Zakimi Castle

Above: view of Cape Zampa from Zakimi castle wall.

You may have noticed that I've been doing lots of boring cultural-site-seeing posts instead of anything truly FUNNY, as some of you have gently put it to me in recent emails. Well, if I gave you all my funny, I wouldn't have any left for me, ok? Got to get through the day you know. Funny is as funny does.... its all cyclic my friends. One day in the future, I may once again be funny.

Above: US fighter jet blazes across the sky over Japanese couple on castle wall, doing stupid noisy war drills. Yankees go home!

Well, with the excitement surrounding Nakijin and Henoko, I utterly forgot to mention the trip to Zakimi castle on the blog. Zakimi is only 30 minutes from my house... first time I've been there... I know I'm lame, stop thinking it!

I am so lazy that I'm going to lift captions right off my Snapfish photo album (that my Real Friends already saw) and put them in this blog entry.

you see castle. Now, according to Okinawa legend, the dude who built this place is said to have had the stones from his former castle in Yamada moved one by one to Zakimi by forming a human chain of workers. What a loooooser. He can just get on a plane home with the yankees.

About the dude. This castle was built in the 15th century by an Okinawan warlord named Gosamaru. I may name my first born child after him. Or not. It has a majestic ring to it, doesn't it?

Left: we practice our karate kid moves in the dying sunlight, just in case Gosamaru's enemies show up and we would have to rough them up.

Ready for some more good old castle info from random websites?

"The ruins of Zakimi Castle are located in the central district of Okinawa Island, in Yomitan Village, close to the western seacoast. While the vast majority of Gusuku are built on Ryukyuan limestone hills that spread out in the central part of the island, one of the differing points of the Zakimi Castle ruins is that they are built on red earth named "Kunigami Ma-ji... The walls are constructed from cut Ryukyuan limestone. The arched gates built into each of the outer and inner walls are estimated to be the oldest in the Ryukyus."

Zakimi isn't a big castle, but it is free. Even better, you can go there at any time of the day or night. In fact, gatherings and celebrations are supposedly sometimes held at Zakimi during the full moon. Though I haven't seen this with my own eyes.

Lots of people (yours truly, tatoeba) go up to Zakimi to watch the sunset. The castle is built on a hill right over Cape Zampa and the ocean. And the sunset. Try doing dangerous balancing acts on the "keep out" sign pole if you want to have a good time. Dangerous as in, if you fell it would only be 2 feet. I guess unless you stumbled over that wall to the right, and then it would be 30 or so.

Nakijin Castle

The same day that we went to Henoko, we went to Nakijin castle, which is located on the Motobu peninsula (near Nago, where Christina, Amy, and the Pineapple park all live). This was my first time to visit ANY of Okinawan's castles, if you'll believe it. I've halfheartedly been trying to hold out for my sister Sandi's visit at the end of this month, but I just couldn't make it. (Don't worry Sindi we'll go again.)

Here are some photos of the castle structures. The 1st and 3rd are of one of 2 shrines within the castle walls that have been preserved. One shrine is to water, the other to something I forgot.

"the remaining walls of Nakijin Gusuku (Castle) stand like stone ghosts amidst the surrounding wild mountains. After having survived the ravages of war, countless typhoons, and the aging process of time, this once magnificent fortress has become a symbol of Okinawa's ancient past. "

Yeah. What a random site on the internet said. I've no time for creating my own words! Nakijin is cool though. A long time ago (before the Ryukyu kingdom was unified) my island was roughly 3 different kingdoms: north, middle, south. And of course, the outer islands like Miyako and Ishigaki were something else entirely. Hokuzan, the northern kingdom, had its home base here at Nakijin, on a cliff overlooking the sea.

"Archaeologists estimate that construction on Nakijin Castle began at the end of the 13th century - over a hundred years before the beginning of the Ryukyu Dynasty."

Here are some nature shots from our rambles through Nakijin's grounds.

"One of Nakijin Gusuku's most striking features was its enormous size. The castle's total land area covered approximately 14 acres, making it the largest gusuku to have existed during its time."
So I guess they're saying that bigger is better. Or something. I don't know about that, but I sure liked the flowers.