February: Game nights, Nakijin Castle

February was a quick month, and not just because it has fewer days. We were busy with various projects, including taxes. Marriage, moving, new jobs, filing jointly... it was definitely trickier than any other year. 

We hosted several game nights at our house, mostly playing LotR Risk

and of course, Valentine's Day

Our touring this month was a visit to Nakijin Castle ruins for the cherry blossom festival. We went during the evening and walked among the stones and trees that were lit up by colored lights and candles. 

Ocean Expo Park Part 2: Tropical Dream Center

(Last posts about January. Slowly catching up.)

On the northern end of the island, near the city of Nago, is an area called Ocean Expo Park. It covers a rather large area and contains several different sites, including the Churaumi Aquarium, several gardens and arboretums, a native Okinawan village, and a museum. On this trip, we visited the one of the arboretums, called the Greenery Kingdom, and the Tropical Dream Center, a large indoor/outdoor garden walk, featuring hundreds of orchids and other flowers and an observation tower. Again, another pictorial post. The photos aren't in order, but in this case, it doesn't really matter.

the orchids were mostly kept indoors

the orchids looked like they were covered in glitter

the observation tower. you took an elevator up several stories, then climbed stairs the rest of the way.

 and the view

Ocean Expo Park Part 1: Subtropical Arboretum

(Last posts about January. Slowly catching up.)

On the northern end of the island, near the city of Nago, is an area called Ocean Expo Park. It covers a rather large area and contains several different sites, including the Churaumi Aquarium, several gardens and arboretums, a native Okinawan village, and a museum. On this trip, we visited the one of the arboretums, called the Greenery Kingdom, and the Tropical Dream Center, a large indoor/outdoor garden walk, featuring hundreds of orchids and an observation tower. Again, another pictorial post.

the walk in

 

these sorts of water jets are fairly common in gardens like this. too early in the year for it to be on, though.

what they called an English-style garden, basically a hedge maze. neat though.

there were bees on its flowers

a long arbor covered in vines

they called this area "salt wind trees". all the trees here are hardy in the ocean winds.

the Okinawans like cute things, apparently, because frame creatures covered in flowers are quite common.

(see part 2 for photos of the Tropical Dream Center)

Shuri Castle

Hello from the island, much belated I know. Let's get caught up in bits and pieces.

January was a fairly busy month. As I mentioned (forever ago), we toured several places. I've already told you about Okinawa World. The next place we went was Shuri Castle, way down on the southern tip of the island in Nanjo. As I'm not much of a historian, this account will be mostly pictorial. Basically, the castle was Ryukyuan, the unified governing body of the Okinawan island way back when, and was built sometime during the 1300s. It was originally build by another political group, but it is considered to be the palace of the Ryukyuan kingdom. It was nearly destroyed during WWII, but has since been restored and is the most famous castle on the islands.

We started with a quick walk through a museum. Not as informative as it could have been, had we been able to read Japanese. But, as many places here do, it featured a neat miniature of the castle and surrounding area during the time it was inhabited by the people of the Ryukyuan kingdom.

The miniature: 

And a period boat model:

Then we headed outside. There was a large stream running under a bridge. On the bridge were a lot of ducks (or geese maybe...) that were not shy.

And 10 minutes later...

Once we were done playing with the local fowl, we moved on.  On one side was a small building, with another bridge leading to it.

We followed the paths through a gate, as always, guarded by shishi dogs.

There were a lot of gates, actually.

And a lot of stairs.

Which gave you a great view:

One of the courtyards. Through the doors was the main courtyard in front of the palace:

And at last, the palace:

Inside, the king would come down these stairs to official meetings of the court and such:

A story up (it was a three story structure), the throne room:

The crown jewels:

A highlight of our tour was having tea in the castle, where we were seated in a side room and served the type of tea and cookies that were thought to be served there, based on written records from the time:

And that was Shuri Castle. Later that afternoon, we took the monorail (an adventure in itself) to Kokusai Street, the most famous tourist shopping area on the island, rather like a mile-long strip mall made of tons of tiny and seemingly repetitive shops. We found one of the side streets was more interesting, as it was aimed at locals, and not tourists. We had dinner at the Japanese version of an Italian restaurant, where we learned an important lesson about making sure we always have enough local currency before ordering food. Thankfully we learned that the post offices have  ATMs that will take our credit cards...