Tottori

So I realized, I don't think I ever wrote about any of my trips to Tottori, the prefecture north of Okayama where I was staying. Surprisingly, (since Tottori is considered one of the least two populated and one of the two most rural prefectures I believe?) I've actually been there several times, though all different places.

One of my friends from undergrad was posting on facebook on how she was on a train to Tottori, and I couldn't help but feel nostalgic. I actually really enjoyed Tottori, and kind of wish I had spent more time there despite our initial assessment that it was totally the perfect weekend trip spot. In theory, a weekend is enough to hit all the big "to do" spots around Tottori city, especially if you're relying on public transportation to get everywhere. That's not even including the other larger city to the west, Yonago, and the area around it. And Mount Daisen, one of the tallest (also ski-able in the winter) mountains in the region, as well as I'm-not-sure-if-it's-okayama-or-tottori-but-it's-pretty-much-in-between-Hirzuen, where all the delicious milk products come from in my area (and beef -- also, I'm still referring to the region like I live there but I can't help but feel like it's my adopted area still).


The big things to do in Tottori, anyways, are the sand dunes and the sand sculptures when they have the exhibit there. I think I always meant to post about those... and then forgot. I have those pictures somewhere. Maybe that'll be my new summer project, for the short duration of summer we have left. Upload pictures, finish reading for my independent reading course so that my adviser doesn't think I'm a slacker (so much for an actual summer vacation). Other than the sand dunes... the curry. It's a weird thing to go to a prefecture for, kind of, but Tottori has the highest per capita consumption of curry (keeping in mind as well, that Tottori has one of the lowest populations, though in my opinion, that's still pretty impressive).

I was journeying with one of my JET friends at the time specifically to see the sand dunes, and when we arrived at the station, we were perusing the information booth with the million fliers and brochures, when one caught our eye. It was something like, "the curry walk" or "curry street" or something like that. Basically, a guide to the top curry restaurants in town and places that you absolutely had to try if you were in town, as well as rankings and everything for which curry was the most popular, sweetest, etc etc.

Seriously, at that point I think I knew that Tottori was going to be a place I liked (as a kid, Japanese curry and rice was my favorite food, and only sophomore year where I consumed like, at least three packages of microwavable curry a week changed that). Actually, if I think about it, if I were to choose a place to live again in Japan, Tottori would be in my top 3 list, possibly even tied three ways for first with Kobe and Yokohama.

We ended up trying this pear curry close to the sand dunes, along with pear gelato. Oh my god. It was amazing. I was highly skeptical of putting pears (and fruit in general) into curry, which usually is pretty savory and not very sweet). Also though, by pears, really I mean nashi which we identify as "Asian pears" though my whole life I've always considered them more apple than pear. They're that kind of yellow or golden color, with the small white spots and the crunchy insides that almost snap as you eat them? They're really crisp and delicious. Also, now I totally understand why we call them Asian pears. Cause they're actually called pears in Asia.

They had a TON of pear flavored products in Tottori (as Japanese places with local flavors and specialties are wont to do). Pear cider, pear wine, pear candy, pear soda, pear curry, pear soft serve, pear... pears, and my absolute favorite, pear shaved ice. Holy. Cow. Best flavor syrup for shaved ice ever. It tasted exactly like pear, and not like some overly sweet syrup, and was also light and refreshing to taste. Paired (or "pear'd." as several of my friends would say -- also oh dear, they're rubbing off on me) with the cool yet light and almost fluffy ice, it really made the pear flavor come through more clearly than it had in the soft serve version. Also, I love shaved ice.

The sand dunes themselves were also pretty cool, while still being not quite what I had expected. In my head, when I hear "sand dunes" I think something like, "Sahara desert" or "those amazing sand dunes in Journey" (Journey is a PS3 game with an amazing soundtrack and even more amazing visuals where you go on... a journey... through this desert like world. It's really an amazing game that's not quite what you would think of as a "game"). In reality, it is much much much smaller than that, but still surprisingly energy consuming to walk across. They also had camels that you could ride around on too (and, walking back up the hill on our way back, we wished we had a camel). Running down it was surprisingly fun, and somehow, walking around to make paths and tracks never got tiring, nor was it only enjoyed by young people. They actually (they being the sand dune volunteer group thing) had a dude stationed at the bottom of the giant hill to make sure people didn't run graffiti into the side of the hill, not that people didn't try. We actually watched him stop several groups. One group was walking around in a circle. Another couple was trying to make a heart. They almost got it too, but he made them walk down. We spent a good portion of time scheming ways to distract the watchman with one group while the other completed a picture behind his back while he was busy scolding the first group. It would totally work too.

