When you think of quintessential Japan, we're betting you think of the charms of Kyoto, with its many tea houses, kimono-clad geiko, elegant shrines, and narrow alleys. On Okinawa, Kyoto's cultural counterpart is Shuri, the former seat of the royal family of the Ryukyus.

While Kyoto may have been spared from bombing by Allied generals during World War II due to its cultural importance, Shuri was given no such bye. The area was (and is) located on an impressive hilltop, and this, combined with the fact that Japanese forces had turned the castle's buildings into a barracks and constructed an immense network of tunnels and caves underneath them, made the area a prime target for Allied bombers. Most of Shuri was leveled during the Battle of Okinawa, and it wasn't until years after the war that many of the buildings of cultural importance were restored.

But, despite the death and destruction, the heart of Shuri never died. Sustained by a hearty resident community, the area rose like a phoenix from the ashes to rebuild businesses such as Arakaki Kashiten (a family bakery that has made chinsuko (Okinawa cookies) for centuries) and tile-roofed homes such as those seen along many of the neighborhood's back alleys. If you look for it, present-day Shuri still has much of its old world charm. And while tourists may think that charm lies exclusively in the Seiden's vermillion pillars, the gold leaf on the Shureimon, or with the tourist photo ladies treading softly underneath the weight of hanagasa and bingata kimono, locals know it lies with the hand constructed shisa, the narrow streets decorated with pots of flowers, and the neighborhood grocery stores where locals come to gossip.