Sand and Sea at Tottori!

Still catching up from my last trips in Japan. This post is dedicated to Tottori, which is famous for its Sand Museum and its sand dunes. There's a train from Himeji to Tottori every two hours, as well as direct buses to take, so it's entirely possible to visit everything in Tottori in a day.

The Sand Museum was my first stop. Its displays change each year; 2015's theme was "Germany." All of the sand sculptures, which were created by artists from all over the world, had something to do with German culture: there was a large area dedicated just to the Brothers' Grimm, Germany history (from Kaiser Wilhelm, to the printing press, to WWII and more modern events, like the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and their soccer team), German music (all the famous composers), and more. There was even a statue for Anne Frank. The lighting in the warehouse where they were stored was not cooperating with my camera, but I did manage to get a few photos to come out...

I'm pretty sure this statue is a replica of a famous painting...

Recognize this German fairy tail?

I believe this statue is supposed to represent a scene from Cinderella.

Some of the sculptures were huge and over two stories tall, like this giant castle scene. It was hard to take a photograph of it that'd do it justice.

I definitely recommend seeing the Sand Museum in Tottori. It was incredible the amount of detail and textures the sculptors were able to mold the sand into!

Right next to the museum is the other main attraction in Tottori: its sand dune (and the beach)! It was possible to climb all the way to the top, and then all the way down to the beach. For those so inclined, camel rides were offered in the vicinity (I saw both Dromedary and Bactrian camels, aka 1-hump and 2-hump camels); though by "ride" I mean you get led around on the camel in a relatively small circuit...

The water was chilly and pretty clean, and I enjoyed just walking up and down the beach as far as I could. A very relaxing day!

I took this as I began my climb to the top of the dune.

It wasn't often that I was able to get photos of the slopes of the dune without any people on it. There was no avoiding the footprints, though. So many!

I gave up after awhile and just climbed with my shoes off. The sand was very soft and fine, so it was pleasant walking barefoot.

The clouds started rolling in as the afternoon wore on, and it started raining as soon as I got on the bus back to the station (I seem to have a knack for beating the rain).

Comments

Autumn Leaves and Castle Cats

Here's a bunch of long overdue photos from the last two weeks! The autumn leaves have been absolutely stunning! The mountainsides are turning all sorts of colors, which makes them even more stunning than usual. I did my best to photograph the one that you can see from Shirasagi's garden, which is right outside of my apartment. The leaves are finally starting to fall from most of the trees these days, but the colors were beautiful while they lasted! Below are a bunch of photos of the bike paths next to the Himeji Castle Moat, which were surrounded by trees in stunning shades of red and gold. This is definitely the scenic route to get to downtown in Himeji! Unfortunately, I'm still not quite sure of all of the twists and turns through neighborhoods that it involves to get to the back entrance of this pathway, but once I'm on it I can orient myself via the castle. This area is always full of joggers, bikers, and... cats. Stray cats, for t...

Scarecrows and Swordsmen Make for an Exciting Weekend!

This weekend I had two consecutive day trips! On Saturday, November 9th, I went to Aioi to watch a swordsmith make a katana and viewed the Scarecrow Festival; I also went on a bit of a hike, and visited an art museum! Aioi was about an hour away from Shirasagi by car. It was at a higher altitude, so it was a bit chilly in the morning. Once the sun came out, though, it got much more comfortable! The autumn leaves were absolutely stunning; there's nothing quite like seeing mountainsides dotted with colorful trees! The entrance to a main area of Aioi. The view from the window of the smithy. The swordsmith at work! He was a junior apprentice, which meant he had to do all the work himself, using this machine to pound the steel. Apparently the grand masters are allowed to have apprentices pound the steel manually for them. A pond outside the smithy! A watermill fed into it. An ivy-covered house! Starting a hike to view a shrine in ...

SPring-8 and Warm Weather!

I was able to tour the synchotron radiation facility, SPring-8 , and it was pretty neat! It was also very very crowded--they only open the facility to visitors for a very short window, and on the day I went they were expecting crowds of over 5,000 people! The facility was gigantic, especially the ring which launches electrons to (almost) the speed of light; as far as appearance goes, though, it was mostly just lots of heavy machinery, and really didn't look that much different from laboratories in the US. The facility itself was pretty neat though, and despite my limited knowledge of applied physics I was able to get the gist of how most of the machines worked in this particular lab. It's reminiscent of an electron collider (like the ones that lead to the discovery of the Higgs Boson recently), except that they don't smash the atoms, they only speed them up to extreme speeds. The electrons move on a curved circuit--aka, a ring--and the curves are important as this a...

Daley-sensei's Adventures in Himeji, Japan.

Search This Blog