Shuri Walk: Three World Heritage Sites and a 500-Year-Old Road
10 chapters, about 36 minutes. A free self-guided audio walk from Shureimon Gate through Shuri Castle and down a road laid five centuries ago. Listen on site, or before you travel.
This audio was produced with AI speech synthesis. The content is built from the verified records of this guide.
Shuri is a living town before it is a tourist destination. Five hundred years of prayer and daily life continue here. Please do not enter or touch places of worship, and walk quietly. Keep your voice down in the residential lanes.
- World Heritage (Sonohyan-utaki, Shuri Castle site, Tamaudun)
- Other stops
- RYui Rail monorail (dotted line)
- Arrows show the route. It runs downhill from the castle.
A sketch map for orientation only (park outline, pond and stations are approximate). For accurate maps see the full map (in Japanese).
Chapters
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Read the transcript
Welcome to Shuri.
Before we begin, one note. This audio was produced with AI speech synthesis.
This walk has ten chapters, and runs a little over thirty-five minutes. With walking and sightseeing, allow two and a half to three hours.
Now. You are standing on a hill above the city of Naha.
This hill was the capital of a kingdom.
Not a Japanese province. A kingdom. The Ryukyu Kingdom.
It began in fourteen twenty-nine, when a ruler named Sho Hashi unified three rival powers on this island. For the next four hundred and fifty years, this hill was the centre of its politics, its diplomacy, and its culture.
The kingdom was small. It had no great army. What it had was the sea.
Ships went out from here to China, to Japan, and to Southeast Asia. They carried goods, and they carried relationships. The Ryukyuans called their country a bridge between nations.
So let me clear up the most common misunderstanding right away.
Shuri Castle is not a Japanese castle. There is no keep, no tower to defend. This was a royal palace. A place where a king lived, governed, and performed ceremonies.
And there is a second thing worth knowing before we walk.
Long before the castle, this hill was a forest. A sacred one.
The old name for this place is Suimui, which means the sacred grove of Shuri. In the Ryukyuan faith, gods dwell in forests, in springs, in stones. Such a place is called an utaki.
First there was the sacred grove. Then the castle was built on it.
So Shuri is a castle town and a place of prayer at the same time. You will feel both, if you know to look.
On this walk we will visit three World Heritage sites, all within a short distance of one another.
Three practical things.
First, Shuri is a town of slopes. You will climb to the castle and descend a steep stone road afterwards. Comfortable shoes matter more than anything else.
Second, please listen while standing still. There is a great deal to look up at here.
And third, the important one.
Shuri is a living town before it is a tourist destination. Five hundred years of prayer and daily life continue here.
The sacred places you will pass are not ruins. People still worship at them. So please do not step inside them. Do not touch them. Keep your voice low, especially in the residential lanes.
If you are unsure whether you may enter somewhere, the answer is no.
And signs on site, and the instructions of local people, always come first.
Do that much, and Shuri will show you a great deal more.
Let's begin. Please make your way to the red gate.
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Read the transcript
The red gate in front of you is Shureimon.
Two pairs of vermilion pillars, and above them a double roof. This is a Chinese form, called a pailou.
Look closely. There are no walls. There are no doors.
It is a gate that was never meant to keep anyone out.
It was built in the first half of the sixteenth century, in the reign of King Sho Sei.
Now look up, under the roof. There is a plaque, with four characters written on it. Shurei no kuni.
It means: this is a land that observes propriety.
That is a carefully chosen thing to write above the entrance to a royal palace.
The Ryukyu Kingdom did not survive by force. It survived by sending ships, moving goods, and keeping relationships in good order, between China, Japan, and the countries of Southeast Asia.
Not power. Courtesy.
This gate was the first thing a visitor read about the country.
And it was meant literally. When an envoy arrived from the Emperor of China, the king himself is said to have come down to this gate to receive him. Not to wait in the palace. To come down, and to bow.
Now, something people often get wrong.
Shuri has three World Heritage sites, and we will visit all three today. But what is inscribed is not the reconstructed buildings. It is the remains beneath the ground. The foundations, the traces of the walls.
That distinction matters. When fire destroyed the main hall in twenty nineteen, the World Heritage value of this place was not lost.
And this gate, too, is not the original.
In nineteen forty-five, during the Battle of Okinawa, Shureimon burned to the ground, along with almost everything else on this hill.
Then, in nineteen fifty-eight, this gate was rebuilt. Before any building of the castle itself. This one came first.
Think about what that means. People who had lost everything chose to rebuild the gate first.
