Okinawa Prefectural
Museum
After returning to Naha from our Ishigaki-Taketomi trip, the
next morning we got a taxi and ventured to the Okinawa Prefectural Museum. Here is a link to the Okinawa Prefectural Museum website.
Located in Naha, it is actually two museums in one: a museum and an art museum. We only attended the museum on this day. You
can buy a ticket to either or a combined admission ticket to both. Also, the museum provides an audio cassette
in English (and maybe other languages) that you can carry with you as you tour
the exhibits.
The museum was excellent.
It has sections on Okinawan history, natural history of the islands,
archeology, arts and crafts, and folk customs.
We spent an entire morning going through all the exhibits that were on
display. In the gift shop I looked for
some good books in English about Okinawan history, but didn’t find any.
If you are interested in Okinawan history, I highly
recommend this place.
Shuri Castle
The following day, one of our group led us on an excursion
to Shuri castle. We walked to the
monorail station from our hotel, about a 5-10 minute hike along Kokusai Dori. The monorail is clean and quiet. It runs from the Naha airport at one end to
Shuri castle at the other, a total of 15 stops in all. You can buy a single fare, or in our case we
all got one day passes that can be used for unlimited rides for one day. Signs are in English as well as Japanese,
making it easy for people like me to use it.
After we arrived at the Shuri station, it was then a 10 or
15 minute walk (uphill) to the entrance of the castle. Along the way we passed the steep castle
stone walls.
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| Walls of Shuri Castle |
If you are interested
in old Okinawa and the Ryukyu Kingdom this is another place that is a “must see”
in addition to the Prefectural museum.
Shuri castle was the home of Okinawan royalty for hundreds of years until
the royalty was disbanded in 1879 with the Meiji restoration. The entire place was destroyed in World War
II during the battle of Okinawa. But the
Okinawans have restored it to much of its original glory.
You can get a feel for the way the royalty lived. The large courtyard to receive guests and
hold ceremonies, the king’s throne and crown, a place to do business with
foreign visitors, and so on.
We spent several hours here, looking at the exhibits and
just absorbing the atmosphere of the place.
Here are some photos.
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| Entrance to Shuri Castle |
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| View of Naha and the East China Sea from Shuri Castle |
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| The Bridge of Nations Bell at Shuri Castle |
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| Shuri Castle Main Building |
After we were finished touring the castle grounds, we headed
back to the monorail. We first took a
wrong turn and walked down a very steep hill on stone steps, through a
residential area with many old stone walls.
Very pretty. But the wrong
direction.
After realizing we were lost, and getting our bearings, we
headed in the correct direction (back up the hill) and finally we got back to
the Shuri monorail station. From there
went to a large department store for lunch and a bit of shopping. That monorail stop was also a close walk to the
Okinawan Prefectural Museum so some of our group that had not yet seen it went
there instead of shopping.
In late afternoon we finally back to our starting point and walked
back to the hotel. On the way back, Kokusai
Dori Street was blocked off to vehicle traffic (this was around 4 in the
afternoon) and a group of Eisa dancers started to perform in the street. They drew a rather large crowd.
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| Dance Troupe Performing on Kokusai Dori |
Shopping and Return Home
The next three days we spend shopping since we had a long
list of items from our own needs and those of our friends and family. We just made our luggage and weight limits
for the return flight home without needing to pay extra.
The largest bookstore in Okinawa, Junkudo, is a couple blocks
off Kokusai Dori, and is fills several stories.
Books written in English are on level three. Although there was a section on Japan history
and culture, I was disappointed that more books specifically devoted to Okinawa
were not available. Nevertheless I was
able to find a few interesting titles.
After a stop at the Starbucks, where we bought several of
their Okinawan coffee mugs to bring back as gifts, we headed into the famous
Heiwa Dori shopping area, perhaps the largest maze of shops one can find in Okinawa. You can buy just about anything there, from
clothes, to sanshins, to shisa lions to kimonos, etc. You name it.
Speaking of kimonos, my wife had placed an order with one of
the shops in Heiwa Dori for a kimono earlier in the trip. At the time she placed the order the shop
keeper gave her a complimentary pair of tabi (Japanese socks) worth around ten
dollars. When we returned to pick up the
kimono, the lady shop keeper told us to wait just a minute, and then disappeared. She came
back a few minutes later with a huge package of dried fish to give us as a gift
for buying the kimono!
Unbelievable! She had obviously
gone out to a nearby store to buy it when we showed up. I don’t know if this custom exists in other
parts of Japan, but this was the second time I experienced it – the first time being
in Ishigaki.
We came back home somewhat exhausted but very satisfied. We have lots of good memories and photos. We are already planning our next trip to
Okinawa.
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