Shuri-Jo Castle

Yokoso!! Or Welcome to Shuri-jo Castle Everyone!!

This is the Emperor's crown... I thought it kind of looked like a lite-bright!

One of the many gates throughout the castle grounds...

Where the Emperor rested his fanny...

A picture of the G8 summitt held here in Okinawa a few years back... well, quite a few actually becaus eif you look close enough, Bill Clinton is in the picture.

A huge umbrella!! The Emperor would sit under it while on the grounds... the material is a super thick satin type of material and all the decorations around it are hand-sewn... it's really really pretty up close.

A side view of the grounds... this building held a museum about the castle and some re-created areas that existed, like a tea room and a meeting room....

While standing in front of the Emperor's throne, you can see down into the original castel's ruins. The original castle was blown up by, you guessed it, us back in WWII, but they have pictures of what the grounds and castle looked like in the museum and mostly everything has been re-created. This plexi glass window shows down into the original structure.

The Castle, which sadly was under construction on this particular day...

A view of the West side of the Island and Naha city from the grounds, which are at the highest point on the island...

And this is the main entrance... all in all a very informative venture and I would recommend people come here. We missed the dancers, but a few times a day they have Aisa dancers and the drum players who perform...

The place was very cool and had lots of history to learn about, but as an American, I couldn't help but feel badly a little bit for pretty much destroying everything on this island during the war. A lot of places here if you read the signs with say "Such and Such RUINS" and you know it was something we destroyed... which is a lot of stuff here unfortunately.

This is one of the most popular places on the island and I hope that if ya'll come visit, I get to take you here!!