More on Okinawa landscape

The big hotels came in and bought the beach front areas up and tried to make them private for guests only, but the government made them open the beaches up for public use, so now they charge like 500 yen - about $5 to go to the beach. There are a few nice public beaches. It is not like Hawaii in that is doesn't have that paradise/resort type feel here. There are a lot of flowers but it doesn't smell wonderful like Hawaii. It doesn't smell bad, just not great. There are a lot of big rocks/boulders/rock cliffs, etc, here. Some of the beaches are not sand, they are just broken pieces of coral and shells instead, then of course some of the beaches are just coral, like hard coral, like concrete. My friend Karen called it volcano lava beaches, but there are no volcano's here. The island is only 64 miles long and at the narrowest about 2 miles across at the widest about 18 miles across.