Ikei Island!! (pronounced E-K)

So... last weekend Chris and I decided to go exploring. Our pastor had told us about Ikei Island... we can almost see the place from our apartment. There are three little islands right off the coast of Okinawa, with bridges connecting all of them and we ventured out to the third one, which is Ikei. Just the trip there was breathtaking! And the best part was that it wasn't very populated. There are very few people who live on the islands and only a handful of people come to tour them each weekend.

Once we got there, we wandered upon Ikei Beach... unfortunately we had to pay to get in (about $4 per person), but it was so gorgeous! The water was unbeliveably clear... they also had all kinds of water sports to rent and participate in, but the Japanese are willing to pay much more than we are to rent them!
One of my favorite parts of the whole day was watching these adorable little Japanese children play in the water... the kids here are completely decked out in their goggles, tubes, long sleeve coverups, swimsuits, and goggles...

After we were done at the beach (you can only take so much of the sun here!), we decided to explore a little more and found this really cool look-out point... this is a picture of just one of many of the sites we found...
After we hiked just a little ways to see this point, I turned around and saw this GIANT spider's web... it was probably about 3 feet tall. And then, I saw the SPIDER!... It was so creepy. I told you they had giant spiders here! Total, it was about 6 inches long! (I zoomed in a lot for this picture, cause there was no way I was getting near it!)

Then we stopped by this adorable little cafe on the way back and ordered some yakisoba (it's a buck-wheat noodle with meat and veggies) and some banana cream cake.... oishi ka ta!! (It was delicious!)

Yea for exploring!! :)