For a place rising out of ashes, those four characters, a land that observes propriety, must have been the thing most worth having back.
Shureimon became a symbol of postwar recovery. It later appeared on the two thousand yen banknote.
One more thing before we move on. Turn around, with the gate at your back, and look west.
A wide avenue once ran from here, about five hundred metres, to another great gate. Two gates facing each other, along the main street of the kingdom. Royal processions passed along it.
The far gate was pulled down in the Meiji era. But the road is still there. It runs from in front of this gate to the royal mausoleum we will visit later.
So the road you are about to walk was once the ceremonial stage of a kingdom.
Walking to the next stop
Pass through the gate and continue a short way.
On your right you will see a small stone gate. That is Sonohyan-utaki. About one minute on foot.
When you can see it, press play on the next chapter.
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Read the transcript
You should be standing in front of a small stone gate.
Most visitors walk straight past this one. It sits just after the grandeur of Shureimon, and it is easy to miss.
But this is a World Heritage site. Its name is Sonohyan-utaki Ishimon, the stone gate of Sonohyan sacred grove.
It is said to have been built in fifteen nineteen, in the reign of King Sho Shin. The craftsman is remembered as Nishitou, from Taketomi Island in the Yaeyama group, far to the south.
Now, the most important thing about it.
This is not a gate for people to walk through.
Look past it. Can you see the trees? That grove is the sacred place. This stone gate faces it. It exists so that prayers can be offered towards the forest.
Whenever the king left the castle, he stopped here, and prayed for a safe journey.
Look at the stonework itself. It is cut from Ryukyuan limestone, yet it imitates the forms of a wooden building. That is why it is called a masterpiece of Ryukyuan stone architecture.
In the year two thousand, this gate was inscribed as part of the World Heritage listing.
Let me explain the word utaki, because it will come up again.
In the Ryukyuan faith, gods are believed to dwell in forests, in springs, and in stones. A place set apart in this way is an utaki.
In the age of the kingdom, state ritual was carried out by priestesses, led by a high priestess called the kikoe-ogimi. Prayers for the safety of the country were offered here, and at the sacred groves around the castle.
Shuri was a city of the king. It was also a city of prayer.
And here is the part that matters most today.
An utaki is not an old ruin. It is a place where people still come to pray. Right now. This year.
So, a few requests.
Please do not step inside the gate. Even where there is no fence and no sign, the space beyond a place of worship is not for visitors.
If someone is praying, wait at a distance, or pass by quietly. Never point a camera at a person who is praying.
Do not move anything. Not a stone, not a branch, not an offering.
And keep quiet. The stillness of this grove is the value of the place.
If you are ever unsure whether you may enter somewhere, the answer is no.
Signs on site always come first.
One last thing. There is a sacred grove inside the castle as well, the largest of them, in the southwest corner. It is called Kyo-no-uchi, and it is said to be where Shuri Castle began.
So the order was this. First the sacred forest. Then the castle, built upon it.
Keep that in mind as we go in.
The king prayed here before setting out. Shall we do the same, quietly, to ourselves?
Walking to the next stop
From the stone gate, we go up into the castle.
There are slopes and stone steps ahead. Pass through Kankaimon gate, follow the curve of the walls, and make your way to the open courtyard in front of the main hall.
The views along the way are worth stopping for, so take your time.
When you are standing in front of the main hall, press play.
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Read the transcript
The courtyard opens up, and there it is. The vermilion building across the square. This is the Seiden, the main hall of Shuri Castle.
Look at it for a moment. It is a strange building, in the best sense.
The curve of the roof and the ornament come from Chinese palace architecture. The timber frame and the joinery follow Japanese building methods. And scattered through both, there are forms that belong to neither. Those are Ryukyuan.
A kingdom that lived between China and Japan, turned into a building.
Let me point out what to look for.
Start with the stone stairs at the front. On either side stands a stone dragon pillar. They are called dairyuchu, the great dragon pillars.
They stand over three metres tall. The head is raised in a way that, it is said, has no parallel outside Ryukyu.
Now, a game. Try counting the dragons.
You will not finish quickly. They are on the pillars, on the roof, on the stairs, around the throne. Before the fire, the main hall is said to have carried thirty-three dragons.
The dragon was the symbol of the king.
And here is a detail worth knowing. The dragons of Shuri Castle have four claws. Five-clawed dragons belonged to the Emperor of China alone.
The exact position of a small kingdom, expressed in the number of toes.
