Taketomi-jima Island

Taketomi-jima Island is a fifteen-minute cruise from Ishigaki-jima Island, and is known with its effort to preserve its culture as well as its neghbourhood and scenery. Walk from the port for 5 minutes, and you will find yourself at the center of the township, where you can rent a bicycle to see the sights. The neighbourhood of Taketomi, or Takidoom in the local pronunciation, however, is worth walking around. Another step will give you a new look of the traditional houses surrounded by stone hedges. Another turn at a corner may provide you a refreshed look of the village and an encounter with other people who will welcome you. Any beach is a several-minute ride from the edge of the township. If you visit Kaiji Beach, you can find star-shaped sand. A guide for another group warmly and enthusiastically taught us how to search for the sand, and even told us that sometimes you are lucky enough to find sun-shaped sand. The word hospitality is much consumed or wasted in brochures for sightseeing, but you can find it alive here in Takidoom. When I had been given a small bottle of star-shaped sand as a souvenir, I used to put it aside with no interest in it. Now I feel ashamed of my deed. What my friends wanted to give me was not only the sand but what they felt in Okinawa Islands.