Departure of the King of Pirates

Well, it's been an adventure.

I'm sitting in Incheon airport now, waiting for my transfer to finally go home. I have official left Japan. They hole-punched my residence card and everything. I still have a few posts left to make, especially my trip to China. Blogger is apparently blocked in China, so I had to work around it to post what I had posted, but the posts about China will take some time as two weeks of pictures will take some effort to go through. (Also, just hit 1000 (+8) views! Yay! [Almost all of them bots no doubt])

Despite having all day to get to the airport, I only barely made it on time for my flight. I lost my precious hat, too (unless lost-and-found found it).

I'll post up the last of my adventures from America.

あばよう、日本！

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIHHXdmhC5k

Tottorian Nights

I finally accomplished my dream. I went to Tottori.

A long time ago in college, we had to pick a prefecture and do a presentation on it. I choose Tottori because it had the coolest prefectural symbol: a bird which was also と. In the process of doing the project I realized they had sand dunes and more importantly - camels. I vowed to ride these camels one day.

And I did!

I couldn't seem to find anyone to go with me, and I was running out of weekends. I was about to go alone when my friend told me he wanted to go on one last trip with me. He was even going to drive (saving me a ton of money). Then later, unbeknownst to me, he added another of our friends, which was fine, but surprising. We decided to camp outside as well, saving further money.

So we headed out.

I wonder where they even got these stickers.

That car is getting no where fast, and if he bends over or anything, they'll fall and die.

A deco car. I tried to get a picture of it while we were driving, but was lucky enough to find it again at the next rest stop as well.

Vends a ticket for you to order food.

I'll have the panda.

America the drink.

One of these photos is probably the best, vote in the comments below I guess.

I took a lot of dumb photos of scenery from the car. I'll post a few of them I guess.

"Big American Shop"; and yet so small.

And finally we arrived! (These aren't the dunes)

Apparently the prefecture is also famous for pears, so pear ice cream.

Dogs doing tricks!

And dinosaurs!

The Dunes!

And camels!

Some kind of marker system so you know where you are I guess.

An oasis I guess.

Surprising amount of green.

And some rock. I demand more sand!

On the opposite side was the ocean.

Some dudes were parasailing or whatever it is called.

Sand.

While rolling down the dunes, I managed to drop my phone at some point. I was so happy it didn't end up getting buried or lost forever.

And now the ocean!

And more sand (same sand).

It was rather tiring to climb.

Unfortunately, by the time we were going to get around to cameling, they were already closed.

Finally found a map and stuff.

That thing is combining with that armless, legless, neckless, levitating baby!

More !s than you can shake a stick at.

Detective Conan statue somewhere apparently.

We were all going to go to an onsen to wash off, but unlike the others, I had been rolling down the dunes, so I was covered in sand. I caused a bit of a mess.

Milk!

SEGA!

Garden gnomes for the gardens that don't exist in Japan.

It reminds me of Indiana.

Halo!

Creepy mascot (apparently an American chain?)

I couldn't decide a dessert, so I didn't.

Watch it dance!

So, we ended up camping (except the one that slept in his car).

Brought my fugu hat. Strapped it to my belt.

A chair lift. To who knows where.

Camel store. I couldn't buy camels though.

Back to ride the camels for real this time!

Free wifi! If only more places offered this, traveling abroad would be so much easier.

They also had horses (how mundane).

Camels!

You could pay to sit on a stationary camel and have your photo taken apparently.

I've got a ticket to ride.

My friend took pictures of me astride my might steed. (I tried to have pictures with and without the hat, but it didn't really matter I guess). You can have all the photos taken of this magnificent (and very short) moment in my life.

The ride was quickly over (faster than everyone else even).  I tried asking if camels were native in Tottori, but he thought I was asking if the camel was born there (it was). I was also told the camel was named Momo. When I asked why, he told me she was 15 years old or something. Not sure what its age has to do with plums, but whatever. Maybe they rename it every year.

Solar powered wifi, such a great idea!

Luffy with a camel!

And other One Piece characters.

I couldn't help myself and bought a stuffed camel.

Sand people!

Shh, it's sleeping!

I'm not sure what Moai have to do with Tottori, but okay.

Expensive sand in a case!

More One Piece!

Camel senbei! (This time for human consumption!)

Not sure the relevance of many of these statues for sale.

More Detective Conan (now with a camel)!

Sand Museum!

Couldn't decide, which picture is better? (Number 1 is.)

Not sand! Ice cream actually! They even had milk flavor!

After ice cream, we set out. I didn't manage to get a picture of it, but there was a sign that pointed to "Fukube" right as we set out and since my friend and driver lives in Ube (and was our return destination), it was pretty funny. At least to me.

Apparently there's also a story or legend about a white rabbit here or something. Go look it up. This is the best I could do getting a picture of the bunnies that were all along the bridge.

More bad driving pictures!

Managed to get stuck behind a truck for forever. This wasted a lot of our downhill time (which in my friend's old car would have been very helpful). The roads are typically only one lane because of the landscape of Japan, so it was pretty awful.

New types of One Piece keychains in the new prefecture we passed through.

This was even has Ace and other characters.

I like One Piece.

Also, I like cows.

So many tunnels.

Noise control walls for the neighboring towns.

Because we had time, my friend brought me to the Iwakuni Bridge I thought I would never get to see (especially after I broke up with the girl living in Iwakuni [after believing I could go whenever and thus never got around to it] and then angering my next girlfriend [and then breaking up] by asking her to take me there when we went to Miyajima).

I decided to go across it. My friends didn't care though (or did it before; I forget), so it was just me.

I walked to the end, then walked back.

If I had to describe the bridge in one word, it'd be: underwhelming.

Also, there's the castle I didn't have time to go to.

Tons of ice cream stalls.

Including one place with 100 flavors.

Some dude.

100 flavors. Some of them really really really weird.

My friend got the natto; I got the ramen, curry, and habanero one; and my other friend got watermelon.

They tasted as bad as you could imagine.

USA the love hotel!

And then we got back and went home (and accidentally forgot my stuffed camel, but I'll get it when I come back from China). I'm so happy to have completed my lifetime goal of riding a Japanese camel.

Though you could say, 楽だ