首里城

These are four rather random pictures that don't really tie together, But I'll try to get a story out of them.

Above are the Okinawan court dancers.
Below is the throne room of the castle. Again very unlike Japanese architect.

There is an Anglican Church right outside the gates of the castle, and in the court yard hung this bell. The interesting thing about it is that it is very much like a bell that you would hanging outside a Japanese shirne, with the only exception that it has a cross on it. You can't see it clearly in the picture but the clasps at the top are dragons, I'm surprised to see them showing up there. Often times the dragon is seen by some Christians as evil or the devil.

Down the street from the castle is a cloth dying store that specializes in "Bingata", a typical Okinawan style print. It is very beautiful but also very expensive. This is the same place that I made my shirt with the choral print last year.

Finally a picture from Alina of the brushes they use in dying the fabric. They use stencils to make the pattern that are rotated over and over on the long piece of cloth. The detail is amazing and very intricate I can only image the amt of time goes into dying one of these pieces. As we were going down stairs I overheard a lady asking the price of one of their kimonos which only had the intricate design on the bottom of the kimono. It was just a little over ¥600,000. I'll let you do the math the yen is at ¥120 to the dollar right now.