Adventures in Shimane and Tottori Wednesday, 20 October 2010

Posted by idJoe™ in Reizen.
trackback

My wristwatch showed 1:14 pm. We were at a restaurant inside Matsue station building waiting for my cold noodle and Tawil’s hot soup noodle to be served. Twenty minutes had passed and the train to Nima would depart within 7 minutes. I was getting impatient and asked whether we could have a take-out order instead of having our lunch there. “Sorry, we don’t have such service”, replied the waitress. At last, two minutes later our noodles arrived! While she was staring at us, I finished my lunch in less than one minute, went to the cashier and paid both mine and Tawil’s, then we ran to the ticket machine, which was about 50 meters away, passed the ticket to the gate keeper, climbed up the stairs to the platform and got into the train 10 seconds before the door closed. We made it on time! Otherwise, we had to wait for another train in one hour.

———————————————————————————————-

It was mid-summer when I and Tawil decided to have a journey to Tottori and Shimane. We departed by using night intercity bus (Keikyu bus) on July 16th, 9.30pm  from Shinagawa station and were almost late because we couldn’t find the meeting point at first. Luckily we were able to find it after Tawil asked an ojisan where Keikyu Bus terminal is, and he directed us to a place 200m away from the station. We made it in time, within 10 minutes before the departure.

When we arrived the next day around 8 in the morning at Tottori station, the sun was already above our heads.  We decided to search for a sento (洗湯) where we can have a shower, and we found one around 10 minutes walk from the station. It was a nice bath, even though there was a yakuza member with big tattoos around his body, and he kept smoking although it was not allowed to smoke inside.

After having fresh shower, we took bus to Tottori Sand dunes, which can be regarded as the biggest sand dune in Japan. It was located next to Japan sea, and has an altitude around 20m above the sea level. It is a beautiful place where you can see the blue sky and vast sea ahead.

The only problem is that the temperature was so hot. It was more than 30 degrees Celsius if you stay away from the sand, and around 40 degrees or more if you stand on the sand. I climbed and reached the other side of the sand dunes and found a deep blue sea lays in front of me.

There was also an exhibition of sculptures made of sand in an open-air  museum next to the sand dune. Since FIFA world cup 2010 was held in South Africa, the theme of the sculptures was “Africa”.  Crocodiles, apes, lions, and any other wild animals that can be found in the jungle, which, IMHO, does not suit the image of the richest country in Africa continent.

You can take a look at my web album regarding those sculptures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/yohanes.hg/TottoriShimane

 

At last, my wristwatch showed that it was noon time, and my stomach protested me asking for food that we hadn’t had any after dinner 16 hours before. There were a restaurant and some food stands  near Sand Dune, and we went to take a look. Seemed nice, but the price was a bit too high. “Let’s find some food near Tottori station”, said I. We went to the bus stop, and checked the schedule for the next bus for Tottori station. Alas, we had to wait another 45 minutes, and that was not a good idea. In the end, we entered the restaurant and ordered Hot Teppan Yakisoba. It was a fried noodle served on an iron plate with burning flame put under it. It was hot outside, and we ordered burning food! What a really hot summer day I ever had!

From Tottori we went to Kurayoshi, the third largest city in Tottori Prefecture where you can see houses built in Edo period still exist. There was also Utsubuki Park nearby where you can see cherry blossoms in spring; but, unfortunately we went there in summer and saw nothing interesting. Along the road, however, I found interesting figures, such as Kappa (as shown on the left) which its actual size is not taller than 10cm. Afterwards, we went to Hokuei-cho to find Gosho Aoyama Manga Factory. It is a manga museum dedicated to his most popular manga character, Conan Edogawa (Detective Conan). We arrived there right at the closing time (5.30 pm) but still allowed to enter the shop. When we were about to leave 20 minutes later, a family consisted of 5 people wanted to enter but was not allowed. We were the last two guests that day….

We stayed overnight in a hotel in Yonago, a city located in North East of Tottori Prefecture, which is adjacent to our next destination: Shimane Prefecture. There we could only find high priced Japanese style restaurant if not Izakaya (居酒屋). After going to and fro we entered an Izakaya, ordered some food, and yes, a glass of whisky for me. Half priced!

The room we reserved was semi double, the cheapest one where two person can stay overnight. It was 5,500 yen for both of us. The receptionists might think it weird that two men ordered semi double room, which meant that we had to share one bed. Well, I didn’t really care about it. What we needed was a place to have a nice sleep, and shower for the next day.

Morning had come, and we had to go to our next destination: Matsue. It is the capital city of Shimane prefecture, located near lake Shinji. One of its sightseeing spot is Matsue Castle, one in a few castles in Japan that kept intact in its original construction. The other castle that has not reconstructed is Matsumoto castle in Nagano Prefecture.

After spending around one hour inside Matsue castle complex, we took a round-trip bus which would also take us to Matsue station. I was so eager to see lake Shinji that I insisted we get off at one stop. We did get off, but then we canceled our plan, and decided to have lunch near the station. Matsue station is big enough so that there are some restaurants inside its building. After considering some option, we entered one that specialized in noodles. I ordered cold noodle (hiyashi-men), and Tawil ordered hot soup noodle. We had to leave within 30 minutes to catch the next train, otherwise we would have to wait another hour in case we missed it. And the story went on just like the first paragraph you read above.

Safe! We got inside the train with our beating heart and panting for breath. “I swear I don’t want to experience this any more. Not at once!”, said Tawil. Ok, we won’t do it again. Instead we will have a more breath taking adventure.

Inside the train I saw a weird girl wearing colorful clothes and shoes which didn’t have matched colors. I didn’t and still can’t understand  what was inside her mind that made her have the courage to have such crazy way of clothing. I had to take her picture while she was not aware of it, otherwise she might feel offended and could have brought me to police station. Well, I managed to do it without her noticing at all.

 

After forty minutes we arrived at Nima station. We expected to find a big station where you can find bus that brings you to Nima Sand Museum. Yes, it is a museum of sand – made famous by a Japanese movie titled Sand Chronicles (砂時計, suna dokei). But what we found was out of expectation.  It is a small station with only one officer in charge, one way out of the station, and a vending-machine-like ticket machine. Outside the station we found nothing but old houses, and almost nobody was around unless 3 young girls that passed by. We asked the officer for the direction to sand museum, and he told us the way. Well, actually we could see the roof tip of the museum from the station. But asking the way costs you nothing, though. Regarding the museum and what was inside it, you can take a look at my picasa web album.

After having enough seeing sand and sand watches, we went to Maji which is located one station away from Nima. Some scenes in “Sand Chronicles” were taken here, for it has a beautiful seashore. Well, that depends on one’s personal view, though.

Five o’clock. We had to go to Izumo station which is located right in the middle between Matsue and Nima. Our bus to Tokyo would depart that night at 8.30pm. We arrived there around six, and took a bath at a sentou near the station. It cost each of us 700 yen. The sentou has a point card system, where you can get one time free bath for each ten points. For first time users, they can roll a cotton dice sized 10cm height which could add extra points. It has no benefit for us, though, since we won’t be going there anymore. It was our first and last time using that sentou.

We had dinner in a small restaurant where there was only one cook who also served customers. We finished our dinner and still had some extra minutes before the bus departed, and our long journey back to the east began…..

Fin