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Tottori Images 16 images Created 8 Jul 2015

Tottori Prefecture is located in the Chugoku region of Japan. The area is made up of a long coastline with many world-class beaches and a mountainous area - the highest being Mt. Daisen. Add some nearby major attractions, such as Adachi Museum Garden and Yuushien Garden and the Tottori Sand Dunes.
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  • Ishitani Residence Garden - During the Edo period Chizu flourished as a post station. Among the quaint buildings in Chizu Town the residence of the Ishitani family, an upper class family.  Japanese, gardens are often designed to be viewed from a sitting position. The most celebrated garden at Ishitani Residence is the Chisen Garden, with plants artfully arranged around a pond, the Karesansui Garden, a dry landscape garden that uses no water to represent mountains and streams, and the Shibafu Garden showing the charm of green lawns. The space from indoors to the veranda and the gardens are connected in a gentle way.  In this way Japanese can appreciate living alongside nature by viewing from within the home.
    ishitani-garden-7.jpg
  • Shigeru Mizuki is a Japanese artist, reknowned for the anime series GeGeGe-no-Kitaro.  Mizuki is a specialist in "yokai" - a special type of Japanese horror story.  GeGeGe-no-Kitaro has been adapted to video games and movies on several occasions.  Mizuki's home town, of Saikaiminato in Tottori Prefecture has a street named after him with sculptures of many of his beloved characters adorning Mizuki Shigeru Street.
    gegege-no-kitaro-07.jpg
  • Tottori Sand Dunes - the only large dune system in Japan. They were created by sediment deposits into the Sea of Japan. Ocean currents and wind have helped bring the sand from the bottom up onto shore, where wind continually rearranges the texture of the sand and dunes.
    tottori-dunes-3.jpg
  • Genchuji Temple in Tottori is graced with a small but beautiful pond garden behind the temple.  Genchuji is also the burial site of Araki Mataemon, a swordsman of legend. Rakan  are painted on the fusuma screen doors inside the temple by Keitaro Takagi.
    genchuji--2.jpg
  • Yuushien garden on Daikonshima Island was designed as a strolling garden with ponds, streams, trails and waterfalls. The garden is resplendent year round with a variety of blooms though the garden is famous for its peonies. In the 1950's, sericultural industry was in decline on the small island of Daikonshima, and women on the island had to travel all around Japan selling peony seedlings to make a living. A local, Mr Sakai Kadowaki, opened the garden at Daikonshima so that people would visit the island and the free the locals from constant travel around Japan. The garden was named after Kadowaki’s father.
    yuushien-03.jpg
  • Kozenji Garden Tottori - while many temples around Japan share the name Kozenji, the Tottori Kozenji features a small landscape garden using "borrowed scenery" - that is hills and forest behind the garden incorporated into the garden's tableaux.
    Kozenji-Tottori-2.jpg
  • Kannon-in Garden was built in the mid 17th century and artfully incorporates the forest behind the pond as its natural background.  This style is called Shakkei "borrowed scenery”.  Kannon-in Garden was designated as a national scenic spot by the Japanese government.
    kannon-in-5.jpg
  • Lafcadio Hearn lived in Matsue for about one year during his long life in Japan.  His former residence is open to the public and is dedicated to his work.  Hearn was born in Greece in 1850 to an Irish father and a Greek mother and lived in Greece, Ireland, Britain, France and the USA before ending up in  Japan in 1890 where he married a Japanese and was naturalized as Japanese as Koizumi Yakumo, his name in Japan.  He is best know for books that introduced Japan to the western world.   His most famous work was "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan”.  In his home at Matsue, Hearn described the Japanese garden of the residence: “There are large rocks in it, heavily mossed and fantastic basins of stone for holding water; and stone lamps green with years... and there are green knolls like islets.”  In his well known essay “In A Japanese Garden” he writes: “These are the gardens of the past. The future will know them only as dreams, creations of a forgotten art.”
    lafcadio-hearn-garden-1.jpg
  • Nature created Tottori Sand Dunes so locals got together and created the Sand Dune Museum, with lifelike sculpture man made of sand.  Katsuhiko Chaen is a sand sculptor and executive producer of the museum.  The museum often invites other sand sculptors from around the world to participate in their events and shows.  Since sand sculptures collapse eventually viewers can only see these temporary works of art for a short time, something like a sand mandala.
    tottori-sand-museum-2.jpg
  • Jinpukaku Mansion was built by Nakahiro Ikeda and designed architect Katayama Tokuma.  The building was completed in 1907.  Jinpukaku resembles the Nara National Museum and Akasaka Palace as all were designed by the same architect.  Jinpukaku was built below the ruins of Tottori Castle which had long been under the control of the Ikeda clan and nearby Kozenji,  the temple of the Ikedas.
    Jinpukaku-3.jpg
  • The Adachi Museum of Art was based on the private collection of Zenko Adachi.  Adachi collected Japanese paintings, ceramics and scrolls.  Adachi himself was an aficionado of Japanese gardens and collected each pine tree and each stone for the garden himself from around Japan.   In this way he created a beautiful garden filled with his own vision and passion.  Adachi believed that Japanese gardens were "as beautiful as pictures” and even framed one of the gardens in one of the museums rooms as if it is a painting itself. Adachi Museum Garden has been selected as the best garden in Japan year after year since 2003, by the Journal of Japanese Gardens Shisai Project.
    adachi-garden-13.jpg
  • The Tanabata Festival celebrates the meeting of Vega and Altair as "star crossed lovers". Sometimes this is called the Star Tanabata. The Milky Way separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunar calendar. Since the stars come out at night, the celebration is held at night.
    tanabata-3.jpg
  • Omikuji or paper wishes are a method used for divining personal fortunes which involves drawing straws from a cylinder and then receiving a printed fortune or poem corresponding to a cypher printed on the stick. This is the type of omikuji found most commonly today at shrines.
    omikuji-5.jpg
  • Interior of Jinpukaku Mansion - which was built by Nakahiro Ikeda. The architect Katayama Tokuma designed the building and grounds completed in 1907.  Jinpukaku looks like Nara National Museum as well as the Akasaka Palace -as they were also designed by Katayama Tokuma.
    jimpukaku-interior-1.jpg
  • Kawahara Castle is a replica castle in Kawahara, south of Tottori  located on Castle Mountain or Oshiroyama.  It is situated on the former castle’s site and built in 1994 of concrete.  It is now a museum showcasing local history and culture.  There are good vistas of  the surrounding Chugoku mountains from the lookout.
    kawahara-castle-3.jpg
  • Japanese dance is part of the Obon Festival, is widely enjoyed by the people in Tottori in August. Tottori dance is a makes use of paper umbrellas. <br />
According to a legend iduring a drought an old man named Gorosaku danced with an umbrella for the village god praying for rain. Gorosaku danced with the umbrella until he died, and the drought ended.
    shan-shan-3.jpg