Look up at the roof, too. At each end of the ridge you will see a dragon's head in ceramic. The larger ones are around three metres.
Now look down.
This courtyard is called the una. You may be able to see red and white tiles laid in stripes.
That is not decoration. During ceremonies, officials lined up along those stripes, in order of rank.
The floor itself was a diagram of the hierarchy.
On New Year's Day, the whole court assembled here to pay their respects to the king.
And inside the hall is the king's throne, the usasuka, finished in vermilion and gold.
That is what there is to see.
But this building has been through a great deal more than it shows.
Walking to the next stop
Stay where you are. There is no walking in this chapter.
If you would like to take photographs, now is a good moment.
When you are ready, press play.
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Read the transcript
You are still in front of the main hall. Stay where you are.
The exact founding date of this castle is unknown. It was in use by the end of the fourteenth century.
In fourteen twenty-nine the Ryukyu Kingdom was established, and this became its royal seat, for about four hundred and fifty years.
And in that time, Shuri Castle burned down again and again.
In fourteen fifty-three, in a fight over the succession. In sixteen sixty. In seventeen o nine. Each time, it was rebuilt.
In nineteen forty-five, during the Battle of Okinawa, the Japanese army placed its headquarters in tunnels beneath this hill. The area was shelled without mercy, and every building was lost. That was the fourth time.
Afterwards, a university stood on the site, and for decades Shuri Castle existed only in memory.
It was rebuilt in nineteen ninety-two. In the year two thousand, the remains of the castle were inscribed as a World Heritage site. Not the reconstruction. What lies beneath the ground.
Then, on the thirty-first of October, twenty nineteen, at around two forty in the morning, fire broke out in the main hall.
It spread to the north and south halls. Eight principal buildings were lost, some four thousand eight hundred square metres. Many works of art from the kingdom went with them.
Okinawa watched it burn on television before dawn.
And despite an exhaustive investigation, the cause of the fire was never determined. There is still no settled answer.
But not everything was lost.
The stone walls survived. The remains beneath the ground survived. The gates away from the fire survived.
And the great dragon pillars survived. The ones you were counting a moment ago. Scorched, but still standing. Photographs of those stone dragons upright in the rubble became the image of the recovery.
Donations arrived from across Okinawa, from the rest of Japan, and from overseas. The rebuilding fund reached around five and a half billion yen.
The work was carried out under a policy of showing the reconstruction. Rather than hiding the site behind hoardings, they opened it, and people came to watch the hall being built from a viewing deck.
Even the colour in front of you has a story.
The red on these walls comes from a natural pigment sourced in what is now the Nago area of this island. A red made from the earth of Okinawa.
That particular red was difficult to reproduce in the nineteen ninety-two reconstruction. This time, research brought it back. So the colour you are looking at is a step closer to the original than the one before it.
Beneath the pigment is lacquer, built up in twenty-four separate stages.
The roof carries around sixty thousand red tiles, fired from the island's own clay. When you walk down the old stone road later, look at the roofs of the houses. Same red.
The castle and the town below it wear the same colour.
The completion ceremony was held on the twenty-second of November, twenty twenty-six. Public opening began the following day.
Seven years after the fire. The fifth rebuilding in its history.
Please note that entry to the main hall is by advance reservation for a specific time slot, with visitor numbers limited. For how to book, please check the official Shurijo Castle Park website.
Two requests before we move on.
Please do not touch the stonework or the exhibits, and do not climb or sit on the walls. There are sacred places inside this park as well. Follow the instructions of the staff.
And if the crowds tire you, walk southwest, into the forest called Kyo-no-uchi. It was the greatest sacred site within the castle, and it is said to be where Shuri Castle began.
There is nothing to see there in the usual sense. The quiet is the point.
If the vermilion hall is the public face of Shuri Castle, that forest is its root.
Walking to the next stop
Stay where you are a little longer.
The next chapter is about how this building got here.
When you are ready, press play.
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Read the transcript
Stay where you are. A little more about this building, and how it got here.
First, the money.
Okinawa Prefecture set out a rule for spending the donations. The work funded should be work that draws on traditional skills held and passed down within Okinawa.
So the money was not used to plug gaps in the budget. It went to the parts that Okinawan craftspeople would make with their hands.
Which means the donations turned into things you can count.
One hundred and five foundation stones, the blocks the pillars stand on. Three dragon ornaments for the roof ridge, with their bodies. Four ridge-end tiles.
And three tablets.
A tablet here means a framed board hung on the building. Three of them hung on the upper floor of the hall that burned.
