Finding Sakura

Finding Sakura

Prelude:

As some of you probably know by now, I am currently on exchange from University of Waterloo to Tottori University in Old Koyama, Tottori City, Tottori Prefecture, Japan. Koyama is a very small and quiet place, life is slow and peaceful. To read more about Tottori, refer to my previous blog. I am still trying my hardest to learn Japanese, and I think it’s slowly, but surely improving. A lot of things in Japan are still quite strange to me, but I am getting more used to them, and I think the initial culture shock is finally over.

Since last week, classes have officially begun. University in Japan is much more relaxed than that of Canada. Back in Waterloo, I would have five to six classes each with at least three hours of lectures every week, and some classes may have labs and mandatory tutorials. In Tottori University, there is only 1.5 hours of class per course every week. I am taking five classes, one of which is a project class with no lectures. I am also taking two Japanese classes with a total of 9 hours of lecture time. This works out to 15 hours of class every week, which is probably less than what I would have had in Waterloo. Two of my four actual classes are in English, and the two in Japanese are Automatic Control 1 (which is an extension of Linear Signals) and Thermodynamics. AC is a pretty good course, as it is mostly math, I can understand majority of the lectures without having to understand the Prof. Thermodynamics in Japanese is worse than how it sounds. This course is fucking impossible. I sat in class and understood absolutely nothing -.- I have no idea how I am going to pull this one off… Apparently, no one has ever taken the Applied Thermo course here in Tottori while on exchange…

On a side note, I saw American Gangster (in English, obviously), and it was amazing!

Before beginning the blog, I’ll explain the train system a little bit. In this region, trains are most commonly used for long distance travels. Each stop is about five to ten minutes, which is about half an hour to an hour of commuting by bike (maybe 5 km?). Trains are not exactly cheap; it works out to very roughly $10/1 hour of commute. There are many types of trains even though they all depart from the same platform. There are regular trains, and they stop at every single stop. There are limited express trains, and they skip certain stops (kind of like express subway lines). And then there are super express trains, not only do they travel faster, make even less stops, they are much more comfortable; these trains looks like Shinkansen. The regular and limited express trains cost the same, and the super express trains cost about 20% more. The ticketing system is a little strange. The regular tickets can be purchased from a vending machine, and the super express tickets can only be purchased from the counter. The ticket will say where you purchased this ticket, and how much you paid for this ticket (i.e. if you want to go to City A from City B, and it costs 570 Yen, the ticket will say City B – 570 Yen, your destination is not explicitly printed on the ticket). When you walk up the platform, depending on the station, the procession of a ticket is not usually checked. The tickets are usually collected on your way out, after you have arrived at your destination. It is a very strange system, but it works, kind of.

The Story Begins…

I came to Japan with my girlfriend and another exchange student in the beginning of April – the 9th to be exact. Beginning of April is the perfect time to see Sakura, or Cherry blossoms in this region. The blooming period of Sakura trees vary greatly from region to region, but generally speaking, the trees in the southern part of the country bloom first. The more north you go, the later they bloom. To me, Tottori city has a lot of Sakura trees, and they are literally everywhere. Since I have not been to any cities outside of Tottori Prefecture, I don’t know if this is also true in rest of Japan. By now, almost all Sakura petals in this region have fallen, and the only places with Sakura are the cities in the North outside of Tottori Prefecture, and small villages inside mountains – the mountains create microclimates which delay the blooming of the Sakura trees. And so, we set out to a small village called Ashizu Valley, in attempt to see Sakura for the last time during our stay in Japan.

We woke up at around 8 in the morning, and caught the train that took us from Tottori University to Tottori City. After we arrived at Tottori City (downtown of Tottori, which is the capital of Tottori Prefecture), we purchased tickets to Chizu from an automatic ticketing machine. With our tickets in hand, we walked up to the platform and hopped onto the next train to Chizu, and it turned out to be a super express (we have tickets for regular and limited express). That was our (GF + I) time taking the train to somewhere far, and we didn’t know the difference between a super express and a limited express. We sat in comfortable seats, and thoroughly enjoyed our ride until a ticketing officer came to our segment of the cart and started inspecting people’s tickets. Realizing what had happened, there was no option by to play dumb. We proceeded to show him our tickets, and he spoke in rapid Japanese, and later switched to English after I told him that I spoke almost no Japanese. He was very understanding, and explained how the train tickets worked in very broken English mixed with Japanese, and did not even charge us for the difference.

Chizu is a city that is close to Ashizu valley. Last time we went to Ashizu valley by car, and thus we vaguely knew the roads, but did not know how far it was exactly from Chizu. We proceeded to walk along a road with a very long row of Sakura trees planted along its side. Last time we were at Chizu, all the Sakura trees were still blooming; but this time, they had all fallen. We walked for about an hour, and reach a small village not too far from Chizu, in which we encountered our first intersection. We followed our intuition and trusted our faint recollection from our previous visit, and took the path on the right. The second leg of our journey was much more arduous than the first, as we both grew very tired from walking. However, we saw very beautiful countryside scenery, and a pylon that is taller than me (this eventually became the highlight of my day). As well, we saw a few Sakura trees still blooming, which was a very encouraging sight. This is also when we encountered our second intersection. Unfortunately, our recollection failed us this time, and we chose the wrong turn. We proceeded to walk in the wrong path for another hour, the scenery was still beautiful and lovely, but we were unable to absorb any of it as we grew more and more frustrated for things became more and more foreign. We finally reach a village with a train station, and it is 9 kilometers away from Chizu. We rushed into the first convenient store we saw (super sketchy looking) and bought and devoured a bag of Bugles and Japanese pastry at an unbelievable rate.
Knowing that we had chosen a wrong turn, we admitted defeat and took a train back to Tottori, and thus ended our day fruitlessly.

Overall, it was a huge waste of time, but we did get to
a) Ride on a super express train
b) See a few more blooming cherry blossoms
c) See a huge pylon

Pictures:

Map of Chizu: