Kokusai Street to the Market Lanes — An Audio Walk
9 chapters, about 25 minutes. From Makishi Station along Kokusai Street, through the covered market arcades, and out to the pottery lanes of Tsuboya. A free self-guided audio walk. Listen on site, or before you travel.
This audio was produced with AI speech synthesis. Everything here is drawn from the verified records of this site.
These market lanes are a place for visitors and, at the same time, where local people do their shopping every day. Do not stand in the middle of a lane, ask before you photograph, and carry your rubbish out. Remember those three things and you will be fine.
- Stops (the number is the chapter)
- RYui Rail, Makishi Station
- Arrows show the route. It runs from the main street into the back lanes.
A sketch map for orientation only. The street lines join the coordinates of the stops and extend them; they are not the actual shape of the roads. For accurate positions see the full map (in Japanese).
Chapters
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Read the transcript
Welcome to Kokusai Street, in Naha.
Before we begin, one note. This audio was produced with AI speech synthesis.
This walk has nine chapters and runs about twenty-five minutes. With shopping and eating along the way, allow two and a half to three hours.
Now, before we talk about the route, one thing about the ground you are standing on.
Naha was once an island.
It was called Ukishima, the floating island. Land reclamation eventually joined it to the main island of Okinawa, but the name survived. There is a street here called Ukishima-dori, and people use that name every day.
You are walking on what used to be sea. Keep that somewhere in the back of your mind.
Today you will walk a city with two faces.
The first is Kokusai Street. About one thousand six hundred metres long, roughly a mile, and the main street of Naha. Souvenir shops and restaurants, one after another. A busy tourist street.
The second is the tangle of lanes that opens up on its south side. Covered arcades. A market at the centre of them. And beyond that, a district of craftsmen.
These two are only a few minutes apart on foot. But the air is completely different.
Today's walk goes from the main street into the back lanes, one layer at a time.
From the tourist street to the shopping arcade. From the arcade to the working market. From the market to the potters' quarter.
Turning the pages, one by one.
Three things about how to walk here.
First, please listen while standing still. The arcade lanes are narrow, and people push carts of goods through them. Do not stop in the middle of a lane. That is the single most important thing in this neighbourhood.
Second, ask before you photograph. Especially the fresh food stalls and the people working. Almost everyone says yes.
Third, carry your rubbish out with you. There are very few bins here. A plastic bag in your pocket makes life easier.
Local people call this maze of market streets the machigwa. It is an Okinawan word for a market or a shopping street. This is a place for visitors, and at the same time it is where people do their shopping every day of their lives. Remember only that, and this neighbourhood will be very kind to you.
So. Let's begin.
Please make your way to the Yui Rail monorail, Makishi Station, and stand beside the large shisa in the square.
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Read the transcript
There is a very large shisa in front of you.
It stands in the square outside Makishi Station on the Yui Rail monorail.
It is about three point four metres tall.
There is a word in Okinawan for large. Ufu. This shisa carries it in its name, and so does another one you will meet later today.
It is made of plaster.
Look up at it for a moment. Close up, it has more presence than you would expect.
So. What is a shisa?
It is a guardian figure, placed at the entrance of a house.
In Okinawa you find them on gateposts and on rooftops. Some are plain and unglazed. Some are bright with colour. Traditionally they are placed as a pair.
Today's walk starts with a shisa, and it will end with a shisa.
That is because at the southern edge of this neighbourhood there is a district that has been making them for centuries.
Tsuboya. A town of pottery.
The large one in front of you now, and the small ones you will see later, all trace back to the same place.
That is where we are walking today.
Here is the order. First, from this station, southwest along Kokusai Street. About halfway down we turn into the covered arcades. Through the market, and on to Tsuboya.
From the main street into the back lanes. It gets quieter as we go.
The last stop is about ten minutes' walk from this station, so you do not need to worry about getting back.
Shall we go?
Walking to the next stop
Turn your back on the shisa and walk southwest along Kokusai Street.
Straight along the road, about six minutes.
The pavement is wide, so you can look around as you go. There will be time for the shops later.
When you see the Naha City Tourist Information Office on your right, stop there and press play.
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Read the transcript
You are standing at roughly the middle of Kokusai Street.
On your right is the Naha City Tourist Information Office. If anything goes wrong today, come back here. Remember where it is.
Now, the name of this street.
Kokusai. In Japanese it means international.
Most people assume it refers to international exchange, or to some cosmopolitan character of the place.
It does not.
Shortly after the war, a cinema opened on this street. It was called the Ernie Pyle International Theatre.
People at the time called this "the street with the International Theatre on it." The name stuck, and eventually it became the name of the whole street.
So the name of a cinema became the name of a street.
The theatre itself is gone.
But that connection between cinemas and this neighbourhood survives nearby. The Sakurazaka Theatre. It grew out of a playhouse that opened in nineteen fifty-two, and when it faced closure, local people stepped in and saved it.
