I met Mr. Hara again, and this time he took me to a few different places. The first was Furukawa Rose gardens. The European style house and garden was built during the Meji Restoration era of Japan when may wealthy Japanese people tried to become more westernized.
Afterward, we went to Ueno and saw a very similar house and garden (Iwasaki garden), and also to Yushima shrine as there was a festival being held.
Finally, for lunch he treated me to a Tofu course lunch again. 
This month’s hiking club mountain was Mt. Takao and the mounting right behind it, Mt. Kobotoke. There were a lot of people joining this month, including a 3 year old girl, and everyone decided to take the Takao cable car and then hike the rest of the way. I was the only one who hiked the entire way up (as I always do), and since I hike fast ended up having to wait at the top for everyone else to show up.
For most of the trip back we spent visiting my friends’ friend and exploring an outer island of Okinawa called Kumejima. It was my first time to this small not so populated island.
After meeting up with the friend we went to a nice cafe with a great view overlooking the island.
The sweets at this cafe were all home made and delicious.
We then borrowed the car and set about exploring the island. Kumejima is small and in about half a day we circled the island and saw pretty much all the tourist spots.
Mi-fuga-
We were lucky to go at the perfect time to see the fireflies. At night the park was completely filled with little glowing bugs. Also, there were three different species all flying about. The big one shown here, as well as little small blinky ones found only in Okinawa.
We spent one day snorkeling at the beach. Not the greatest spot, but I still saw a lot of interesting fish.
An old fashioned Okinawan soba shop. The atmosphere of the place was relaxing and the soba was good too.
Sunset at the southern point.
Before we left we ate some of the famous seafood of the island. The most famous being the big Japanese tiger prawns.
For the Japanese Golden Week holiday this year, I went back to Okinawa, yet again.
My friend wanted to go to another hidden waterfall in Okinawa called "Tanaga-gumui”. On the way there we stopped at Hedo Misaki, the most northern point of Okinawa. To get to the hidden waterfall we had to climb down a very steep and slippery hill, but it was still not as difficult to get to as the previous one we went to. The water in the basin was quite deep and cold, but there was also a great rope swing that sent you flying into the water. It was extremely cold, but hurt if you entered the water the wrong way.
We also went to supposedly the only Italian style pizza place in Okinawa that used an old fashioned wood oven.
