Tim,
You probably already knew that we had a five-day vacation because of the
Ching Ming Festival and the Children's Day. Most of the families go tomb sweeping on Ching Ming Festival, but there's already years since the last time our family went tomb sweeping. I guess our family is not that traditional.
Instead of tomb sweeping, my dad took the three of us to Ishigaki, an island only a 30-minute-flight away. We went snorkeling and enjoyed the clean beach there. The weather wasn't good enough for other outdoor activities after the third day though, so we played indoor games like table tennis, squash, and mahjong.
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| The sand is really clean and beautiful! |
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| Blue blue sea! |
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| We are playing mahjong in the bar! |
I also painted a shisa, a cultural artifact and decoration in Okinawa. It's a lion like dog, which are often in pairs, with one's mouth opened and the other closed. The opened-mouth shisa is seen as male, and the other is seen as female. The shisa are so cute!
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| My cute shisa! |
Allison
Dear Allison,
ReplyDeleteThat sounds a lot better that pulling weeds and burning incense and paper around some old tomb. I had to look up Ishigaki Island. I see that it very close to Okinawa, and is a small island for tourist and fishermen. Was the food good? It should have been!
Are the "Shisa" the Okinawan equivelent of the Chinese "temple dog" statues? Did you see them all over the place? Did you get to take your's home with you?
it sound like a very nice trip. Would you like to go again?
Tim