Now, the street has a second name.
The Miracle Mile.
About one thousand six hundred metres long. Roughly a mile. And that is what it has been called.
Why a miracle?
The Battle of Okinawa destroyed almost all of central Naha.
After the war people came back, a few at a time. Stalls appeared on the burnt ground. A black market grew. And out of that, in a remarkably short time, a shopping street stood up.
The speed of that recovery is what people called a miracle.
This ordinary, busy street you are looking at now. This is the place they meant.
And here is what matters for today. That black market lineage survives most strongly in the place we are about to walk into.
The south side of this street. Under the arcade roofs.
Let me tell you a little more about what lies underneath this city.
Before Kokusai Street existed, what was here?
First, there was a railway.
Okinawa's main island once had a light railway, and Naha Station, opened in nineteen fourteen, was its starting point.
It was destroyed in the Battle of Okinawa. After the war it was never rebuilt, and it simply disappeared.
It has no direct connection to today's Yui Rail. They are entirely different railways.
There was also a temple here that enshrined the memorial tablets of the Ryukyuan kings. It was called Sogenji. The buildings were lost to the fires of war, but a stone gate of three limestone arches and its walls survive, and they are designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan.
What burned. What did not burn.
In Naha those two things sit side by side. Which is exactly why what survived is so valuable here.
And what survived is not only buildings.
There is a festival called the Naha Great Tug-of-War, which has continued since the days of the Ryukyu Kingdom.
Every October, this part of Kokusai Street is still its stage.
A city that was interrupted by war is holding its festival again. For this street, that is also a form of recovery.
Walking Kokusai Street from end to end takes about twenty minutes.
Try walking it knowing that a century of stories is folded into those twenty minutes.
Right. From here, the real walk begins.
We are leaving the main street.
Walking to the next stop
From in front of the tourist office, continue southwest along Kokusai Street.
After two or three minutes, an arcade entrance appears on your right. That is Ichiba Hondori.
The entrance is understated enough that you can walk straight past it. A narrow lane under a roof.
Once you are inside the arcade, press play.
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Read the transcript
You are under the roof now.
Can you hear the change? The traffic on Kokusai Street suddenly sounds far away.
This is Ichiba Hondori. The name means market main street.
It is a covered arcade that runs from Kokusai Street down to the front of the Makishi Public Market. It leads to the market's main entrance, which makes it something like an approach road.
If you walk this neighbourhood at all, this is the lane you will end up using.
There is one more thing about this street worth knowing.
It used to be full of shops selling rice cakes and local sweets.
People called it the confectionery street.
Traces of that survive. There are still sata andagi and chinsuko shops along this lane.
Sata andagi are Okinawan doughnuts. Dense, about the size of a golf ball, and deep fried.
Take the name apart and you have the recipe. Sata is sugar. Anda is oil. Agi is fried. Sugar, oil, fried. That is all it says.
You can buy them one at a time, fresh out of the fryer, at sweet shops and eating houses around the market.
If you happen to be walking past one that is frying right now, you will know by the smell.
And about this roof.
The arcades here mean you can walk without getting wet on a rainy day.
Okinawan rain arrives suddenly. The summer sun is punishing too. This roof was not built for tourists. It was built for the people who shop here every day. But visitors are glad of it all the same.
If it starts raining, do not worry. From here, you are under cover for a while.
Right. Let's keep going.
What is ahead is the heart of today's walk.
Walking to the next stop
Carry on down Ichiba Hondori, further in.
After about two minutes a large building appears straight ahead of you. That is the Makishi Public Market.
When you reach the entrance, stop and press play before you go in. There are a few things worth hearing first.
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Read the transcript
The Makishi Public Market.
People here call it Naha's kitchen.
The building itself is new. It was rebuilt in twenty twenty-three, so what stands in front of you is clean and modern.
But what happens inside has not changed at all.
It began as a black market after the war.
In the last chapter I mentioned a shopping street rising out of burnt ground. This is the place where that lineage survives most strongly.
It started as stalls. It became a market. The building has been replaced, and its role as the place where people gather has not moved an inch.
Eighty years of people gathering, inside one building.
Let me tell you what is in it.
The ground floor is fresh food.
Fishmongers, butchers, and stalls selling island vegetables.
Look at the fish. I think you will be surprised.
Blue, pink, yellow. Fish that look like they belong in an aquarium, sitting quite normally on the ice. The fish of Okinawan waters live in a different colour world from the mainland.
The meat is island pork. You may have heard the name agu.
For vegetables there is goya, the bitter melon, of course. There is also loofah and mugwort, which are everyday ingredients here.
And then there is the thing this market is famous for. The mochiage system.
You buy your ingredients on the ground floor, carry them up to a restaurant on the first floor, and they cook them for you.
