Okinawa World

The cave came first. A survey team from Ehime University found Gyokusendo in 1967, some five kilometres of limestone passage under the hills of Nanjo, and the theme park was built on top of it afterwards. About 890 metres are open to walk, which takes half an hour, and the count of stalactites is usually given as around a million. The rock has been forming for 300,000 years and is still growing at roughly one millimetre every three years.

It stays at about 21 degrees down there with humidity close to saturation, so a camera lens will fog on the way in and glasses will too. The walkway is wet, has a lot of steps and is not step-free. The lighting is coloured, which purists dislike, and the scale still works.

Above ground, the Ryukyu Kingdom Castle Town is a village assembled from over a hundred relocated Okinawan houses, most of them registered cultural properties, now used as workshops. You can watch bingata dyeing, glassblowing, pottery, indigo and paper making, and try most of them for a fee. The Eisa drum and dance performance runs several times a day and is genuinely good rather than a token show.

Then there is the habu section, dedicated to the pit viper that Okinawans have been dealing with for centuries, with a live snake demonstration that is either the highlight or the reason to leave, depending on your feelings about snakes. The brewery on site pours Okinawan beer, and the restaurants do Okinawa soba and taco rice.

A full pass is around 2,000 yen and there are cheaper cave-only tickets. Around thirty minutes from Naha by car. Three hours covers it comfortably.