Today was a superbly epic day! I got up around 0615 and got ready for the long and awesome day ahead! Today was the day that we would be going to Shuri Castle, which, though it is only 13 miles from the Thomases, is an hour long drive, thanks to the max speed limit on the Okinawa Expressway of 60 miles per hour, and busy and crowded city streets! We had a breakfast of scrambled eggs which were very delicious! We were scheduled to depart for Shuri at 0800, with a brief stop to drop off Kristyna, then meet up with Mary's friends Angie and Greg and their son Peyton! then we would head to Shuri!
After we got all situated and met up with the group, we headed to Shuri! It was a pleasant hour long drive through the Okinawan countryside, with tombs galore, dotting the countryside! There were old and new tombs whichever ranged from thousands of years old, to brand new tombs that cost approximately $10,000! Also I noticed a bunch of farm land along the way for a good portion of the drive, before we arrived at the Shuri Castle/Heights.
Shuri Castle was the Imperial Japanese Army headquarter's during the battle for Okinawa, and the sight of some fighting, though the IJA had retreated from the castle by the time U.S Forces arrived in May of 1945. We got parked in the parking structure, by the Japanese parking structure guiders. They have people back into parking spots, in a double single row arrangement, which I thought was rather interesting. We arrived at 0915 and left the house at 0806, which meant an hour and six minutes.
We then made our way to the Castle, through the visitors's center to acquire maps of the castle. It is a large and impressive, starting with the walls, made of coral! We made our way through the gateway, which led us on a path, which took us towards the Emperors house, which was an impressive large red house with Japanese styling! We could have entered the house for 820 yen ($8.20) for adults and 320 yen ($3.20) for children! We also made our way to various overlooks, which gave impressive views of Naha and the surrounding areas, and reminded me why the IJA used this location as their Okinawan headquarters.
After a couple of hours touring the castle and acquiring ice cream (iI had a tri colored ice cream, cherry, vanilla and ube (sweet potato), we decided to head to lunch. It was at a traditional Japanese restaurant, where you could either sit kneeling or Indian style, like a Japanese traditional restaurant, or sit in a chair like a regular restaurant. We got a sorbe meal, which was beef with noodles, and also taco rice, which is like taco salad but instead of lettuce, we had rice!
It was extremely delicious! After lunch, we said goodbye to our friends, and we headed to Camp Foster and went to the Post Office and the PX, and then returned back to the house for a relaxing evening with Wii games and quesadillas with chicken! It was absolutely delicious! It has been an extremely epic day! I will get pictures up from the past couple of days tomorrow! Tomorrow, we are going to an awesome aquarium!
Jack
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