Okinawa is really much more than one big island. There are many small islands all around the area as well as other large islands that are usually gotten to by plane. Iejima is one of the small islands that is located up near nago. One of the reasons I wanted to go see the island was to see the Lillys that bloom only 2 weeks out of the year. So early one Sunday morning Ken and I went up to Motobu port near Nago and got on the ferry to Iejima. The ferry, named Gusuku, was packed with a lot of middle school students all wearing blue on a school trip. Once at the island we rented bicycles for the day and headed off to the mountain that sticks up out of an otherwise flat landscape.

When we got to the mountain, we made our way to the top. From the top we got a spectacular view of the entire island. We sat back, relaxed, enjoyed the view, and plotted the best way to get to the Lilly fields.

The fields were filled with beautiful white Lillys and located next to the ocean. The strong wind pounded the waves against the shore creating huge splashes of water. There were also lots of middle school students around, all of whom also had bikes for the day. The fact that they were middle school kids that were given bicycles and complete freedom for the day to roam around was a bit amazing to me. I was never given that much freedom when I was in school. I also spotted an orange Lilly as well.

Next it was off to lunch at a local eatery followed by a trip to the other side of the island and the cave. The cave wasn’t really a cave but really the underside of a cliff that was carved out by water. It was still fun to do some looking around though.

We made it back for the last ferry home, which was actually at 16:00. All the middle school students made it back as well. After a tough day of bicycling all around an island we finally got to relax and enjoy the ride back home.