Ie Jima

Last Wednesday night, my neighbor Louise asked me if we wanted to venture up to Ie island the following day to go to the lily festival. She hadn't made it up there yet, and as her family is getting ready to move back to the states in a few weeks, this was going to be her last shot. I'm always up for an adventure, so of course we were in! Man it's nice to be a stay at home mom with no kids in school :)

The next morning we were off at 9am in hopes of catching the 11am ferry. We pulled in to the port only to find about 5 minutes later that it was the wrong one! So we packed the kids back in the car and followed a hand drawn map to the real Motobu port. Unfortunately, the map wasn't that great and the parking was kind of far away, so we hurriedly walked up to the ferry just as it started pulling away. Blast!

Sydney was wearing her favorite sparkly turquoise slip-on shoes, and her running to the ferry was making one of them fall apart. I could totally pull the top part of her shoe away from the sole and see her toes. So not only did we miss our ferry, but my daughter's shoes were falling apart. Great. We sat down and had lunch, then hopped on the next ferry and kept our fingers crossed that it wouldn't rain on us.

 So long Okinawa!

 Making our way to cloud covered Ie island.

Once we arrived at Ie's port, we had to get bus tickets to drive to the lilies. Louise and I felt a few raindrops as we stepped on the bus. Sydney thought the bus was super cool and asked about a billion questions on the 10 minute ride, including asking if every weed or flower she saw out the window was the lilies.

When we arrived, we stepped off the bus and the clouds parted! It was a small miracle, we couldn't even believe our good luck. The festival was right on the coast, the contrast of colors was really beautiful.

 

 Me and my cutie pies (one of which I had to bribe to smile in this picture).

A short walk to the bathrooms brought us to a path right near the water, and it was seriously so entertaining to watch the water crash up onto the rocks. I think I could have watched it all day.

Doesn't Shawn look happy to be in this picture with me?

 Emmy & Louise

 Syd & Emmy on a cool rock.

After the wave crashing show, we walked back over to the lilies. They were all so pretty.

As we kept walking, we went past a pavilion area where various dancers were performing.

 Giving Syd a lift so she can see.

Sydney is not a fan of loud sounds...

 so she watched them like this. She even does this when we flush the toilet, that girl has some very sensitive ears.

When we started making our way back to the bus area, we ran into our neighbors the Terpstra's! 

 Emmy, Louise, Sydney, Me, Shawn, & Ashley

The bus ride back was pretty crowded, so we had to pull down these little aisle chairs:

 I thought they were pretty clever.

We actually made a few stops to let people off and other people on, and people were so helpful in putting my chair away and then getting it back out for me. Pretty sure I said "Arigato gosai mas" ("Thank you very much") about a billion times, 'cause it's one of the only things I know how to say! Sydney was making the people next to her laugh quite a bit. Turns out they were trying to give her a wrapped piece of candy and she kept shaking her head "no." Then I told her what it was, and she was happy to say "yes."

Then we jumped back on the ferry and said goodbye to Ie...

and hello again to Oki:

I will never tire of seeing this water.

The weather ended up being incredible, we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day! Another bonus was that Sydney's broken shoe actually held up for the whole day, but made it into the garbage can shortly after we walked in the door.