I had a few days off for New Year’s and decided to take a trip somewhere off the beaten path. One of the nice things about Japan is that every prefecture usually boosts something famous and/or unique that’s worth checking out. Sometimes this thing is a castle, shrine, food, or animal, but in Tottori, it’s sand.
I don’t remember when I first heard about Tottori’s sand dunes, but my interest in them spiked after reading Kobo Abe’s 1962 novel The Woman in the Dunes, a grim existential novel reminiscent ofWaiting for Godot with more plot and way more sand. Abe visited Tottori for inspiration before writing his novel, and the 1964 movie of the same name was filmed here also, which was enough to convince me to check it out.
The dunes are a natural phenomenon on the western Japan coast where sand was carried down from the mountains via the Sendai River into the ocean, and over time the currents carried the sediment back to shore, forming enormous dunes. The dunes became well-known after the novelist Takeo Arishima wrote about them in the 1920s, and they’re a big tourist draw for a part of Japan that doesn’t have much else going on (Fun Fact: Tottori is the least populated of Japan’s 47 prefectures).
Unfortunately, though, man-made sea walls built in the 1980s have disturbed the currents that replenish the dunes, and though the government and eager volunteers are working to preserve them, they might not be around forever.
(By the way, if you’re just joining in, check out my other Adventures in Japan posts here.)
It was a windy, cloud-filled day, and though the dunes didn’t look like much from far away, walking down the path from the road was like entering an entirely different country. The valley between the road and the main dune sunk far enough down that it felt like you were looking up at a high hill, with the silhouetted tourists on top looking like something out of Lawrence of Arabia.
This oasis in the center valley was a few inches deep and had naturally formed into this sweeping curve. From far away you could watch the other tourists climbing, sliding, and even sledding down the dunes.
The dunes were formed at the edge of the Sea of Japan in a region full of towering rock formation rising out of the water, part of the magnificent San’in Kaigan National Park stretching along the coast. I highly recommend taking the San’in local trains along the coast for a chance to see some truly excellent scenery.
The park offered camel rides to anyone willing to try, though the concept seemed kind of hokey to me. I did manage to get a good shot of the handlers bringing the camels back for the day, though.
Visiting the actual dunes was only half the awesomeness: the area also boasts the Tottori Sand Museum, an enormous open gallery of sculptures made entirely out of—you guessed it—sand.
Each year, sculptors arrive in January and begin a multi-month process of creating amazing sand sculptures to exhibit for the rest of the year before the museum closes and the whole process begins again the following winter. Each exhibit revolves around a different country or world culture, and I was lucky enough to arrive on the last week of the Scandinavian exhibit and see some kick-ass Norse gods.
Just to reiterate: this was made entirely out of sand.
My last stop was Amanohashidate, one of the Three Famous Views of Japan, and the only one I hadn’t yet seen (I visited both Matsushima Bay in Miyagi prefecture and Itsukushima island shrine in Hiroshima during my first time in Japan). It’s a winding, pine tree-covered sandbar connecting two sides of a bay in northern Kyoto, and it’s said that if you look at it upside down you can see the shape of a dragon (kind of).
The sign says it all.
I took an early walk across the sandbar on the last day of my trip and stopped along an empty beach to sit and contemplate for a while. It was still early and there were few tourists on the actual sandbar, which meant that I had this beautiful, tranquil place all to myself. A fine way to start the year.
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