Shuri

The island of Okinawa used to be the hub of the Ryukyu kindom, which served as a hub for commerce between China and Japan. The castle of Shuri, house of the king of the Ryukyu kingdom, is located on a small hill overlooking the port at Naha, and, like so many castles, is mostly built on the ruins of the previous destroyed or burnt-down castles.

Now Shuri is a fortified castle, and like all fortified castles, the point is that there is a clear separation between what is inside the walls and what is outside the walls. Shuri does, however, have one peculiarity, and that is that there is nothing, if fact, inside the walls. Having caught on to the fact that you needed to have guards on top of the walls to protect them, they thought it would be a huge waste of space to have to put guard housing inside the walls, thereby taking up valuable ornamental garden space.

It would be much easier to put the guard housing up on top of the walls, where the guards have to be anyway. That leaves plenty of space for the royal ornamental gardens, and still have space for a big inside courtyard where you can have dances to entertain your guests.

We saw 3 different dances, which were all interesting, but they were all very very slow dances.

The royal family's quarters were very impressive, with many many small chambers everywhere, and a very ornate throne room in laquered wood, with 2 large sliding doors in the wall. When open, the dignitaries sitting on tatami mats in the courtyard could look up and see the king sitting in his throne. I thought that was a really neat idea, as it gives a clear image of "I am the king and you are guests", and also avoids over-crowding of the throne room, which could only accommodate about 30 people.

It was a very fun visit, as the Ryukyus were clearly not Japan (and are still very different), and were much more under chinese influence.

After that, we went to an old sacred place, with many odd rock formations and some big stalagtites. As it is all lava deposit, it is very interesting, and very different from the sandstone formations I'm used to.

From there, we just drove up the coast, which is absolutely beautiful, with many small islands and islets all over the place, and everything overgrown with exhuberant vegetation.

We even had our first jellyfish sighting: a dozen large scyphozoans swimming around is the crystal-clear water. We tried to catch one for work, but they refused to come close to the shore, even when we called "here, jelly, jelly, jelly!". Not at all cooperative.

We then rounded off the day by going to an okinawan eisa performance. This is a mix of dancing and drum playing, which is very fast and energetic, in a complete contrast to the slighly lethargic traditional dances we had seen earlier. And it is very very impressive and entertaining!