Star sand

If you're ever headed to Okinawa's Yaeyama islands, make sure to stop by Hoshizuna beach, where you can find star sand (cool!).

Hoshizuna is a small quiet beach, where visitors are normally crouched over the sand sorting through the grains. They are looking for miniscule five pointed stars little more than a millimeter across. To a biologist, each star is merely the exoskeleton of foraminifers—marine protozoa that once lived on the ocean floor. To the locals, they are the tiny offspring of the Southern Cross and the North Star. These children of the stars were born in the ocean just off Okinawa, but killed by a giant serpent. Their tiny skeletons are all that remains of the heavenly union. The best time to find the star sand is just after a typhoon, when rough seas have thrown fresh sand onto the beach. Otherwise, it is a slow task and most visitors find no more than a couple of grains, then resort to buying a small vial of pre-found stars.

Time to book a trip!