Ryukyu Mura

Ryukyu Mura is a hillside village of old Okinawan houses, dismantled elsewhere on the island and rebuilt here behind coral-stone walls. Of the 11 houses, 8 are national registered tangible cultural properties. The grandest, the former Oshiro residence, was the home of a Ryukyu court official and is roughly two centuries old.

What you see is everyday rural life before the war: a pig pen that doubled as the toilet, a kami-ashagi prayer hut, and a sugar hut where a water buffalo walks in circles to turn the cane press. The eisa drum dance runs four times a day in the central square. There are around 50 hands-on programmes, from painting a shisa lion and blowing Ryukyu glass to a short sanshin lesson or dressing in Ryukyu costume.

It is smaller and quieter than Okinawa World in the south, with no cave, and it fits neatly into a morning or afternoon if you are staying at the Onna resorts. It is commercial in places and very hot at midday in summer. Allow about two hours; Naha Airport is roughly an hour away by car.