The Desert and the Deserted City

For our stay in Tottori we had decided to do some outdoor activities.
Not that we had much of a choice, as there actually isn't much else to do there.

Situated on the northern coast of the Chuugoku region, Tottori prefecture is the least populous prefecture of Japan. This makes itself apparent in its capital, Tottori city. Juxtaposed to Tokyo, the buildings are low, old, rusty and many of them seem to be in a state of disuse and decay.
At day there are hardly any people to be seen on the streets and the main venue in the evening appears to be a Starbucks, from where I'm writing this post.

Tottori at dusk

The biggest tourist attractions in Tottori are the sand dunes, located on the town's north-eastern shore, and a sand museum which lies adjacent to them.

That's where we went on the first day of our stay to take a beginner's course in paragliding.
After a rather awkward and somewhat clumsy reception of our instructors we packed our gear and headed out to the sand dunes. We did feel a little hesitant after the ambiguous, patchy and bewildering briefing of the instructors, uttered in an improvised Jenglisch. Being the men we are however, we didn't let that unsettle us too much and by using our colourful imagination we filled the gaps, added the essential details and took off.

And what an exciting and exhilarating experience it was! Indeed, the flights usually didn't last for more than half a minute, but they were surely long enough to give me a nice kick of adrenaline and make me crave for more...

I filmed one of Alessio's take-offs and all of my flights on the GoPro camera Alan had lent me (thanks Alan!) but I don't think I'll be able to upload the videos to the blog, as the file sizes are too large and we have no means of compressing them. Sorry guys :-(.

this was the approximate location for take-off

Afterwards we went to the sand museum where a Germany-themed exhibition was being held.
The sculptures were awe-inspiring and the amount of detail simply amazing.
Convince yourself and take a look at the pictures! Can you guess what the different sculptures depict?

- Louis

As mentioned beforehand, we discussed on outdoor activities in Tottori. So we decided to go kayaking on our second day in Tottori. Immediately after arriving at the meeting point for the kayaking, we were welcomed by our guide Takaharu, who would accompany us on our little adventure. We very pleasently surprised and delighted by our guide's English skill. He spoke a very good English with almost no accent, which is very uncommon for Japanese people, especially in rural areas (remember our guides for the paragliding). After a short introduction we headed to the port, where we put out to see. After having gotten out of the port the beautiful and pristine nature welcomed us. We steered or kayak through caves and around peculiarly shaped rock formations. We indulged ourselves in the calm and relaxing atmosphere created by the sea and our surroundings. We both relished the kayaking a lot and would recommend it to anyone who is planning to visit Tottori. 

Our thanks goes to our guide Takaharu for taking the following pictures.

We decided to have dinner at a close seafood restaurant, which according to our kayaking guide, should have been the best seafood restaurant in the area. Unfortunately we didn't get the chance to find out for ourselves, as the restaurant was already fully reserved when we arrived at 17:00. We spent the evening at Starbucks (again), since it seems to be the only place in all Tottori, where there are actually people. Now we are heading to Matsue, where we will spend the next two nights, posts about Matsue will follow.

- Alessio

Kinosaki Onsen - The Devil's Tub

The journey from Amanohashidate to Kinosaki Onsen grew considerably more pleasent once the flock of schoolchildren had left and we found a seat.
What followed was a stunningly beautiful scenic ride through mountains, dense forests, quaint little villages, and rice fields.

The Japanese have always been known for their deference and hospitality. These qualities became truly noticeable on this day.

Our train arrived in Toyoka with a four minute delay, which had been caused by a car accident. 
As soon as we descended, we were greeted by two employees who apologised for the inconvenience and asked us where we were heading to. One of them then ran off to tell the train driver to wait for us while the other guided us to the platform, constantly apologising for the trouble they had caused us.
Without any further incidents we eventually made it to Kinosaki Onsen, where a uniformed driver was waiting for our arrival. He drove us to our hotel and thus spared us the ten minute walk.
When we entered the hotel, the receptionists bowed and welcomed us with a warm smile. At the check-in they told us that they had upgraded our room free of charge, asking if that was okay and thanking us for our consent while bowing deeply.
Instead of the small, western-style hotel room with a double bed we received a an elegant and spacious japanese-style room with a ton of extras. We even had a personal room maid to our disposal!

After donning the yukata and putting on a pair of getas (traditional Japanese wooden sandals) we declined the chauffeur's offer of driving us and got on our way to the town's centre.
We quickly regretted our decision however, as it was extremely difficult and strenuous to walk in those getas (traditional Japanese torture instrument!!!).
Exhausted and in pain we finally reached Kinosaki after what felt like an eternity.