The hills were also surprisingly steep. On the way back down I ran back part of the way, and it was kind of exhilarating in the "OH MY GOD I CAN'T STOP" kind of way, though running at an angle helped.

On the other side of the giant hill though, wasn't more sand dunes. It was the ocean. Or well, the Sea of Japan (so technically not ocean, but large body of water). Tottori is actually home to a really awesome looking geopark a couple miles down from the Sand Dunes; regretfully, I ran out of time to go before we left and I never had enough time to return. The dunes overlooked a small beach, which you could run down to from the dunes at an abrupt and steep angle. Running back up however, was much more difficult. We chose to not run down to the water, choosing instead to just sit there and snack on our conbini sandwiches (and the inevitable sand that got into them) and enjoy the view. Mostly I think this is because neither of us wanted to have to walk all the way back up hahaha. We were kinda short on time as well. Buses, and all that.

Pretty much right next to the sand dunes was the sand sculpture museum (kinda). Every time they opened it, they invited people from around the world to create sand sculptures around a certain theme, and after they were done, they'd build walls around the sculptures. Every time. New walls. They also didn't look quite as janky as some fairs in the US that come around once a year and then close shop and come back a year later.


In 2012 (a whole year ago now), the theme was the UK. So there were a bunch of kind of medieval sand sculptures, one with the Globe and a play going on, the Tower of London, one of the Queen, one that was a scene of rainy times and people walking around with umbrellas, another of Galileo I think? And some other famous scientist, I don't remember. They were really awesome sculptures. There was also one of King Arthur and the sword in the stone... I think.



Oh wow, I just realized it's been almost a year since I've been back in the US. Technically a few days short, but wow. I haven't gone anywhere since I've been back, nor have I traveled nearly as much as when I did over there. I have, however, gone home WAY more often than when I was living in Japan. Ahem. Anyways.


Those things were all part of day one, and I want to say we went somewhere else too... but honestly, I don't really remember. We stayed at a business hotel though, I can remember that much. The day after, we decided to split up. My friend went to see a castle I think and went to the Detective Conan (a really popular manga/anime about this high schooler detective genius who gets turned into a little boy but retains his deductive genius) museum, while I, on the other hand, couldn't resist the siren call of large bodies of water and the beach, and went off to find a beach to go to, along with the other thing I couldn't resist: an aquarium called 鳥取かにっこ館 (Tottori Kanikkokan).



This aquarium though, was by far the most specialized of them all. It was a crab aquarium, and I think literally, they had over 70 species of crabs there. It was actually a pretty small aquarium, with this really awesome touch zone for small children that had a ton of those small crabs and like, hermit crabs and stuff there for people (ie: kids) to touch. There was also a couple of small tanks with examples of the wildlife found around Tottori (which honestly, is why I like to visit so many aquariums, because they all showcase the local marine life) as well of course, as the crabs that could be found in the area. Apparently, the crab was supposed to be delicious.


Right next to the aquarium, they also had a bunch of seafood restaurants as well as a fish/seafood market -- you know, just in case you started to crave the things you were looking at. I mean, I think we do that here in the states as well, but Japan takes these things to a whole new level that people here I think, would be shocked at haha.


Fortunately for me, also next to the aquarium was this amazing small beach that wasn't really that crowded, though regretfully, I had not brought along a swim suit. Instead I walked along the beach where the waves break and the sand is wet (since if you didn't you risked burning the soles of your feet because the sand was so hot), walking in and out of the water. It was super refreshing, and I really regretted not bringing a suit. The further away you got though, the fewer people were around until I was in a small, almost cove-like area by myself with the closest people a good 200-300 feet away. I think I took a nap there until it was finally time to go back and meet up with my friend so we could return to Okayama, a trip that would take at least 3 hours, if memory serves me correctly. Plus another hour+ to get back to my house from Okayama.


