Tottori Tour Guide

On the weekend of May 21st, my friend Kerstin came over from Tokyo to check out the Chugoku region. Another one of our friends, Chris, hopped over from Hyogo with his car. Together we drove down to the sand dunes, and then checked out the new Sand Museum display. This year's display theme is South America. More so than the previous exhibition, the South American theme made clever use of the space. The sculptors used the back sides of the center and inset sculptures to make a gigantic Christ the Redeemer. And my favorite touch was the Machu Picchu display, which was only visible from the 2nd story platform for a birds eye perspective.


Afterwards we met up with most of the Tottori ALTs for a sea kayaking voyage around the Uradome coast. At the beginning of my time on JET, we all went on a tour boat to view this spectacular coastline from afar, but this time we got to get up close, even paddling through the arches! Seeing these natural wonders up close was a completely different experience.



After kayaking, we headed back into Tottori-shi for a local beer fest and a rare festival! This particular local festival featured a few parade floats and many groups performing dances. I even ran into a few coworkers and friends who were participating in the festival.  A variety of seemingly traditional dances were performed. I filmed a few of them for you to take a look.



At the festival my buddy Yasuaki from the curry restaurant Moona was cooking up some food. Surprisingly he was not selling curry, but yakisoba, appropriate food for a festival.

To end the night we headed to the local dive bar, Shuvi's, for an informal ALT talent show. The performances were impressive, and complimented by the fantastic MCs Scott and Dana, one of the best comedic duos I have seen. It was a fun, entertaining way to end the busy day.












The next morning, with another Tottori ALT Liam joining us, we drove out to Mt. Mitoku. The weather was wonderful for the short hike, which went much faster with a small group. This is one of my favorite spots in Japan, so I was glad to be able to go back again. The spring vistas were breathtaking.

That evening we went back for the second day of beer fest, and this time we got to watch the curry restaurant owner, Yasuaki, perform with the infamous black clad shan shan group, Dotokintzu.  As always they put on a bombastic performance! Their first song was a more traditional shan shan performance, executed to perfection. But the next set of performances was where their character really shines through with upbeat tempos and flashy choreography. Here's all the performances I recorded, skip ahead past the first minute if you want to see their more flashy dancing.

We then made a brief stop at the Tottori castle ruins to take in the twilight vista of the inaka city, before heading to Sarashina for a feast! At this point in time the chef, Takashi, no longer even preps food on the menu for my friends and I. Instead he cooks whatever he feels inclinded to feed us, and continues to do so until we give up. The massive feast was a great way to end a fun weekend.









PS. Earlier that week on the 17th was my birthday, which I celebrated at Sarashina.  Takashi was kind enough to invite me over. that Tuesday night after work to celebrate, even though the restaurant was closed. What I didn't expect was a shabu shabu feast with the whole family and friends.