"Piece of Peace" Lego Exhibit

We spent a fun part of a day with some friends exploring TomiTon Shopping Center's visiting "Piece of Peace" Lego Exhibit. Evidently, when the exhibit was in Tokyo, it was visited by about a million people!!

We found the exhibit in the back of the 'food court' area.

The exhibit housed a number of iconic treasures from around the world built with legos!!
Here are a few of my favorites....

Statue of Liberty

Big Ben and House of Parliament

Big Ben

Great Wall

Easter Island

Taj Mahal

Eiffel Tower

A Torii gate and Japanese temple/shrine

 

Great Pyramid

Sphinx

Parthenon

 

The 'relief' on the base of the Pharoah was quite impressive!!

Leaning Tower of Piza

Shuri Castle of Okinawa!!

After perusing the displays, you get to build your own masterpiece of peace!!

Katsuren Castle

As part of Rodney's time off following our getaway, we marked another item off our bucket list....
Katsuren Castle.

The ruins date back to the early 14th century and are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

 

 

This is a place best explored in tennis shoes! Walking up the hill from the visitors' center can be a bit tricky in flip-flops!

 

After walking up the hill to the grounds, there are still stairs to climb to the lower level of the castle.

Miitwugaa Well ~ The well for couples.
As the story goes, if a couple kisses by the well, they'll be together forever. But, if one of them should leave the other, the one who leaves will die!

And look~ more stairs!
These lead to the middle level of the castle.

The top level can only be reached by "climbing" these "stairs"!!

But, if you carefully maneuver the walkway, you get some great views!! 

From the top looking down to the second level where the palace stood and the lower level beyond.

Going back down is really the trickiest part!!

The outer wall

 

It's fascinating how they used the natural landscape as part of their defense!

 

This patch of clover brought back memories......
My grandpa could walk by a patch of clover, reach down and, lickety split, find a four leaf clover!!

This is how the Japanese dress to tour....

But, they always carry their umbrellas, which turned out to be a good thing this day!!

If you're thirsty, you can get a drink from the vending machine by the visitors' center decorated just for Katsuren Castle!!

15th Anniversary Getaway -- Ryukyu Mura Shisas

One more thing I wanted to share about Ryukyu Mura----their Shisas!!


Now, in case you missed the past post in which I described what Shisas are all about, I'll explain it... My simplest explanation is Shisas are like Japanese dream catchers, except they "work" in pairs. One Shisa has an open mouth to catch the "evil spirits" and the closed mouth Shisa keeps them trapped. They are placed on pretty much every building from home, to business, to parking garage either on the roof top or by the front door. Occasionally, there will be only one, but if so, hopefully it's mouth is open!!

The following Shisas were some of the more fascinating ones located around the village...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now this little guy is not a Shisa, but that crazy tree elf, Kijimuna!!
 

 

And one last stop before hitting the road... :)

(Yep, the toilet! ;)