If you are fan of the movie “Avatar”, you will love this park – stop by yourself to find why. Pai Pai is a short and easy trail through the forest on the hill behind the shrine – less than 10 minutes to complete.
Please note that the trail is slippery when wet. It is not maintained on a regular basis so there may be tall grass to walk through. It may look like a real jungle to go through. The trail itself is a narrow concrete path/stairs. There are a lot of spiders (not dangerous) and mosquitos in the forest.
Sugar King Park pays tribute to Haruji Matsue, the successful entrepreneur that made Saipan's sugar-cane industry boom in the 1930s. Mr. Matsue built a small railroad system on Saipan, with a base in Chalan Kanoa, that greatly aided the harvesting and exporting of sugar cane, and the only extant locomotive from that system sits in this park today, on the last bit of railroad track. One can see a larger than-life size statue of Matsue Haruji - The Sugar King, in the center of the park. On the eastern edge of the park is a Japanese Shinto shrine that was built in the 1985 to replace the original Saipan Katori Jinja (built in 1911) that was heavily damaged during the Battle of Saipan (IIWW, in ‘44). The small statues in the park garden are elements of the pre-war Sinto Shrine. In 1990 here also was built a hexagonal hall of prayer, dedicated to Goddess of Mercy, with a Peace Bell in it.
This is my first cache. Also, here I released my first trackable, The Buddhist Monk.
Important note: Do not enter the big cave - it may not be a safe place to be and the cache is not there.