Believe the Path

So this morning i hopped on a plane to ishigaki island, part of the. yaeyama islands, the southernmost island chain in japan. ishigaki is the main island with an airport and a small city, it is considered the most developed. i am also planning to visit iriomote island, which is covered 90% by jungle and guidebooks keep referring to it as "Japan`s last frontier" and taketomi island which has one road, uses water buffalo for primary transportation and has generally preserved the traditional Ryuku cultre. Relatively, okinawa has not been part of Japan that long, which is why its culture and a visit here is considered so unique.

i was picked up my the owner of the guesthouse. when we arranged this i asked how i would find him at the airport. he replied saying it would really not be a problem. he must have thought this was a very funny question since the airport is tiny and i was the only white person there. ya no trouble finding me. he is korean and his wife is japanese. they met at a guesthouse in australia and ever since he has dreamed of running a guesthose in a beautiful place. now they run this guest house and live here with their two boys, 2 & 5. I told him about my family here in okinawa on our way and when we arrived he noticed the picture of VInce & Becca in my wallet. he exclaimed and looked hard at the photo chuckling,  "they are so cute............ they are cuter than my boys" he said! haha... not sure you`re allowed to say that but it WAS funny.

he kindly took me to the grocery and showed me around the area in the car and pointed me to the nearest beach. when he was showing me the way on the map he said several times "believe the path" it took me a second to realize what he meant. "it will look like jungle," he said, "but believe the path. it is the right way."  this phrase was in my head my whole walk to the beach. what a wonderful phrase! i wonder how he found that phrase. Believe the path. i won"t draw out a corny comparison to my life journey because i think we call all find the meaning of this phrase on our own but i love it: believe the path. sometimes it doesn't not look like the way you are going could possibly be the right path but believe in it, it will get you to the right place.

practically speaking i was thankful that he described it the way how he did, i was less likely to doubt the path as i passed cows and sugar cane and jungle and suddenly i popped out right on the beach. totally alone. whoa!

it was a beautiful spot even if sadly quite littered. here i am way out in the middle of NOWHERE and plastic bottles are still washing up on the shore?!?! i find a spot, strip down to my bathing suit (its SO warm!), grab my snorkel and plod into the water. i have been talking and talking about how much i want to snorkel. unfortunately i talk big, mostly for myself, hoping i can forget how terribly afraid of the ocean i am. so even in barely a few feet of water, when i get down to swim, my breath quickens to a panic, i am turning this way and that trying to see everything around me, frightened by my lack of peripheral vision, oh boy! i'm up and out of the water, trying to slow my breathing, now panicked by what i am walking on and feeling far from shore even though the water doesn't cover my knees. i'd like to think i'd do better with someone to hold my hand but talk to anyone who's been in the ocean with me---thats not an easy job. 

i am not too hard on myself tho. going under water (epecially outside a pool) has caused me to panic since i was a kid. i almost failed many a swim test for this reason. i now recal screaming when my dad tried to take me snorkeling in aruba and tried to put me down... you know in the water. being in water, oceans in particular is legitimately my worst fear and one i have to actually face pretty often. i can now look at my dad and i's surf lesson in california as not only the scariest thing i ever done but also an accomplishment i can really be proud of. not only did like 5 waves legitatmely kick my butt but i was also constantly holding back a panic attack just from being out in the ocean.

i get back to shore and decide i need to take this a little slower and maybe lower my expectations a little. i have always felt happy and safe on the coast, sifting for shells and watching little creatures in the sand. i find so many beautiful little shells and some big ones too. this is nice. i lay out my towel and decide to do some sun salutations for courage. it works. this time i put my sandals back on. i feel safer when i don:t have to touch the bottom with my bare foot. i stroll through the water for a long time, getting comfortable wherever i am, just walking. finally i see some tiny little blue fish under the water. i decide to try or maybe create a new technique. since i feel so comfortable standing in the water, i stick my butt in the area, plunge my head under and turn my head side ways to look at my little blue friends. this is nice if not uncomfortable but is satisfying enough and doesn't make my heart accelerate.  i walk around some more using my new snorkeling technique. the most swimming i did was to plop onto my stomach, knees practically to my chest but allowing my feet to float to the surface, arms at my side in chicken wing position, kinda swirling my hands like a guppies' fins. yep.

but i am happy and not scared so who cares how incredibly silly i must look. i search for and gather shells and lie on the warm beach and wak in the warm water until mid afternoon. i walk east to the bay and then west to Skuji beach (pronounced scoogie, which makes me smile every time i say it). i wish someone could have taken my picture here because it would have looked like i was walking on water. it is a beautiful sandy beach with shallow waters enabling you to walk right out in the middle of the ocean, or so it looks, in only a few inches of water. i walked around in this for a long time gathering even more shells, and enjoyed the warn late afternoon air.

tonight i treated myself to my second trip to an actual restraunt while travelling in japan. it seemed like a good place to sample local food since there are some cheap restraunts nearby and no conveinient stores to eat from. i ordered a noodle dish with vegetables and pork and it was so good (a surprise!). i sat alone (i mean the only one there) making notes in "The Gutsy Women travel guide" so it will be ready to mail to my friend Priscilla, while justin timberlake played in the background.

tomorrow i am going to explore more beaches and hit some of the main observations points on the north of the island.

hope i can keep believing the path, so far its been a good one.