Again beautiful weather, though sometimes cloudy, but so humid.... it felt like at least 40 C. We both took the very convenient monorail to Shurijo-koen, the reconstructed old residence of the former Okinawa royal family. The castle Shuri-jo invites comparison to China's Forbidden City, although admittedly on a smaller scale.
The pick is the Chinese-influenced Shurei-no-mon, also rebuilt in 1958. It is considered to be the symbol of Okinawa, so there's a constant stream of tour groups and school parties lining up to be photographed in front of it.
The original castle, like much in Okinawa, was destroyed during the WWII Battle of Okinawa. There are a couple of not so interesting temples on the park grounds. We visited Bezaiten-do, in the middle of a pond, rebuilt as well after WWII.
Interesting were the remainings of the nearby Kinjocho-no-Ishidatami-michi, a 15th-century stone street. The steep and narrow path, with its old stone walls and ornate gateways and tropical gardens is very picturesque.
Back with the monorail to Naha, where we took a taxi to get to Fukushu-en, a Chinese style garden. All materials were brought from Fuzhou, Naha's sister city in China, including the pagoda that sits atop a small waterfall. Such a Chinese-style garden makes a nice difference to all the previous Japanese-style gardens.
Off again by taxi to Kokusai-dori, Naha's main street, to get to a professional air-conditioned internet/manga cafe, with excellent facilities, to catch up the backlog in the webblog.
Tonight we all meet again at 6 p.m. in the hotel: our tour guide would try our assistance to a karate training for kids.
Tomorrow we will make a tour in the southern part of the island to visit the battle grounds of WWII.
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