Each one is about three and a half metres by one and a half. That is far larger than ordinary lacquerware, so a shared workshop was built inside the castle park to make them.
As the design work went on, it became clear that these tablets differed from the previous reconstruction in important ways. The frames turned out to be wood carvings. Some of the timber in them was chagi, the tree the Ryukyuans built with.
So a decision was recorded. Of the three tablets, finish one by the time the hall itself is finished.
The other two carry on being made after that.
Now, the timber.
In the nineteen ninety-two reconstruction, the pillars were Taiwanese cypress. It stood in for chagi and for the Okinawan oak, the trees thought to have been used here in the kingdom's time.
For this rebuilding, the government's programme document put it plainly. Using chagi and Okinawan oak would be desirable, but these species are scarce, and obtaining timber in quantity is difficult.
So the pillars would be Japanese cypress instead.
That was not the end of it.
The inner walls and the outer fittings were meant to be chagi. The required quantity could not be secured, and they were changed to a related cypress from the north of Japan.
Then that timber proved hard to obtain in wide and long pieces. So the thresholds, and the treads of the stairs, were changed again, from the northern cypress back to Japanese cypress.
Two rounds of substitution, both written down in the public record.
Where the wood came from is published as well.
The cypress came from Nara and Mie. The northern cypress from Aomori. Cedar from Kumamoto and Nara. Chagi from Nagasaki and elsewhere in Kyushu. Camphor from Saitama.
The timber for an Okinawan castle was gathered from mountains the length of mainland Japan.
Okinawan wood is here too. In the autumn of twenty twenty-two, an Okinawan oak was brought down from Kunigami, the village at the north end of this island, and hauled to the castle in a timber-pulling ceremony. On the third of November that year, at the ground-breaking, that same log took the first cut of the chisel.
The foundation stones under this building came from Yonaguni, the westernmost island in Japan.
The assembly itself is recorded by date.
July, twenty twenty-three, the foundation stones arrive. On the fourth of September, the first pillar goes up, cypress from Nara.
On the twenty-fifth of December, the frame is complete. The timber used came to five hundred and thirteen pieces, gathered from twenty-two prefectures. Six thousand workers, counted across all their days, had a hand in raising it.
The following May, the ridge beam went up. Around six and a half thousand people came to an event to see the hall while the wood was still bare and unpainted.
In July, the tiling began.
And on the thirtieth of October, twenty twenty-five, the temporary roof over the site came down. The shelter that had covered the work while it was unfinished was removed, and the building you are looking at appeared.
One last thing.
The fund that collected those donations closed to new giving in March of twenty twenty-two.
The fund created in its place is called the Shuri Castle Future Fund.
It does not pay for building. It pays for training people — the temple carpenters, the joiners who work on traditional buildings, the carvers who make the ornament — and for the historic character of old Shuri.
A fund for putting up a building became a fund for keeping the people who can put one up.
Walking to the next stop
Leaving the main hall, head out of the castle to the north side.
Walk down the slope until a large pond comes into view. That is Ryutan.
About five minutes. When you reach the water, press play.
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Read the transcript
You have come out at the water.
People walk their usual routes around this pond. Water birds drift on it. It looks like an ordinary park.
Its name is Ryutan, the dragon's pool.
And it is not natural. This pond was a national project, six hundred years ago.
It began, so the story goes, with a suggestion from a visitor.
Around fourteen twenty-five, an envoy arrived from Ming China and proposed that a garden be laid out on the north side of the castle. The king at the time was Sho Hashi, the man who had unified the island.
He gave the task to his chief minister, a man named Kaiki.
And here is the part I like.
Kaiki sailed to China. He toured famous gardens and ponds there, came home, and only then began work.
A study trip abroad, for a garden. It tells you how seriously this small kingdom took the project.
The pond was completed around fourteen twenty-seven. Its circumference is roughly four hundred and sixteen metres.
The earth dug out of it was not thrown away. It was piled up on the south side to make a hill, and trees and flowers gathered from home and abroad were planted there.
If the ground south of the pond looks slightly raised, that is what you are looking at. Six hundred year old spoil.
A stone monument recorded all of this. It carries the date fourteen twenty-seven, and it is among the oldest inscriptions surviving in the Ryukyus.
The inscription describes fish swimming, flowers around the banks, and the castle reflected in the water. It calls the view the finest in all Ryukyu.
The people who wrote that were admiring the same composition you can see now.
The pond has a second name, too. Local people called it iyugumui, which means simply the pond with fish in it.
