Sand, Sea, Sun, and Rain

The eastern part of Tottori prefecture is known for mainly two things: the Uradome coastline, 1.5 km of rugged precipitous cliffs, caves, and former pirate hideouts, and the Tottori Sakyu, the sand dunes.

We were tour-bussed to the dock and got on a tour boat. Many JETs were visibly hung-over, this might turn out to be more ride than some could handle.


The girl in red hair in the right foreground was Kate, the guy with shaved head in the left foreground was Matt. Between them, the ponytailed girl in red top is Tottori Kate. To her left in brown and headband is Amy. The orange tanktop is Simona. The girl in blue-sleeved white tee is Yuca. These names will be repeated in the following narrative.

The coastline can be seen from the boat:





Pretty chill ride, barely any waves on the water. The hung-over victims finally released their collective breath and held on to their nausea. I was by myself mostly, poeticizing in the drama of the landscape and lamenting my yellow Irvine Chinese School t-shirt being stained by the squid icecream I got before boarding:



It tasted suspiciously similar to vanilla. Probably just a gimmick for tourists. Mayumi, our prefectural advisor, was so curious about it she chipped in for me to buy one. Soon we got off and were again bussed, this time to the Tottori sand dunes:


Kerry and Rachel(?) to the right. It looked like they were taking off their sandals, but they probably put it back on soon after. The sand was very hot. I didn't want to walk in my sneakers and got a big toe blister.

This picture of elementary kids competing in a shoe-tossing contest was taken with the vivid setting in the manual mode. Once we got over this hill, we could see, to the side of where we came from, the huge writings in the sand, weakly reminiscent of those Peruvian alien stone paintings.


Once we got over this hill, it was such an awesome time that I didn't even bother with the pictures. There was this HUGE precipice of sand, between 40 and 60 degree steep, that fell down all the way into the beach. The sand was soft and thick, plowed and loosened by climbing tourists. Jumping off the precipice, you can literally get a 2 second hangtime before landing softly and harmlessly 10-15 feet below! And you can get in a good 5-6 jumpes before the slope tapered and flattened. I did that a couple of times, as much as my stamina can allow the multiple climbs (I'd estimate that the precipice was at least 100 feet in height), before and after I jumped into the ocean below. Matt launched off the cliffs long-jump style, I opted for a hybrid of Jordan and split-leg SCUBA entrance, and Pam topped everybody with her self-styled summersaults. We were the only three energized enough to do it multiple times. I tried the side roll once, and tested out the summersault/front roll once as well. Naturally, all these acts of childish nonesense was witnessed by many Japanese toursits, whose reactions were unknown, and un-cared-about, by us. It was hard sweaty work jumping/rolling down and then climbing back up, so it was a good thing that the ocean was so close.

The water was cool, with a slightly cooler undercurrent. The beach floor was flat and shallow, no deeper than 5 feet deep as far as 30-40 feet out, so the waves were barely noticeable. You can lean back and float in the calm water without even worrying salt water getting into your nostrils. Jason (Tottori-shi JET, potential organizer of Tottori ultimate) jumped in first, followed by me, followed by Tyler, then a couple of girls, then another couple of girls, then, predicably, a bunch of guys. I don't think I've had so much fun wading in the waters. Simona started it all by taking off her orange tank-top and waving it at the people standing/sitting on the beach, then the act was followed by Yuca and Kurayoshi Kate. Of course Tyler and I couldn't let the guys be one-upped and did the same with our shorts. Tyler was bolder than me and even swam around a little. Jason thought he was stung by jellies (though I seriously doubt it). Tyler went up and hauled Amy into the water. Then the whole thing got too crowded and awkwardly sexually charged so I got out and jumped around the sand dunes some more before jumping back into the water for a rinse. Tyler got out and found that his boxer ripped near his right ass cheek. Someone, Manjinder I think, took a picture of it. After posing a Superman for the picture, Tyler turned-around and mooned (he didn't take it off so it was more of a three quarters moon) a nearby Japanese family, father mother plus two school-age kids, while proclaiming proudly "Eigo no sensee desu!" (I am an English teacher)

This happend for about 1.5 to 2 hours, then we gathered and rinsed off. It rained a little as we walked back, completing a day of double cycles: sand/sea and sun/rain.
We lunched at the Tottori sakyu visitor's center. The food was called mushi(steam)-something style of Japanese cooking, with a stack of wooden boxes being steamed over a personal mini-stove on your table. The food was, like the rest of the day, just awesome. Shrimp sashimi, raw with purple eggs; flavored steamed rice; little clams served on a big clam shell; udon noodles; steamed salmon and bigger shrimp. Slurped it all up like a true Nihonjin.

The bus ride to and from were good as well. I talked, or rather listened, to this Jewish princess type named Kate from Chicago throughout the bus ride. She had complaints about almost everything she could think of, and seemed to genuinely believe that I was listening everytime I say "Yeah that sucks," or "Wow that sucks." She complainted about crashing her brother's junker car in June, about crashing it and having to go to work, about how pissed her brother was, about how not pissed her Dad was, about this and that and more I could not recall. And after the sand dunes, about how wet and sandy she was, about how she had to go to work all wet and sandy, and pointed it out to everybody by asking Mayumi (our prefectural advisor) how to say wet and sandy in Japanese. Jesus. I joked about something in the line of being wet and sandy is like every guy's fantasy, thinking that maybe my blunt and unsmooth attempt at flirting would shock her into shutting up. Obviously it didn't work. I probably went a little bit too far with it the rest of the bus ride and ended up slapping the sand off her ass before we got off. Now that I think about it, that was entirely inappropriate, and she was probably more offended than amused. Mission accomplished.

Decided not to tag along with the hardcores and party at Subo's place. Sign of growth at 25? Trained back to Yonago with Pam, with whom I had a good talk with, despite generic topics. Got home round 5pm, ate instant ramen and fell asleep while watching Sex in the City season 4 tape 1.