Saion Ufu Shisa

Saion Ufu Shisa is a large ceramic shisa at the entrance of Kokusai Street in front of Makishi Station in Naha, Okinawa, standing in Saion Square. Ufu means large in the Okinawan dialect, and the guardian figure is a 3.4-meter tsuboya-yaki statue. Tsuboya potters made it over about five months in September 2011, and it weighs about 3 tons. At night it is lit, and photos can be taken in the surrounding plaza and along the Anri River waterway.