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Los Angeles
hardly anything is there at Chibanagusuku — 2 years ago
Worth visiting!
Therefore I would not recommend this site if you want to see the ruins of an Okinawan castle. When I visited the site, we didn’t even walk up the stairs to get to the ruins/marker. It was during the middle of typhoon season and had recently rained. The area was full of mud and mosquitos, is not well-kept, and it just wasn’t worth it for us. The site is of importance as it was the castle of “Oni” (“Devil”) Ohshiro, a famous samurai who had many women and children, one of which was Chibana.
FYI: any castles that remained in Okinawa after Japan took over were destroyed in World War 2. However some sites still have foundations, partial walls, etc. The main castle in Shuri is a recreation built in the 1990s. The Okinawan word for castle is “gusuku”. Gusuku is used for all castle sites except for the king’s castle, the one in Shuri, which is simply called Shurijo—”jo” being the word for castle in standard (Tokyo) Japanese.