The dragon's pool, and the fish pond. One piece of water, two names, one from the court and one from daily life.
Now, the day this pond mattered most.
An envoy from the Chinese Emperor arrived with a party of several hundred people, and stayed in Ryukyu for around half a year. The court held seven official banquets during the visit.
One of them, held on the ninth day of the ninth month of the old calendar, took place here.
Dragon boats were put on the water and raced. The king and the envoy watched from a pavilion on the bank, with dance performed alongside.
A painting of the scene survives. There is also a record of boating here in seventeen fourteen.
For a few days at a time, this pond was a floating banquet hall.
Dragon boat races are still held on the sea near Naha in early summer. But in the age of the kingdom, the boats also ran here, on a pond on top of a hill.
Look across the water from the south bank, and you will see the ramparts of the castle.
That is the view the inscription praised six hundred years ago, and the view painters have returned to ever since. With the main hall rebuilt, it is close to complete again.
Late afternoon, when the surface turns gold, is the best time.
One caution. There are stretches of this bank with no railing. If you have children with you, keep them close.
And remember, this is somebody's daily walk.
Walking to the next stop
From the south bank, head west.
We are going to Tamaudun, the royal mausoleum. About five to six minutes.
You will be walking the old ceremonial avenue that ran from Shureimon, the one I mentioned earlier.
When you reach the entrance to the mausoleum, press play.
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Read the transcript
This is Tamaudun. The second World Heritage site on our walk.
Before anything else: this is a tomb.
It is a burial place before it is an attraction. Please keep that in mind as you go in. Visit quietly, and do not enter the areas that are closed off, including the burial chambers themselves.
It is said to have been built in fifteen o one, by King Sho Shin, to re-inter his father, King Sho En. The kings of the second Sho dynasty have rested here ever since.
Let me tell you briefly who they were.
Around fourteen sixty-nine, a man named Kanamaru took the throne after a coup, and took the name Sho En.
He had been born into a farming family on Izena, a small island to the north. He rose through the offices of the royal government, and ended up king. It is the greatest rise in Ryukyuan history.
The dynasty he founded lasted until eighteen seventy-nine. About four hundred years. Those are the kings in front of you.
His son was Sho Shin.
Sho Shin reigned from fourteen seventy-seven to fifteen twenty-six, and that reign is remembered as the golden age of the kingdom. In roughly fifty years he brought the regional lords to live in Shuri and centralised the state.
He also built this mausoleum, founded the great temple by the pond, and laid out the royal road whose stones we will walk on shortly.
So here is a useful rule of thumb. Most of what you come to Shuri to see dates from the reign of Sho Shin.
Now look at the structure.
Three great stone chambers stand side by side. As stone architecture, it is among the largest in the country.
Each chamber had a purpose.
The middle one held the body before the bones were washed.
After the washing, the king and queen were placed in the east chamber, and other members of the royal family in the west.
Lay the dead to rest, wash the bones, and inter them again. That is an Okinawan funeral custom, built here in stone, at the scale of a royal house.
In the year two thousand this became part of the World Heritage listing. Nine sites across Okinawa were inscribed together, including castle ruins elsewhere on the island. Tamaudun is one of the nine.
And in twenty eighteen it became the first building in Okinawa to be designated a National Treasure.
The place was badly damaged in the Battle of Okinawa, and restored afterwards. Traces of that damage and repair are explained in the exhibition room at the entrance.
A tip on visiting. Stop at that exhibition room first, before you walk out into the tomb yard. Once you understand how the chambers were used, what you are looking at changes completely.
And then, in the yard itself.
The quiet is the point here.
Most sightseeing rewards you with liveliness. This place rewards you with the opposite. Stand still for a moment without making a sound.
One last thing that connects this tomb to today.
Okinawa has a spring festival called Shimi, when families gather at the graves of their ancestors. It is still part of the year here.
It began with the royal family. At this mausoleum.
A royal custom became a family custom across the islands, and it is still going today.
Which means this is not really a ruin.
We have now seen all three of Shuri's World Heritage sites: the stone gate, the castle remains, and this mausoleum.
From here, the walk changes character. We leave the places built for kings, and go down a road where people have lived.
Walking to the next stop
Leaving Tamaudun, head south and start downhill.
Make for the entrance of the Kinjocho stone-paved road. About six minutes.
From there on it is a steep stone descent, and the stones can be slippery. Please watch your footing.
When you are standing at the top of the stone road, press play.
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Read the transcript
You are at the top of the slope. From here down, it is stone.