Here is how it works. On the ground floor, tell the stallholder you want to take it upstairs, and choose your ingredients. This is the moment to check the cooking fee, which is set per dish. Then carry it up and tell the restaurant how you would like it done.
A fish you chose yourself, turned into a meal in front of you. That is something you can only do in a market.
Of course, you do not have to do any of this.
Buying a freshly fried tempura or fish cake at a stall and eating it on the spot is plenty.
Okinawan tempura is quite different from the mainland version. The batter is thick and already seasoned, so you eat it as it is.
Now, two requests before you go in.
First, photographs.
The fresh food stalls, and the people working. Always ask first. Almost everyone says yes, which is exactly why it matters to ask.
Second, the aisles.
They are narrow, and people are moving goods through them. Do not stand and block them. The same goes for taking photographs.
And if someone offers you a taste, feel free to buy or not buy. There is no obligation either way.
One note on timing.
This neighbourhood is busiest around the middle of the day, roughly eleven to two. The restaurants upstairs fill up then as well. If you want a calmer visit, avoid the peak, or aim for just after opening.
Right. Enjoy the market.
Stop the audio here, and pick it up again when you come back out.
Walking to the next stop
When you leave the market, take a different lane from the one you came in by.
Look for Heiwa-dori, the arcade running from the market back towards Kokusai Street.
About two minutes, though it is less a distance than a feeling of the lane quietly changing around you.
You can listen while you walk. Press play.
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Read the transcript
This is Heiwa-dori. The name means peace street.
It is a covered arcade running southeast from a crossing on Kokusai Street.
People call it the spine of the machigwa.
Let me explain that word properly.
Machigwa.
It is Okinawan for a market or a shopping street.
In Naha, the arcades that spread south of Kokusai Street, together with the public market at their centre, are collectively called the machigwa.
Ichiba Hondori, which we walked a moment ago. Heiwa-dori, which we are walking now. And the lanes that link them sideways. All of it is machigwa.
They are connected like a net, and if it is your first time here you will absolutely get lost.
But this is a good place to get lost. Every lane is under a roof, and as you walk you find yourself slipping naturally into a different one. There are no dead ends.
Get lost, and sooner or later you will come out somewhere.
Along this lane there are souvenir shops, clothing shops, eating houses and sweet shops, packed tightly together.
And the character of the machigwa is that visitors and local shoppers are mixed together.
Right beside someone choosing a souvenir, someone else is buying their groceries for the evening. The tourist attraction and the daily life are not separated.
One more thing worth remembering.
Many of the shops that sell goods close in the early evening.
At night, some of these lanes come down to shutters, and the machigwa becomes a completely different, quieter place. If shopping is what you are here for, morning to early afternoon is the safe bet.
Right. Once you reach the end of this lane, the machigwa is behind you.
From here, the air changes again.
Walking to the next stop
Walk southeast along Heiwa-dori.
Near the end of the lane, a very large shisa appears. That is the Tsuboya shisa, made in Tsuboya ware by a local potter. It marks the entrance to the pottery quarter.
Think of it as the younger sibling of the one you saw at the station this morning.
Carry on from there, and after about six minutes the road surface turns to stone.
When it turns to stone, you are on Tsuboya Yachimun Street. Stop there and press play.
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Read the transcript
The ground under your feet has turned to stone.
This is Tsuboya Yachimun Street.
Yachimun is the Okinawan word for pottery. This is a town that makes it.
Listen for a moment.
The noise of the market has gone.
You are only a few minutes' walk from Kokusai Street. That is all. And yet it is this quiet. That drop is, I think, the most interesting thing about Naha.
The paving is Ryukyuan limestone. On either side are kilns, galleries, and old red-tiled roofs.
So, why is there a pottery town here?
It begins in sixteen eighty-two.
In the days of the Ryukyu Kingdom, kilns that had been scattered across the island were gathered into this one district.
It was policy. They brought them together in a single place.
Since then Tsuboya has been the centre of Okinawan pottery. That is more than three hundred years.
Tsuboya ware divides into two families.
The first is arayachi.
Fired without glaze. Plain, and strong. Historically it was used for water jars, for awamori vessels, and for shisa.
The second is jouyachi.
Fired with glaze, and decorated. The pieces with traditional patterns, fish and arabesque, are the well-known ones.
Walk this street and you will meet both.
Every shop has a different hand, so look into several and compare. That is the best way to enjoy this street.
Two tips for choosing a piece.
The first is to pick it up and feel the weight and the surface. This is handwork, so every piece has its own face. You cannot tell until you hold it. Ask before you touch, and almost every shop will be happy to let you.
The second is to choose something you will actually use. A rice bowl, a small plate. Things that go on the table every day will keep the trip going long after you are home.
It breaks, so if you are carrying it a long way, ask them to wrap it properly. Many shops will ship for you.
