a little early). Clean bathrooms. Deck. Free wifi downstairs. Hotaru viewing. English ある！bathroom has paper towels. Has shampoo and body soap. Nice view.

Meh: tatami rooms and futons. Ridiculously skinny stairs. Dinner is kinda expensive and kinda early. rental towels are kinda small. Only four showers and three bathrooms to share with the while guest house (our wing anyways).

Bad: pay for AC! 400 yen/8 hours. Windows have no screens! If you're going to make us rely on our windows and a fan, at least make sure the bugs can't crawl in while we sleep! So many bugs. :( seriously, while I've been writing this, I've squashed four bugs. Four!

Overall thoughts: not too bad. Kabira is hella quiet, and it's probably one of the cheapest places here, but I would splurge for a bed and free AC. Also I think if I came again, since there's free shuttle pickup, I'd totally stay I. Ishigaki for
Ty next time, since the other JET chick said she was at a super cheap hostel. But ,
Maetakaya Wasn't too bad; I've stayed at worse I guess.