To Tottori

After checking out of my hotel I boarded the bus bound for Nagoya. It was a return trip for me, I’d come from Nagoya to get to Hida Takayama and now I was going through Nagoya again to go West to Tottori and continue my journey through Japan.

After three hours on the bus I got the Shinkansen from Nagoya to a place called Himeji and then a rapid train to Tottori. I discovered later that Himeji itself is well worth seeing outside of train station platform 7. It has one of the best castles in Japan. Oh well.

At Himeji when I got off the Shinkansen and changed to a normal train something strange happened. I had been given three tickets for my complete journey but I couldn’t make head nor tail of what each one was actually for. The Shinkansen ticket gates are pretty sophisticated though, so you can bung in all your tickets and let the machine sort it out for you.

However, when I put in the first of my tickets the normally open barrier made a noise and then shut – a sign that it was not happy. My ticket came out again, but at the other side. I was about to reach over and reclaimed it when one of the station workers snatched it and ran away.

He ran with Shankensen like speed, to a suited man who had gone through the ticket gate just before me.

“Sumimasen,” as in excuse me, I called out, “it’s my ticket.”

The suited man shook his head at the ticket he was being returned, and that he had never seen before. I called out again in the loudest voice I could muster but the station man seemed to be deaf to my cries. He was now asking all the other people coming through if my ticket was theirs, which didn’t even make sense. As more people shook their heads at him he became more earnest to find the ticket its home but still stupid enough not to hear my calling for his attention.

Getting desperate I was about to put my two remaining tickets into the machine when another station person came over. He seemed to exist in a plain of being more similar to my own, i.e. he could hear me.

I showed him my tickets but his brow suggested that there was something a miss. “Oh sod this,” I thought and since the barrier had now gone back up I ran through and caught the man still trying to give away my ticket. “It’s mine,” I said and took it from him. He seemed disappointed by this solution, like a knight who arrives to find that the princess has rescued herself.

They kept one of my tickets and finally let me go.

The train to Totorri had a TV at the front of each carriage tuned to a camera on the front of the train. It seemed a bit pointless since you can just look out the windows but I bet it keeps kids happy. The only time the TV showed anything particularly different was when we came out from long tunnels. The sunshine was so bright that the camera couldn’t adjust quickly enough to the change. From the tunnel’s darkness the screen lit up a blazing white like we had driven off the edge of the page and into

Soon rain clouds gathered to filter the sunshine and I took a picture of this cloud, it seemed like a good idea at the time.


In Tottori the tourist info booth gave me a map, a leaflet and a bus timetable. It was raining torrentially outside, but at least it was warm rain with that distinctive smell.

I took out my travel umbrella; it’s ridiculously small so good for fitting in bags but not good for much else. For instance I have to decide whether I want to protect myself or my backpack: it can’t cover both. But still it has protected me longer than any other umbrella in Japan; even my fish umbrella eventually swam away :(

There was a hotel where there should be my hotel, but I couldn’t read the kanji on its sign. I went in and was about to ask what the name of the hotel was when the woman behind the counter said:
“Heavy rain isn’t it.”
“Yes…”
“Two nights, is that right?”
“Yes”
“8000 yen please”

It was so smooth and simple that asking any questions would have broken a perfect moment. It was the right number of nights at the right price, who cared if it was the wrong hotel.

Where the other hotel had been full of plants and aphids this one was full of manga: Japanese comics. It was piled up on all possible shelves and horizontal spaces, even going up alongside the stairs.

I turned the key in the lock of room 307, the door was now locked. I turned it the other way and the door opened for me. It was the biggest room yet, two beds, bath, shower, TV. It was at least 3 times bigger than my Nagoya room, maybe 4. I was happy.

I showered, changed and set out for food. The rain had stopped falling but was now hanging humidly in the air making me feel sticky. Tottori seemed like a small town but its shopping streets were long and disjointed. I found 3 Lawson convenience stores and a bank: I was settled, that was all I needed.

I was waiting to cross a road when I heard a quiet voice say, “Hey man.” I looked around not sure if I had really heard it or not.

An American guy on a bike waiting to cross in the other direction turned out to exist and be the owner of the voice.
“Hello,” I said. We shook hands, his name was Jay, mine was Nick.
“What brings you here?” he asked me.
Annoyingly and facetiously I answered him with, “A train,” then quickly continued, “I’m here to see the sand dunes. How about you?”
“I live here,” he paused, “it’s always interesting to see a foreign face.”

He pointed out that our lights had turned green but we both hesitated. I was lonely; I wanted someone to talk to. He was friendly and clearly interested in meeting other foreigners. But I crossed my road and he crossed his – we were both too shy to make the first move toward continuing the conversation.

I was annoyed with myself, I was just looking around, any direction would have done. I guess I will never know more about Jay of Tottori, well, unless I ask Google. He probably has a blog where he recounts his tales at length and overuses words like probably, pretty, maybe, as etc.

As I walked away, I thought it was probably pretty likely we could meet again maybe.