Alaska

I recently had the opportunity to spend two weeks in Alaska, and I am so thankful I took a chance and got to see this beautiful state. The mountains are like nothing I've seen before; most looked like they were straight out of a Bob Ross painting. We were able to see a lot of wildlife, both in captivity  (at a reindeer farm and the Wildlife Conservation Center) and in the wild. 

Photos can't capture all of the splendor but here are a few to give you an idea of what we saw:

 hiking on Flat Top mountain

Elk at the Wildlife Conservation Center

Lake Eklutna 

Portage Glacier 

Hydrangea Festival

Flower festivals are usually a fun event here in Okinawa, as they feature thousands of blooms and are a great place for picture taking. In June, Corey and I went to one that featured my favorite flower: the hydrangea. I was surprised with a beautiful bouquet of pale blue hydrangeas from my aunt on the day of my wedding, so they hold a special place in my heart. 

After the festival we stopped at a place called Fruits Land, which was basically a bunch of fruit trees and jungle foliage that you walked through in a giant green house… They also had some caged exotic birds and a butterfly house on display.

 Corey found a fairy house

Butterfly chrysalis   

Ishigaki Island

Back in May we hopped on a plane and flew 45 minutes south to a neighboring island called Ishigaki. The island is much smaller than Okinawa island, so we were able to explore most of it in just two and a half days.
We started off by renting an 8 passenger van (which was a little bit complicated with NO ONE who spoke English in the airport), and we all (there were 9 of us) squeezed in to find our hotel. We passed a few scooter rental places, and the boys got inspired to rent scooters for the week end. The scooters ended up being an adventure in themselves, but turned out to be a fun way to explore.
The first stop on our exploration was a place called Yaima Village, which was an old village that featured very old houses, and squirrel monkeys! You could feed the monkeys and once you chased them down, they would hop on your hand to eat. So cute!

We then traveled to find a beach, but it was too cold to go in the water… We did find some nice spots to view the water, though.

We found the most beautiful views of the water at a spot called Kabira Bay. I can't even describe how blue the water was!

Next we went to the nearby Banna Park Nature Reserve, and walked along the trails, through the jungle-like foliage and found some cool bridges and observation towers.

The next day, we took a trip to the airport to drop one of the guys off (he had to head back early), and then explored some view points of the island, and found a very cool gallery of hand pained Shisa (I think thats what they were called…)

What a fun trip! I would have liked to spend a little more than just two days to explore, but I think we got to see a lot in a short amount of time. This trip even inspired us to buy a scooter!