Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Ō-Ganéku-kaigan is Yoron's most popular beach and is also its longest, offering over a mile (2 kilometers)
of powder sand and acqua water.
But it's not over, for it is from “Big-Ganéku Beach” that you catch the glass-bottom boats
1 mile (1.6 kilometers) out to Yoron's most unusual beach, the disappearing Yuri-gahama (
合ケ浜 ; lit. “100 Lily Beach”). It's a pure white sandbar that appears twice every 24 hours at
high tide. Yuriga Beach is most famous for its “star sand.”
The Pricia Resort Hotel on Yoron-tō is a first-class resort less than five minutes from the airport or the
harbor. Sunset Beach is visible at upper right.
Yoron's several other sights include the popular caves Akasaki ( 赤崎 ) and the 3,280-foot
(1,000-meter) Yago-Gokuraku-do ( 屋 川-極楽洞 ), the Hida cultural folk village ( 飛騨民
族村 ; Hida Minzoku-mura) and the Southern Cross Center ( サザンクロスセ ン ター;
Sazankurosu Sentā, a small museum which features the history and culture of Yoron and the
Amami Islands. The museum is so-named because Yoron Island is the northernmost place in
Japan where the Southern Cross constellation may be seen.
For tropical garden fans, there is the Yunnu-Rakuen ( ユンヌ楽園 ) Botanical Gardens.
Colorful flowers bloom all over Yoron. The botanical gardens feature as many flowers as pos-
sible that bloom all the year round, including over 40 species of hibiscus and 150 other kinds
of tropical and semi-tropical plants.
Star Sand or Hoshizuna ( 星砂 )
Several of the southern Ryukyus, including Taketomi, Iriomote and Yoron, are famous for their beau-
iful “star sand.” These iny grains—most species are less than 1 mm in size—are the shells of micro-
scopic, single-celled organisms called foraminiferans (lit. “hole bearers”) or forams. There are about
275,000 species recognized, both living and fossil. Forams commonly produce a calcium carbonate
“test” or shell which can have one or muliple chambers, some quite complex. Live forams are primar-
 
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