Nakagusuku Castle Ruins

In my last post I mentioned that Nakagusuku park and Nakagusuku castle ruins are fairly close to one another.  We didn't go to them both in the same day, but it is totally doable.  Family and friends that want to visit someday here is our plan: castle early in the morning, then head over to the park for lunch!  See, come visit us! You would have so much fun.  This particular ruin is cool because it is close to an old abandoned hotel that is supposedly haunted.  You can also see a Buddhist temple that we were  intimated to go see because we weren't sure what was required in order to be respectful of the grounds, we still had a decent view of it from the castle ruins.  You do need Yen, I think it is 400 Yen for adults and children are less, Ely was free because she was considered a baby. Here is the pin, which isn't 100% accurate... once you see the parking lot which is clearly marked just park there 26.2876944, 127.7994774 (retrieved from Okinawahai.com) 

 Stone path

 She is starting to understand "Cheese!" 

 Buddhist Temple off in the distance

Scary abandoned hotel.  Off limits.  Military could actually get in some serious trouble for sneaking in.  

 Supposedly this was built on sacred ground, the construction workers kept having odd things happen to them so they wouldn't work on it and the hotel construction was abandoned.  Rumor has it the guy that had this endeavor is now in a mental institution on the island.  Creepy right?!

 It wouldn't be an Okinawan adventure without a new intriguing spider to inspect. 

Nakagusuku Park & BBQ

We have spent the past 2 weekends over in this area of Okinawa. Last Saturday we were invited to Nakagusuku Park for a barbecue.  I have a friend who teaches English for this organization.  Her boss held this barbecue as a celebration for the end of their term. He wanted to invite Japanese people and Americans so we could all socialize together.  It was wonderful.  It was a great blend of Japanese and American elements.  Ely loved being able to be around other children and to be able to play at the park.  We enjoyed the delicious food and the company.   We all tried to make ice cream, some people succeeded, we did not.  Our cream and sugar tasted really good though!   Once we were headed home we noticed we were really close to some castle ruins, because Ely was so tired we decided to try it the next weekend and head home.  I will share pictures from the ruins in my next post.  There is actually quite a lot of things to do on this side of the island, this park Nakagusuku park is one of our favorites.  It is also known as Ogido park and Trampoline Park, we have more pictures dedicated to just the park from a previous visit here http://dancelovewings.blogspot.jp/2015/12/christmas-season.html . Here is the pin  Google map points: 26.287985, 127.792179 

Noodles, meat and veggies on the grill.  

Adorable little ones.

The picnic areas at this park are gorgeous!  The table is made out of marble.

Waiting patiently to make ice cream.

My child is clearly not interested....yet.

Once she saw everyone was getting "Mulk" she was interested. 

She just wanted to drink it.

I delegated ice cream making duties to Sean.

The hit the watermelon game.  The person is blind folded and the goal is to strike the watermelon after receiving instructions on how to get to it.  

Ely counting to three, jumping in the air, and yelling "yay" and clapping afterwards.  

After all that ice cream was still just cream.  

After lunch we headed over to the trampoline part of the park.  

This girl loves the slide.

The parks here are insane!  We love them.