Our next stop was Kurashiki and we stayed in the historical area next to canals. Rather different to our canals in Shibaura, these are lined with weeping willows and old restored buildings. The area is very dependent on tourism and it is suffering greatly with the lack of international and very few Japanese visitors.

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We found a few over-priced antique / bric-a-brac shops with an obsession with Nipper, the HMV dog. I checked since returning and Nipper was a dog in Bristol so I’m not sure why it is such a thing here.

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Service Station

Our first major road trip, so our first visit to a Japanese service station. Here in Japan (yes, I’m an expert after visiting two service stations!) you select and pay for your meal and it is then cooked to order. There were also restaurants at both service stations but these were closed by the time we stopped. And in Service Centres and in all visitor attractions there are always huge displays of local foods for sale. All gift wrapped of course.

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Tottori

We headed north across to the coast to Tottori, on the Sea of Japan. I was looking forward to viewing the countryside en-route, but after driving through approximately 50 tunnels up to 3 km in length, I can tell you that it is very mountainous!

Tottori is famous for the largest sand dunes in Japan – they span 10 kilometres, are up to 2 kilometres wide and 50 metres high. I measure sand dunes against my childhood haunt of Ynyslas on the west coast of Wales …. Tottori sand dunes are ginormous.

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Parking

Almost as exciting as the sand dunes, was the parking arrangement at our hotel. This was a brand new hotel with a purpose built automated building to accommodate 32 cars. The turntable at the ground floor turns and lifts the car into a side slot … and returns it facing in the right direction.

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