But just being able to reconnect to the sea again was energizing and invigorating. I felt completely recharged after that. :) I'm definitely a water kind of person haha. Walking up and down the beach is still one of my favorite activities. It's kind of therapeutic. No land locked places for me... even being here at Stanford feels like it's too far away from the ocean lol, though really, it's like a 40-1 hour drive to the ocean and even less if I'm okay with settling for a smaller body of water.



My first trip to Yonago on the other hand, could probably be classified as a disaster, but also as awesome. I swear I thought I posted about it, but I've been trying to look, and I can't find anything. The night I arrived/the day after, a typhoon decided to BLOW ON THROUGH THE CITY and it poured super hard, rendering it kind of difficult and miserable to do any sort of site seeing around the city. I did, however, the following day, take a day trip out to this place called Mizuki Shigeru Road, a like... 1.5 hour trip from Yonago by train I believe? I went because I heard there was a museum about 妖怪, yokai, which are like fantastic creatures like ghosts and goblins and supernatural spirits in Japan. They're kind of fascinating to read about, and there's a super popular comic in Japan called Ge Ge Ge Kitaro which is about, to the best of my knowledge, this kid (I think he's also a "good" spirit... maybe... I honestly am not too sure) and his interactions trying to help others and keep the bad spirits from being too evil. I think. I watched one episode, but I kind of forgot what happened. Minor details. But this city is the hometown of the author to Ge Ge Ge (Mizuki Shigeru) so they decided to honor him by commercializing the hell out of their city and installed statues all along this road complete with stamps that you could get of each of the yokai in the book (which you could stamp in this handy passport booklet they sold, which then semi-obligated you to finish and collect all the freaking stamps).

There was also a museum for the yokai and a museum-- wait. Wait. I think I remember posting about this. Because in addition to the yokai museum, there was also a museum that had "living" in its title and I thought I was going to see a real sunfish and SURPRISE it turned out it was a TAXIDERMY museum and everything, including the giant sunfish, was STUFFED and I was horrified and incredibly creeped out by it. I remember writing about that. I remember the picture I put up of this one room that had at least a hundred small tiny pufferfish that had been preserved. Hanging from the ceiling. Some of them had googly-eyes glued on them. Creepy. As. Hell. This picture:

It looks upon museum patrons with murderous eyes

I can't find the post associated with it, but google says I posted it? I can't seem to find the post though. :x Actually, that was when I was still writing my newsletter home, so it might have gotten put into that. Alas, I take way too long to write about things. As proof, I sat down to write this post an hour and a half ago, and I'm still typing. This is actually getting kind of long huh. I should probably go to bed. This is what happens when I have nothing to regulate my sleep schedule... ugh.



Oh, I also realized this now, but my astrological sign is Cancer... the crab. Hahaha. Maybe that's why I felt so relaxed and enjoyed myself so much there, both at the beach and at the crab aquarium. Coincidence? I think not!

Anyways, long story short (or the TL;DR version), Tottori was awesome, had a crab museum and pear everything and a beach in addition to sand dunes, and I want to go back some time.

Tourists at Stanford

One of the most surprising and different things about going to Stanford are the sheer number of tourists who visit the campus on a daily basis. This number, unsurprisingly, increases during the summer. I'm not talking about "knows someone who goes to Stanford so we're touring the campus since we're visiting them" or "prospective high school student who is probably not a senior but is probably a freshman, sophomore, or junior" or even "parents of a prospective student."

Oh no. I'm talking about literal tour buses (those big huge ones with a toilet in the back and cushy chairs) that arrive on campus with tour guides who wave around little flags and whatnot. A lot of them (though not all) are Asian (specifically Chinese). They walk around campus, which is kind of annoying since it's already crowded with campers for the summer and whatnot, but whatever, that's fine. They visit the big spots around campus like Hoover Tower, the Oval, Cantor Arts Center (which is admittedly pretty awesome), and Memorial Church (which I have NOT been to yet, though to be fair, I tried to go with a friend and it was CLOSED probably because someone was having a wedding in there, so I did try at least...). That's fine, whatever, those are awesome places around campus to go and among the "must see" kind of spots. Like, if you only had a limited amount of time to spend on campus, those places are the big ones. The cactus garden, masoleum, and angel of grief are really awesome, but they're also really far.

