Shīsā figures
Okinawa's guardians.
Abasaa — Public domain · Fumihiko Ueno — CC BY 3.0 · Zairon — CC BY 4.0 · 663highland — CC BY 2.5 · Kugel~commonswiki — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Alexander Synaptic — CC BY-SA 2.0 · 663highland — CC BY 2.5 · 663highland — CC BY 2.5
Central Naha's main street, running about 1.6 kilometres, roughly a mile, and lined with souvenir and craft shops, restaurants, cafés and hotels, with palms along parts of it. It is nicknamed the «Miracle Mile» for how fast it rose from the rubble after 1945. Okinawa's best-known goods are sold here: shīsā lion-dog guardian figures, pottery and bubbled blown glass, bingata dyed textiles, and sweets of brown sugar and purple sweet potato. Covered market lanes branch off it, among them Heiwa-dōri and the Makishi Public Market, which reopened in a new building in 2023: buy fish or meat downstairs and have it cooked in the restaurants upstairs. On Sundays part of the street closes to traffic and becomes a promenade. Walking is free, and the street is near Kenchō-mae and Makishi stations on the Yui Rail. For halal diners: many popular Okinawan dishes contain pork, so ask before ordering.
Okinawa's guardians.
Buy it, have it cooked.
Car-free.
Makishi and Matsuo, central Naha
Shīsā guardian figures, bubbled blown glass, bingata textiles, and brown-sugar and purple sweet-potato sweets.
