What's Up Al ? 遊記隨筆 生活點滴

As our plane was touching down, the most striking feature of Okinawa (沖縄島) became all too apparent - the turquoise blue lagoon surrounding this lovely coral island. Effectively, the whole island was protected by a ring of coral reef and the sunlight played perfect shadows which made the island a famed beauty spot in the western Pacific. Okinawa was home to the historical Ryukyu Kingdom (琉球) which prospered around 1500 AD as a major trading port and the top attraction on the island was the Shuri Castle (首里城), which was located about an hour's walk from our home (民宿) in the Tsuboya (壺屋) District in the capital, Naha (那覇). The castle was sadly a replica of its original glory as the Americans bombed the whole island to pieces during WWII. Nevertheless, the present castle still exuded class and prestige with its majestic interior chambers and solid external fortress walls. We also explored the many parks and gardens in this lovely Spring time atmosphere and the weather was pleasant and not too humid. Over a number of days, we strolled through 奧武山公園 ,漫湖水鳥 濕地中心, 漫湖公園 , 新都心, 末吉公園, 久米村發祥地, 龍柱,  波之上海灘, 若狭公園 , 崇元寺石門.  At the end of each day, we would visit our favourite haunt of a market - 栄町市場 and hunted for our daily local food of syrup-sweetened black pork, seafood and all washed down with the delicious nectar of the locally-made rice wine (泡盛) - yum ! Just one note of interest for those rice wine boffins out there - 泡盛 had traditional been made from Thai rice and black yeast and Japanese sake (清酒) had been traditional made from Japanese rice and white yeast.