This is the Kinjocho stone-paved road.
Look at your feet first.
The stone is Ryukyuan limestone. Centuries of people and horses have polished it, and it has a soft shine to it now.
This was part of a royal highway, laid out in the sixteenth century, in the reign of King Sho Shin. The same king who built the mausoleum you have just left.
The road ran from the castle on this hill down to the port of Naha. It is said to have been about ten kilometres long.
What remains is the three hundred metres in front of you.
Why so little? The Battle of Okinawa, and the development that followed.
Which is another way of saying that these three hundred metres came through the war.
Almost everything you have seen today was rebuilt. Shureimon, the main hall, the mausoleum. All reconstructions.
This road is not.
The stones were laid by people of the kingdom, and walked on by people of the kingdom, and you are standing on them.
That is a rarer thing than it sounds.
Look to either side. Red-tiled houses, limestone walls, and the stone road running down between them.
If you ask people here to picture Shuri, most of them picture this.
And notice the red of those roof tiles. It is the same red you saw on the main hall. Both are made from the island's own clay.
The castle and the town below it wear the same colour. That is why the view here holds together.
This district is called Kinjo.
Now, some practical advice before you go down.
Your shoes. Parts of this stone are polished smooth. Sandals and heels are genuinely dangerous here. If it is raining, or has been raining, the stones become very slippery. Do not push on.
The slope is steep, with steps. It is not suitable for a pushchair.
And going down is harder on the legs than it looks. Rest before you reach the bottom. There are places to sit on the way, and a cafe with a view.
Now the most important thing.
People live along this road.
The lane is narrow, so please do not spread out across it, and keep your voices down.
If you photograph the houses, be considerate. Please do not point a camera inside anyone's gate.
Do not spill drinks on the stones, and take your rubbish with you.
There is one more thing worth knowing, and it is not obvious from here.
This road survived the war. The town around it did not.
At the end of May, nineteen forty-five, after the Japanese army withdrew its headquarters to the south, what remained on this hill was rubble and burnt stone walls.
The town you are walking through was rebuilt from that, by the people who chose to live here again.
The road survived. The town was remade. Both of those things are in front of you at the same time.
Down the slope you will find shade under some very old trees, an old communal well, and a village meeting house. Look out for them as you go.
Take your time going down. Watch your step.
Walking to the next stop
When you reach the bottom of the stone road, that is the end of the walk.
Find somewhere to stand or sit, and press play for the last chapter.
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Read the transcript
You have reached the bottom.
Well done. Let me take a moment to look back at where we have been.
We came in through a red gate that was built to say the country valued courtesy over force.
We stopped at a small stone gate where a king prayed before every journey, and where people still pray now.
We stood in front of a hall that has burned down five times and been rebuilt five times, the most recent one finished in our own decade.
We looked at a pond dug six hundred years ago to receive envoys from China.
We stood in a tomb where quiet is the whole point.
And then we walked down on stones that people of the kingdom laid, into a town those same stones outlived.
The king was at the top of this hill. Water and daily life were at the bottom. People moved between them every day.
You have just done that walk on foot.
A few words to take with you.
Utaki. A sacred place, a grove or spring or stone where gods are held to dwell. There are living ones all over this town.
Suimui. The old name of Shuri, meaning the sacred grove.
Iyugumui. The pond with fish in it. What ordinary people called Ryutan.
Learn those three, and the next Okinawan town you walk through will read a little more clearly.
Now, getting back.
From here you can return towards Gibo or Shuri stations by bus or on foot. Bus routes and timetables change, so please check an app before you set off.
And if you are hungry, you are in a good place for it.
Shuri is serious about Okinawa soba. Despite the name, no buckwheat is involved. It is a wheat noodle in a broth of pork and bonito.
The noodles and the broth differ from shop to shop, which is the whole pleasure of it. One warning, though. The good places sell out and close early. Go sooner rather than later.
Last of all.
You are standing in a residential neighbourhood. Please keep your voice down, and take your rubbish with you.
Shuri is a living town before it is a tourist destination. Five hundred years of prayer and daily life, still going.
Walk here with respect, and this town will show you a great deal more.
Safe travels, in the sacred grove of Shuri.
And perhaps we will meet on another slope.
Before you go
- Shuri Castle Seiden opening (November 23, 2026)
- Getting to Shuri
- Frequently asked questions
- 日本語版の音声ツアー(全16章・約71分)
The full transcript runs to about 5,275 words. Everything here is drawn from the verified records of this site; nothing has been invented for the audio.