Yagaji & Kouri Islands, Yagaji Beach (Dec 26, 2021)
2nd day, we rose and shined! It was a nice surprise to find 2 pet bottles of local Okinawa water in our room, provided by the hostal for free! Although they tasted the same, I love to drink local water. I always snap pictures of the local water that I got.
When we got out of our room, we finally had a better look of our hostel. I think it was a nice humor and good road sign that our hostel had this “Superman” looking figure standing in front of its check-in office. Also, though the hostel was located right behind a convenience store, it was surprising quiet at night! I love the quietness in Okinawa!
Since our hostel did not include breakfast, we decided to simply pack up & ride to the next town for breakfast! The next town in about 10km away? After going up north from Naha city, there are less and less convenience stores and shops. We knew that we should bring emergency foods, but still we wanted to eat breakfast in a nice cafe, so we tried to find one on the internet and headed there.
Although we were hungry, the weather was better than yesterday, slightly less wind (but still head wind), along the coast there were all beachs with light blue water and white sand. It is so pleasant to ride there! We did see some orange lines to avoid pumice and other particles from flowing into the beaches. I heard from news that recently there were some volcano exploded under the sea near Japan, bringing lots of pumice and others to shore, not only affecting Okinawa, they even went as far as Tokyo and Izu Islands. Some fishing boats could not sail out because of that…
We finally reached the entrance of the town, then it started raining. I hid under a big tree to wait for the rain to stop, and guess what we see? Pig!!! There is a statue of pig, because this town is famous for producing good pork!
Also, it was such a nice and well-organized town, they have long wide lovely cycling roads, painted in BLUE. Even crossing the roads, there are still BLUE ARROWS showing routes for bicycles! We joked that in “the Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, they followed a Yellow Brick Road. Here, we followed a Blue painted Road. Right, this is another Example how much Okinawa people love the light blue color!
Finally, this is our long-waited Coffee Shop! Isn’t it cute? The inside was decorated beautifully too! I think, I would be so happy to work in this coffee shop everyday… Having a Cafe Latte in this environment is really the best way to start a day! And then, my lovely Egg Benedict!
Unfortunately, I was still a bit hungry… since we were still in town, I decided to try out the A&W that we have been seeing in Okinawa everywhere. We heard that it is a fast food shop from the U.S., but I had never seen it before in the U.S. Though in Okinawa, I can find it even in convenience stores (this is ice-cream). The burger was actually not bad, not the best either. Clam Chowder soup was probably instant, kind of powdery.
After having TWO breakfasts, we must keep going. We passed by many white beaches. At one point, hubby decided to walk down the white beach, but then, as soon as he set foot, his foot sanked!!! It’s QUICKSAND!!! He immediately walked back up, but still his shoes were all wet, he had to change socks… haha!! We still don’t understand why it’s quicksand. No wonder nobody walked there…
Today, we decided to skip part of the route, so that we could bike more relaxingly, and made sure we could arrive our hostel before dark. The part that we skipped including the popular Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, but we had already visited it years ago when we scuba-dived in Okinawa. Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium is famous for its Whale Sharks, but we had even swam with Whale Shark in Philippines.
Yagaji Island and Mauri Island are two connected islands, one after the other, both connected to the west side of Okinawa main island. On the way to the islands, we cycled through quiet fields, farm lands, ate a few wild Shikuwasa (also called Taiwan tangerine), which were sour-sweet. And then, we saw the bridges…
Riding on the long bridges, with beautiful sea on both sides, felt incredible!! We couldn’t stop taking pictures!! Here, we also saw the orange lines to avoid pumice from flowing in. However, the sea seemed unpolluted, beautiful color. The Kouri Island was much bigger than we thought. We didn’t have enough time to go around it. But anyway, let’s have lunch!!
We found a little restaurant just near the entrance of Kauri Island and the bridge, it looked so cute, like Hawaiian. We had fried shrimp salad and Taco rice. They tasted so good!!
We also found a BLUE SEAL ice-cream shop on Kauri Island, but we were simply too full after lunch, so we headed back… Too bad, later I found out there were actually many beautiful beaches on the island, we missed them!!
Taking the same bridges back to the main island, we continued to ride north, along the coast. The coastline was so beautiful, it was never boring. The waves were so strong hitting the stones, amazing to watch. Also, from time to time, we saw some huge rocks along the road. They are beautiful.
On the way, we stopped by the Shikuwasa Park for afternoon tea. It is a must-go because there is Shikuwasa juice all you can drink for free!! In fact, there is a tap there that you can just take from the tap. They were so fresh so sweet! Also, there are all types of Shikuwasa juice, jam, cakes… made from Shikuwasa. There are windows showing their manufacturing processes, and windows showing their kitchen making the cakes. We enjoyed Shikuwasa tea and cake in their tearoom.
We arrived our destination just before dark. It’s a hotel in Kunigami. There is an interesting post office and garage just before the hotel. Their walls were so beautifully painted! Also, look at this postbox!
The interior of the hotel was quite unique-looking. Many places looked like concret, broken. Like a mixture of “The Terminator” and “Jurassic Park”. But to be honest, I cannot say that I like it, the broken concret floor hurt my toe!! However, there was a well-equipped kitchen, fridge and common area, washers and dryers, so quite convenience.
At night, we walked a long way to find our dinner. There were not many restaurants in this quiet town, and they all closed early either for new year or because of COVID. Finally, we found one. It was actually a place for drinking, noisy and smoky. We didn’t stay for long. We returned to our comfortable room to rest…
Today we rode just 63km to Onna to Kunigami, but we stopped by two islands and other places. It had been just a fun & busy day. Tomorrow we will enter Yambaru National Park in the north! There will be no shops at all, just nature!! Let’s see~~
Since Google Map does not show Cycling Mode in this area, it is shown by Walking mode.