60 I Time out in… Okinawa
SERIOUS SHOPPING The hub for serious retail enthusiasts is in Naha, the island’s main city in the southern part of the island, where the airport is also located. The neat, efficient Yui Rail monorail transit system curls right through Naha; get off at Makishi station and you’re at the northern end of a long, straight street running right through the downtown area all the way to City Hall. This is the famous Kokusai-dori, a mecca for shopaholics with bulk-buying on their minds. I watch as groups of young women sashay down the sidewalk pushing empty four-wheeled suitcases – all destined to be heavy with cosmetics, T-shirts and local snacks and delicacies by day’s end. Kokusai-dori is lined to the rafters with touristy souvenir shops selling Okinawan coral and pearl trinkets, international and local-brand coffee shops, and fast-food outlets. There are also duty-free shops fronted by oversized models of all shapes and descriptions – from six-foot-high anthropomorphic hot dogs to great white sharks and anime characters; and restaurants with faux limestone-walled booths where you can sample shabu-shabu (hotpot), Okinawan pork and the island’s own distinctive purple sweet potato whilst being entertained by song-and-dance acts from traditional Okinawan performers. Branching off Kokusai-dori are a series
of covered market streets collectively known as Heiwa-dori. In this warren of shops you’ll find arts and crafts stalls, tropical clothing outlets, noodle shops (try the udon with black sesame), cheap souvenirs and plenty of cosmetics stores.
NOVEMBER 2017
CULTURAL REBIRTH On the largest hill overlooking Naha is Shurijo Castle (
oki-park.jp/shurijo/en), home of the Ryukyu kings. Surrounded by impressive three-metre-thick walls, its architectural design, open squares and immaculate gardens, as well as the decorative themes throughout, are a curious blend of cultural traditions that came about because of the many influences of the surrounding kingdoms with whom the Ryukyus traded. The emblem of the Ryukyu kings was the dragon – a symbol appropriated from the Chinese and overtly displayed on the roof of the Seiden, Shurijo’s main building, in the many dragon pillars both inside the audience room and throughout the complex, and on murals and carvings everywhere. Terracotta red paint and lacquer covers almost everything; the tour is relatively short but very interesting, and you’re free
to wander Shurijo Castle Park afterwards, where viewing points give panoramic views across the city and out to sea. Destroyed completely during the Battle of Okinawa, as well as on a number of occasions in previous centuries, Shurijo was restored carefully and accurately by craftsmen from the 1950s on, and in 2000 was named a World Heritage site. As I walk down the hill I stumble upon
the royal kings’ tomb complex known as the Tama-u-dun. I have the place to myself, including the small basement museum room that shows old photos of the stone caskets inside the three tomb rooms. Okinawa has many more castle ruins scattered across the island, but Shurijo is the must-visit cultural highlight.
Clockwise from this page top: Churaumi Aquarium; Mihama American Village; Hilton Okinawa Chatan Resort; and Kokusai-dori’s idiosyncratic shopfronts
businesstraveller.com
ISTOCK/JEREMY TREDINNICK/HILTON OKINAWA CHATAN RESORT
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