So I don't mind people going around and being tourists and looking at those things. Or well, I only get mildly annoyed when they block the entire road and make it impossible to bike through or around.

There is one thing though, that the tourists do that piss me off to no end though. And, I will say, it's primarily the Chinese tourists that do this (though I think there's a partial reason for this), which does not help the image of Chinese tourists. Our classroom is right next to memorial church. Tourists will walk by and glance into our classroom since we have the windows open for ventilation, as it can get pretty stuffy in the classroom (and it lacks an ac). What makes me want to kill someone though, is when the tourists actually stare into our classroom, and get their face super obviously close to the window and poke their head in. Um, hello? We are obviously in class. Also? WE CAN TOTALLY SEE YOU. There's no one way mirror, so we can see that you're staring at us and at our classroom and it's really really distracting and disturbing.

Like really really distracting. I can't sit on the whiteboard side of the classroom because I would seriously, probably get super pissed if I sat there since that side is the one that you can see from the window really well.

That's not even the worst of it either.

So when they stare, I just get really really annoyed. However, some tourists have pulled out cameras and taken pictures of us in our classroom while staring at us through the small gap in the window. What. The. Hell. Is wrong with these people. What corner of the planet is it okay to take pictures of students in a classroom as they're watching you without even asking if it's okay? SERIOUSLY. I mean, I think most cultures would find it rude if you went up in their home country, less than ten feet away from them, and take their damn picture while pretending like they couldn't see you.

Dear Chinese tourists: this is not okay. Dear other tourists: this is still not okay, no matter if you're in a different country or not.

I swear to god, if I catch someone doing that, there are two things that may or may not happen. One, I might pull out my phone and take a picture of them. This, however, disrupts the class. Two, I might get up, lose it a little bit, and tell the person to stop taking pictures because it's EFFING RUDE AND I DON'T WANT MY PICTURE TAKEN. Who takes pictures of students anyways? I mean, we're not exactly kids any more but still. It makes me feel like I'm on display in a little box; an uncomfortable feeling.

Though speaking of taking pictures of kids, maybe it is a cultural thing after all. There's a student in our class who's from China, and we were talking about how cute Japanese elementary school kids are and stuff, and somehow we were talking about them walking home and stuff and the Chinese guy casually mentioned that he would/wanted to take a picture of the elementary school kids, and justified this by saying that of course he would ask the child first.

We pointed out to him that a) they're still kids so asking them doesn't really do much b) he's a stranger and c) he's a man taking pictures with little kids and oh yeah, d) society kind of frowns upon this both in the US and in Japan because these kind of actions are things that pedophiles do. I mean, I will not disagree that those kids are really freaking cute, but to go up and ask them to be in a picture with you? SUPER SHADY. You never know with intent, and it's not the same as going up to someone with a dog and asking them if you can pet it (though I have seen times when there's a cute kid and there might be a comment of "you're kid's cute" but I feel like people generally don't ask to hold the baby, and they certainly don't go over and pick up the small child. Those kind of things get you arrested.

On a more random note, we had a pretty cool cultural event on friday. We did tea ceremony, which was super interesting to do though I think I got too embarrassed by my Japanese slash the woman didn't understand what I wanted to do slash I didn't think about passing my cup to the other person to pour slash I used the wrong form to ask and then lost confidence but whatever. Sadly though, the lunch place we were going to get bento boxes from was closed for renovation, so we had to order from a different place. I'm kind of sad now that we canceled that one culture day so people didn't have to come in and commute and blah blah. That cost me excellent free food that we missed out on two weeks in a row. But I guess I shouldn't complain, since free food is free food... but they had good tasting hamachi. Sigh.

Only two more weeks of classes. If that tourist peeping business happens again, I'm requesting to change classrooms. :x