Japan Trip Day 4: Tottori Sand Dunes and Hokuei (aka Conan Town) again

Today is the day I have been looking forward to. After Conan Town, doing the activities at Tottori Sand Dunes is reason why I want to visit Tottori. The instructor at the paragliding school was kind. I initially opted a rakuchin course which is 3500 yen more expensive than the normal course. The difference is for the instructor to help me carry the 10kg equipment. I thought we would walk all the way to the top of Umanose like what I did on Friday. There is no way I can do that with a 10kg load. That is not where we would try flying so I was convinced to carry the 10kg equipment and save my money. Haha..

3 layers were not good enough for the wind and I had to put on the additional layer of 'flight suit'. I should have removed my ultra light down. I looked so puffed and fat :( And pink was not my choice wor..

Walking with the 10kg load to the flying spot

Sadly the wind was too strong for paragliding :( The activity was switched to hang gliding. Although I prefer paragliding, I never experienced hang gliding before and I was okay to try it. Well I came all the way here after all so why not. I will definitely recommend paragliding over hang gliding. Paragliding allows you to fly on air by yourself. Hang gliding is more lame: you don't fly so high and you have 2 people holding the wings of the glider. It is natural since hang glider is heavier and there is no way unexperienced people to operate it alone.

Another irritating for me is the false advertisement that this is a half-day activity. There were two other tourists with me and we took turns. Overall it only took 2.5 hours from the first time I reached the office (for registration etc) until I left the place. If there were no other tourists, it would be even shorter for me. It should not be called as half-days since essentially it was only for 5 attempts: 

1) Hanging on my arms with feet unsupported. I was only on air for less than 15 seconds and my feet were only 50cm (or less) above the ground.

It is actually very tiring for both arms to support the whole body weight like this

2) Hanging on my arms with feet resting on the frame. It was like flying but in a sitting position. The duration on air was also about 15 seconds. The flight height was the same but it felt higher as in this position the leg was raised to a sitting position and the lowest of point of the body (i.e. butt) was about 1.5m from the ground.

What a weird sitting position lol

3) Repeat of 1) now with a harness to support the body. Flight time was 20 seconds.

Behind my back is a harness and I was actually 'sitting' on the butt support instead of fully standing

4) Repeat of 3) but this time I was to let go my hands off the frame to experience a more natural feel of flying. Flight time was 25 seconds. I was actually quite scared to let go both of my arms so during the 25 seconds on air, the instructors and I kept exchanging "let go" and "are you sure I can let go?" lol.

Quite obvious that I felt uncomfortable letting my arms free

5) The final and most 'shiok' one. I had to put on an additional flying jacket that will support my lower body when my body was in a Superman's flight position.

Without the jacket, there is no way I can make my body straight horizontally like that

I did not take photos as I asked my guide to help me shoot videos instead. That is how I can remember the flight time and height. The picture above are the screenshots from the videos. Because the frame has to be supported by the instructors, the flight height is always about there. I don't usually take videos so my threshold for quality is quite low. I am emo with the photos taken by my guide but I am pretty happy with the videos.

Although the wind was strong, I think my guide somehow convinced his friend to allow us to try paragliding but in tandem with him (instead of alone like in the actual paragliding activity). The flight was only for less than 15 seconds and this was the most shiok one. It really felt like flying because we were so high on air. No video but photos for this one and all the photos were bad T_T

The only nice paragliding photo that I have

It was the other tourist up there. I took this just to show how high on air the flight was.

If I want to be positive, I will think it is a blessing in disguise that I was able to experience both hang gliding and paragliding. If I want to be negative, I am quite emo because I think paragliding is a better experience and I did not really do that because of the wind.

After this, I went to ride the camel. It is expensive (1300 yen per person) and I just went YOLO since where else can I find camel in this part of the world? I have a change of thought now. Haha.. It is not worth it. It was only a 3-4 minutes ride and it was not even a far journey towards the Umanose. Bleah. I also did not get to interact with the camel :(

I wanted to go to toilet first before going to the sand museum. I ended up stuck at the Service Center. I was not interested but my guide was so eager to explain to me. Although I was not that interested, I still learnt a few things so it was not really wasting time. I learn the sand dunes history (read: how it is shrinking thanks to human development), I solve the mystery of the oasis (there is clay layer beneath the oasis and that is why water cannot seep through fully), and I know someday I have to return to Tottori to visit the Uradome Coast which I do not have the chance during this trip.

