A day in Naha- Habu sake!

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I think we're getting part of the typhoon that's in the area at the moment, it's raining pretty hard outside and extremely windy, good thing I'm holed up in an internet cafe. This morning seemed so promising too, the sun was shining and the sky was blue....

I decided to go and see a place called Shuri castle today, it is only about a half hour from the city centre.　Although it's called a castle it isn't the typical Japanese style of castle. You see years ago Okinawa never used to be a part of Japan, it used to be called the Ryukyu Kingdom, it was it's own country and had a King as the ruler. In that time the King lived at this place called Shuri castle, although it was completely destroyed by bombs during the second world war (as was most of Okinawa), it has been reconstructed just as it was back then. There are still parts of the original there that you can see, mainly the outer walls and gates and such, but the main building is new. Like I said it isn't your typical castle, in fact it doesn't even look like one in the slightest, I would call it more of a palace. Anyway it's truly a magnificent sight. The outside has been coated with bright red lacquer with gold trimmings and pictures of Dragons everywhere, like guards or something. It actually looks a lot more Chinese than Japanese. In fact the Ryukyu people did get a lot of ideas from China so there's a lot of Chinese influence in their buildings and crafts and stuff. It really does look unreal.

You can go inside it and the inside is just as good, bright red lacquer and gold trimmings and it explains where the King used to reside and where his Queen used to reside, interestingly the Queen had her own quarters that no man, not even the King, was allowed to enter. Cool!!

The castle was really beautiful and interesting to see, although a bit weird to see it set against a backdrop of palm trees and hibiscus flowers, but it just added to the exotic look of the castle and its beauty. I was there for a couple of hours and then I caught the bus back to the city where I spent the afternoon at the beach that is about a 5 minute walk from my hotel. It wasn't anything compared to Miyakojima but it had water, sand and sun so that was good enough for me! This was before the rain obviously.

After getting my fill of sun I began yet again to walk the streets shopping. There are so many shops and little side alleys that I reckon you could go every day for a week and still not have seen them all. One very interesting thing that I found was the Miyakojima sake that I drank at Deigo. Well I had a closer look at it and no wonder I didn't like it! It is actually rice brandy!!! So very strong! It's called Awamori. However the interesting thing I found today is Habu sake. Habu is a poisonous snake indigenous to Okinawa and they use extracts from the Habu and mix it with Awamori to make a special sake. I was standing there in this shop gaping at this drink, I even found a few bottles where they had actually inserted a Habu snake into the bottle, obviously dead but still in there. It looked a little like what you expect to see at the back of your science classroom, except this was an alcohol that you could drink! So I was staring at this bottle and the Japanese shop attendant obviously saw my face and started to laugh at me. He must get a few horrified people coming in looking like that, mostly foreigners though because the Japanese that were around me didn't seem in the slightest taken aback. I think I've said before that I have come to learn not to be surprised at the things I see in Japan. Never question anything, and even when you do, like why do they do that? The only answer you'll get is "It's Japan!". At times it seems like anything goes in Japan.

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Photos

Habu sake
Yes, that is a real snake