Tottori Sand Dunes
So, it turns out that there are sand dunes in Tottori Prefecture. Why? I have no idea. They are naturally occurring, though. Or at least they are under protection as a natural monument according to the Japanese Wikipedia entry. But in any event, they are a tourist attraction now. On my most recent visit to Tottori City, I made the trek out to see these mythical dunes. (And by trek, I mean short bus ride from the station.) It is really uncanny how the greenery sort of abruptly becomes coarse, patchy, and then…well…desert-like. The area has a number of attractions.
For instance, there are (obviously) the sand dunes themselves. You can walk out barefoot, like I did, carrying your shoes. I’m told that this is impossible in summer due to the intensely hot sand. You can also take a horse-drawn cart ride down to the beach – but it looks really boring. 
Just trying to save you a few hundred yen. You’ll find the lady standing on a pole (which was newsworthy just a while back – no rhyme or reason to it other than she causes people to look at her curiously) and the horse carts at the closest point to the parking lot. You can also take a camel ride there, which seems very similar to a pony ride or any other 2 minute loop around a set track carnival ride would provide. It’s cheaper if you ride 2 to a camel.
When you’re done checking out the dunes, you can wash your feet off just to the left of the stairway back down to the parking lot. If you’re like me, you’ll gaze at all of the license plates as you walk by – there were people from ALL over Japan at these dunes. I was honestly pretty surprised. Once you’re clean and you’ve got your socks and shoes back on, you can go grab some Asian pear (nashi) soft serve ice cream. This stuff is amaaaazing. I’d have gotten it twice before leaving had I any room in my stomach. Ha ha. You’ve really got to try it. You can walk through the typical souvenir shops, too, if you like. Then you can head into the “Sand Museum.” It’s basically a collection of sand sculptures that are semi-protected from the elements. They were pretty cool for the most part. After you’re done with that, go wait for the bus back into the city.
Below you’ll find some pictures that I took, but I’d urge you to check out this gallery for some much cooler pictures of the dunes without people stomping all over them. They look far more….authentic. Also – the dunes are a bit of an optical illusion. It is really difficult to judge distance up and down them for some reason. The pictures don’t do them justice. Perhaps I’ll upload one of the faux 3D shots I took to help you get a feel for the distance. Anyone who is capable of crossing their eyes and wants to see a 3D shot, let me know in the comments and I’ll edit it and get it up here for you.
Bonus: I accidentally came upon an enka song by Mizumori Kaori called Tottori Sakyuu or “Tottori Sand Dunes” when I was searching in Japanese. It’s interesting – and if you’re at an intermediate level in Japanese, it’s pretty easy to understand the lyrics. Click here to watch it in a pop-up overlay – the clip was originally found on YouTube here, but embedding is disabled, so I’ve hosted it here.
