Back near the beginning of the peninsula is the site of Okinawa's oldest castle, Katsuren-gusuku - one of several built beginning in the mid-16th century and reportedly influenced by Western-style castle architecture. I was already going to visit the most famous one, Shuri in Naha, but decided to stop here as well. Note that the same Chinese character is used for "castle" but read not "shiro" or "jo" but "gusuku." This is a reminder that Okinawa is a completely different culture and langauge: the traffic signs showing both the Japanese characters for place names and the how-on-earth-could-you-read-it-that-way Roman character equivalents are enough to make a translator weep...

The vending machines alone would show you that you're in a place with a lot of American influence: I don't think there's another place in Japan where you could buy Dr. Pepper out of a vending machine... although this is a peculiarly anime-ed version of it.