Now for the most important thing here.
This street is a mixture of working kilns and houses where people live.
The grounds of kilns and private homes, and the workshops. Please always get permission before entering, and before photographing anyone at work.
It is a quiet street. Keep your voice down and take it slowly.
And watch your feet.
Stone paving is slippery in the rain. If it is wet today, do not hurry.
One more thing about this street that you cannot see by looking.
The Battle of Okinawa burned almost all of Naha.
Kokusai Street, which we walked earlier, and the market. All of it was started again from ashes.
But this paving survived.
Stone that came through the war, and the traditional houses of potters, are still here.
There are not many places in Naha where you can meet something genuinely old.
The stone under your feet is one of them.
The street takes about thirty minutes to walk slowly.
Choose a bowl, stop at a café, and an hour or two disappears easily.
Take your time.
Walking to the next stop
Carry on along the pottery street, further in.
After about three minutes, a long low structure appears at the roadside, shaped rather like a half cylinder lying down.
That is the last stop of the day.
When you find it, press play.
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Read the transcript
In front of you is Fe-nu-kama. The south kiln.
It is a climbing kiln, used for arayachi. The unglazed ware from the last chapter. This is where it was fired.
It is built up a slope, shaped like a long half cylinder. It runs about twenty metres.
Bigger than you expected? Or smaller?
What makes this kiln remarkable is a number.
It is said to be the only surviving arayachi climbing kiln.
There is one. This one.
In nineteen seventy-three it was designated a Prefectural Tangible Cultural Property.
The kiln itself is no longer fired. But there is a café alongside it, so you can sit and look at it for a while.
Drinking tea in front of the oldest piece of equipment in a town that has worked for three centuries. That is not an ordinary afternoon.
There is one more building on this street I would like you to see.
The Arakaki House.
It is the traditional home of a Tsuboya potter.
The main house, the workshop, and a climbing kiln. The whole set, still standing together.
Which means the place where the family lived and the place where they worked are inside the same grounds. A craftsman's life and a craftsman's trade, in the shape of a building.
It is designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan. Fe-nu-kama, which you just looked at, is a prefectural designation. This one is national.
Inside the grounds is a climbing kiln called Agari-nu-kama, the east kiln, and you can see it from the lane.
But here is the important part.
The Arakaki House is a working cultural property, on grounds that people look after.
The interior is not normally open. Please do not walk in, and keep your visit to the view from the lane.
A kiln to the south, and a kiln to the east.
That is the map this street is made of.
The walk ends here.
Walking to the next stop
This is the end of the walking.
Find somewhere to sit, and press play for the last chapter.
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Read the transcript
Well done. You have reached the end.
Let me look back at where we have been.
We started at a large shisa outside a station.
We walked a main street whose name came from a cinema, and which was called a miracle because of how fast it rose out of burnt ground.
We turned off it into an arcade, and went under the roof. That lane was once full of sweet shops.
We saw a market that descends from a black market, where a fish you choose downstairs comes back to you as a meal upstairs.
We walked the spine of the machigwa, a lane where the tourist attraction and the daily shopping are not separated.
Then we came out onto stone, entered a town that has been firing pottery for over three hundred years, and looked at the one arayachi kiln that is left.
From the main street into the back lanes.
Turning the pages one by one, we found the oldest thing at the very back.
That is how Naha is built.
Three words to take with you.
Machigwa. A market, a shopping street. The spine of this neighbourhood.
Yachimun. Pottery. Arayachi is unglazed, jouyachi is glazed. Learn those two and every pottery shop gets more interesting.
Shisa. The guardian at the gate. You met two large ones today.
And one word about food.
Okinawan cooking has a word that simply means things stirred together. Champuru. As in goya champuru.
Okinawan dish names usually describe exactly what was done to the food. Take them apart and they explain themselves. It adds something to the eating.
Now, getting back.
Makishi Station is about ten minutes' walk from here, which returns you to where you started this morning.
If you have time, do not retrace your steps. Take a different lane. The machigwa is a net, and there are no dead ends.
One last time.
This is a place for visitors, and at the same time it is where people do their shopping every day of their lives.
Do not stand in the middle of the lane. Ask before you photograph. Carry your rubbish out.
Do that, and this neighbourhood becomes a great deal friendlier.
Safe travels, in the back lanes of Naha.
Perhaps we will meet on another street.
Before you go
- Street Food & Market Guide — what to eat and where
- Tsuboya Pottery Street — the 300-year-old ceramics quarter
- Shopping & Souvenirs
- Visitor FAQ — opening hours, rainy days, etiquette
- 日本語版の音声さんぽ(全9章・約28分)
The full transcript runs to about 3,514 words. Everything here is drawn from the verified records of this site; nothing has been invented for the audio. Opening hours and prices change quickly, so they are not in the audio — please check before you go.