Kinosaki is a small town that is famous for its natural hot springs and high density of onsen baths.

We decided to check out all of the seven onsen, thinking it would be a fun and relaxing way to end the day.
Never have we been so wrong!
It only took two onsen spas to put us in a state of complete exhaustion and to break our spirit.
With the steaming water having sucked up all of our energy, we staggered from onsen to onsen, not willing to give up and wavering between desperation and delirium.
After the fifth onsen we gave up, agreeing that we had already achieved more than any mortal man could have ever dreamed of.
As it seems an onsen marathon has a lot more in common with a regular marathon than one would think.
This was undoubtedly the most tiring day of our holiday! 

At the moment we are on our way to Tottori, where we'd like to see the sand dunes and, if possible, do some refreshing paragliding and kayaking.

The Bridge to Heaven

We spent the last two days in Amanohashidate, a tiny village located north-west from Kyoto. 

Amanohashidate is said to be one of the 3 most beautiful landscapes in all of Japan, which we now, after having enjoyed the splendid scenery for ourselves, can completely understand. The highlight of this charming place is the so called "Bridge to Heaven", a thin strip of land with a length of 3.3 km, which is covered with over 7'000 pine trees. It serves as a natural bridge to connect the two sides of Miyazu Bay.

We basically just spent our two days in Amanohashidate exploring the surrounding area by bike and relaxing. Yesterday we both had our first swim in the sea of this year. Hadn't it been for the odd jellyfish we spotted, it would have been all the more enjoyable, since temperature was pleasantly warm and the water crystal clear. 

The youth hostel we stayed in was just great. It was located on top of a hill, adjacent to a little shrine and surrounded by a bamboo forest we had grown to like so much. We had a very spacious dorm to ourselves that included a balcony with a view of the sea. In the evenings we enjoyed sushi which we had bought in the nearby and extremely reasonably priced supermarket and later on had a good laugh with other travellers.

UPDATE: We're on our way to Kinosaki Onsen now. As we found out there is always a very good reason for one fare only costing a third of what one usually would pay for the commute...

- Alessio and Louis

Kyoto

While I'm writing this post we're having a good time sitting around a table in the community room of our youth hostel in Amanohashidate chatting with two French and an English student - so please forgive me if I sound a little distracted ;-).

Our three days in Kyoto were very eventful and passed extremely quickly. We felt a little dazed by the overwhelming amount of ancient temples and shrines, beautiful gardens and parks and quaint old towns. 

As it is impossible to see everything in the short time we spent there, we tried our best to pick the most worth seeing places.

One of those places is the Kiyomizu-dera, which we visited on our first day in Kyoto and is mentioned in rhe prior post. I have recently updated it with some interesting facts, so go and check it out!

The probably most famous site in Kyoto is the Kinkaku, also known as the Golden Pavilion. The Kinkaku is a shariden, a Buddhist hall containing relics of Buddha and dating back to 1937.
The pavilion is part of a temple that is formally named Rokuon-Ji Temple, but commonly called Kinkaku-Ji Temple.
It originally used to be a villa called Kitayama-dai, owned by the statesman Saionji Kintsune and later aquired by the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu.
After his death and keeping with his will, the villa was converted into a temple by the priest Muso-kokushi.
The temple's name, Rokuon-Ji, was derived from the name Yoshimitsu was given for the next world, Rokuon-in-den.

Gold foil on laquer covers the two upper levels of the Kinkaku, and a shining phoenix stands on top of the roof.

One other site that impressed me even more than Kinkaku was the Sanjusangen-do Temple.

It contains a gigantic seated statue of the Buddhist deity Kannon, an incredible 1000 (!!!) smaller, life-size represantations of her and another 28 statues of guardian deities.The guardian deities are supposed to protect Kannon as well as pious Bhuddhists who believe in Kannon. Many of them have their origin in India. Among the 1000 Kannon statues 124 were made in the 12th century when the temple was founded and the remaining 876 in the 13th century when the temple was renovated after a fire.

We are quickly getting used to not being allowed to take any pictures inside of temples. Here is one I found on the internet:

Our personal highlight in Kyoto however was none of the aforementioned, but the Fushimi Inari Taisha, a Shinto Shrine dedicated to Inari, the god of rice and the patron of business. It sits on top of a mountain called Inari, which is 233 metres above sea level. There are several paths leading to the top, which are highlighted by Torii gates.

As we found out on our way back however, there are also other, wilder and more hidden paths, which guide you through dense forests, steep hills and bamboo.

Although the directions we had been given by some Englishmen were quite loose and frowsy we didn't get lost too badly and found our way to the next train station quickly enough.

It was a small adventure that we highly enjoyed and will remember fondly.