 |
| Cape Zanpa |
In late November Russ took a few days off of work and we went
exploring a few more scenic areas. We try to go out regularly and familiarize
ourselves with the various thoroughfares that take you to different areas of
the island. It's given us a little more confidence to explore when we know how
the various roads connect to each other eventually. Russ studies the map
of the area and picks a new area to see and we hop in the car and drive
there.
On one of Russ's Fridays off, we drove to Torii Beach and found
the section of the beach that isn't on the base. We spend a lot of time at
Torii Beach but you can only walk as far as a huge boulder to the left so we
traveled along the outside of the base and found the other side of the boulder
and looked for sea glass on the non-base side. I've gotten quite a nice
collection of blues/greens and white sea glass from all our Sunday afternoons
at Torii Beach. We tend to find more after a rainy or stormy day.
 |
| Cape Zanpa |
After spending about an hour there we continued down the road to
Yomitan and then found Cape Zanpa. It's a beautiful park with walking
paths leading along the edge of the cliffs overlooking the water. There's also
a lighthouse here that you can pay to walk to the top of but we weren't able to
do that since it was close to sunset and they were closing it down. They had a
few signs in English explaining that three large boulders weighing from 50-94
tons were carried from the coastline and deposited there after a big typhoon in
October of 1990.
We climbed among the boulders, walked the trails and took
pictures and then drove to Zanpa Beach to watch the sunset. Each time we've
been there we've seen a bride and groom being photographed after their wedding.
There is a beautiful wedding chapel at the edge of the water here that I'm sure
lends beautiful views to any wedding performed there. I enjoyed watching the
photographer setting up his shots.
 |
| One of the typhoon boulders |
The following day we started out going to the beach area near our
apartment that we are waiting to move into. We walked the entire sea wall and
saw a huge turtle with it's head eaten off on one of the beach areas off the
sea wall. I spotted several possible reading areas along the sea wall that I'm
sure I'll use often once we get moved. We then found a road that took us from
the Pacific side (where we will be living) to the East China Sea side.
 |
| The Sea Wall near our future Ishikawa home |
We
decided to spend a little time exploring Maeda Point (a cape north of Zanpa).
This area had pay parking and since it was close to closing time we only spent
an hour here. I would love to go back though and walk the many trails along the
coastline. They offer diving classes at this cape and we watched some of the
divers snorkeling in the waters along the boulders. We walked out onto some of
the boulders and followed a few trails and then hurried back to the car before
they closed the gates for the night. We then drove back to Zanpa to watch the
sunset. Both days were very enjoyable and we will probably venture back to
these two capes more often once we make the move closer to them. Here are a few
pictures of both areas for you to enjoy.
 |
| This guy seems to pointing "which way to the beach?" |
 |
| The Lighthouse at Cape Zanpa |
 |
| Sunset at Zanpa Beach |
 |
| Almost sunset at Cape Maeda |
 |
| The Chapel at Zanpa Beach |
 |
| The headless turtle/tortoise at Ishikawa beach |
 |
| Walking one of the trails at Cape Maeda |
 |
| Maeda Point |
No comments:
Post a Comment