I had to finally bid farewell to my guide. It really has been my pleasure and honour to get such a nice guide like him. He even gave me a packet of rice cracker produced by his farm. Tottori Sand Museum is not something I am that excited with. It feels more like something 'compulsory' to see since I am already here. No doubt the sculptures are amazing. It is just that I don't really enjoy the South Asia theme and the overall museum is quite small.

The sculpture greeting us at the entrance

The view from 2nd floor of the viewing gallery. Yup.. that's all the area of the whole museum

I took my own bus trip to return to Tottori City and everything I learnt from my guide on Friday could not be fully applied since the bus ticket machine was not working. I did not know the number when I boarded and how much to pay so with half-baked Japanese, I had to ask the bus driver upon arrival. I survived. Haha..

With half a day left, it was time to decide how to make a full use of it. I wanted to go to post office to ship my Conan plushies home to give more shopping space for me at Tokyo. I wanted to explore the shopping malls in Tottori City. I also wanted to go back to Conan Town for the purikura as souvenir. 

Despite the tight timing, I decided to return to Conan Town by train this time. I only bought snack from 7-11 for lunch so that I did not miss the 2pm train to reach Yura Station at about 3pm. I only had less than 2 hours since I had to take the next train returning to Tottori at 450pm. The next one after that will be too late.

I did not make a wrong decision since the train station is also full of Conan. I bought the guidebook and Conan postal stamp sheets from the tourist information center. Since I would be walking all the way to Gosho Aoyama Manga Factory (GAMF) again, I decided to play the stamp collection. It brought me to a bookshop where I bought a book about the most recent Conan movie only released last Friday.

Stamp sheets, notebook, guidebook, and the sticker prize for getting at least 5 out of 9 stamps for the stamp rally

1.5 hours to explore Conan Town is not enough :( I initially wanted to eat or buy ice cream at Conan House but I had no time. Sigh.. perhaps I should not waste too much time with taking photos of the things around the city since I already took photos on Saturday. I was hesitating about purikura but in the end I was glad I did 2 rounds. My only regret was that my hair was already a mess because of the head gear this morning. I also bought Conan medallions from the Conan shop. I never saw this during the previous 2 visits. I met the tourists that went hang gliding to me this morning. I decided to be antisocial haha.. If we had a small chat, I would be losing even more time.

As a nice surprise, I got a Conan train for the journey back to Tottori. Hehe..

Conan decoration is only at the outside of the train

I decided to be thick skin and somehow was successful in sending my plushies home with a mixture of Japanese and English. Lol. I went to check the bus terminal so that I would know where to go tomorrow morning and then I had dinner at Nana's Green Tea. With my hand luggage empty now, I decided to buy souvenirs to give away something special from Tottori instead from Tokyo. I also bought pear juice to drink. Overall it is my first time not overeating on my final night. Haha..

My guide said that he might contact me in the evening for dinner. I had a mixed feeling about this as I want to rest but at the same time I also look forward to try local places. He was still stuck at the school until past 830pm so no more dinner and that means I can rest earlier tonight. He may be travelling to Singapore sometime this year so perhaps we still can meet up. So far, it has been amazing at Tottori and I thank God for having me to stay here for 4 days. It is still not enough going to Tokyo Disney Resort for the remaining of this holiday is also equally imporant for me. Haha..

My biggest mistake for the whole trip is not getting the Hokuei town guidebook first. Although most of the statues are along the way of Conan Street from the station to GAMF, a few are a bit out of place e.g. Ran and Conan (which is outside Daiei Elementary school), Ran waiting statue that complements Shinichi waiting statue (which seems to be quite a far detour from Conan street), some stone statues of the later volumes,  and the bronze Conan statue in his pose for Volume 1 of the manga (which is across the street past GAMF). Sigh.. Having said that, I will not say that there is anything I would change from this trip. Things cannot be perfect but they have been great and fantastic in these past 4 days. I shall just look at this as a reason to return here someday..