(Day Trip) Sea, Mountains, and Sand Dunes! Enjoy Tottori’s Great Nature
Day1
This course visits the nationally designated Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings “Kurayoshi White-Walled Storehouse District,” “Hakuto Shrine” deeply connected to Japanese mythology, the vast “Tottori Sand Dunes,” and the artistic “Sand Museum” featuring sand sculptures made from the dunes’ sand.
Route: Kurayoshi White-Walled Storehouse District → Hakuto Shrine → Tottori Sand Dunes → Sand Museum → Tottori Station
Departure from Tottori Station (around 9:30 AM)
Transportation: 60 minutes by car
Kurayoshi White-Walled Storehouse District / Stroll & Lunch (90 minutes)
Many buildings from the Edo and Meiji periods remain, allowing you to feel the atmosphere of those times. In this atmospheric townscape where white-walled storehouses and buildings are utilized in various forms as product halls and cafes, time flows leisurely and peacefully.
Transportation: 40 minutes by car
Hakuto Shrine (30 minutes)
The shrine that serves as the setting for the myth “The White Rabbit of Inaba.” Along the path leading to the shrine grounds is a pond where the rabbit is said to have washed and healed its wounds. The water level remains constant regardless of season, earning it the name “the pond that neither decreases nor increases.”
Climbing the magnificent 47-meter-high sand dune reveals the Sea of Japan spreading out before you, with distant coastlines visible. Activities to enjoy the vast dunes are abundant, including camel riding experiences and fat biking on the sand.
Transportation: 10 minutes on foot
Sand Museum (40 minutes)
The world’s first museum specializing in sand sculpture exhibitions. Based on the concept of “world travel through sand,” exhibitions change themes annually. There are large-scale sand sculptures exceeding 20 meters in width, offering spectacular displays to enjoy.
Transportation: 20 minutes on foot
Tottori Station (around 5:00 PM)
The Myth of “The White Rabbit of Inaba”
Long ago, there lived a kind-hearted deity called Daikoku-sama (Okuninushi-no-Okami) in the land of Izumo. While traveling with his divine brothers to meet a beautiful princess (Yakami-hime) in the land of Inaba, he encountered a crying rabbit whose skin had been stripped away.
The rabbit had tried to cross from Oki Island to the mainland by tricking crocodiles into letting him walk across their backs, but he got carried away and revealed his deception, causing the angry crocodiles to strip off his skin.
The divine brothers who had passed earlier played a cruel trick, falsely telling the rabbit that “soaking in seawater and drying in the wind would help,” which only made the rabbit’s wounds worse.
When Daikoku-sama heard the rabbit’s story, he taught the correct treatment: “Wash your body with fresh water and rest on cattail flowers.” When the rabbit followed this advice, his fur grew back and he returned to being a white rabbit.
Although Daikoku-sama arrived at the country much later, Yakami-hime chose Daikoku-sama.
