getting to + around Iwami, Tottori (the town that inspired Iwatobi in Free!)

[furiosity]

I tried to be as detailed as I could, but if anything is missing/unclear, please feel free to comment, inbox me, or email my tumblr url @ gmail, and I'll add it in if I know the answer or let you know if I don't. Please note that this guide thing only includes the town of Iwami -- not the Tottori Sand Dunes featured in the ED or the school in

Comments

[elizardbits]

I WOULD LIEK MOAR SHIBE PLZ

[furiosity]

SHIBE NOT FOUND

ALL SHIBE RELAX AT HOME WITH DORITE

[furiosity]

ahh thank you! Writing it and selecting pictures made me want to go back immediately tbh, it's such a lovely place ;-; Many of the stations on that rail line look like that (I found out when researching the area to figure out where Samezuka is /o\).

It really is amazing! Considering that the town makes no money off people just coming and looking at the locations, going to the trouble of printing these free maps and just handing them out was super generous of them. ;-;

[airisu7425]

Thank you so much for this entry! It will come very handy in September. :3

My guess (and fear) is that it will be much busier during our visit but at least we'll be there and that's what most important, right?

Were locals friendly and/or interested in you?

[furiosity]

No problem at all - it was a lot of fun to retrace our steps

[airisu7425]

Oh thanks for the details on this, too. :3 It is indeed a bit strange asking about whether liking anime or not, given the circumstances, but maybe it is a starting question for them. Or just as you suspect - they want you to ask back. XD I'll try it in September.

What about speaking English in that area? Could you only communicate in Japanese? My Japanese is pretty weak. *blush*

[furiosity]

I'm not sure about English -- we didn't try communicating in anything other than Japanese (all three of us speak it), but I imagine that you would be able to make yourself understood at the tourism office and the shops even if it was a mix of Japanese/English. The whole "most people in Japan speak some English" thing isn't true; it can be quite hit and miss. Sometimes you'll be in the middle of a teeny village with your big tourist map looking for Hiking Trail A and a local will approach you and offer directions in flawless English, and other times you'll be at Tokyo Station and a senior staff member will need to fetch a colleague to give you directions to the shinkansen tracks

[moia]

Wow, what an amazing thing, I love how useful and detailed it is even though I am not into anime and won't ever need it. It made me nostalgic for Japan even though I went to see very different things while I was therein 2009 (gardens for the most part). I hope I can manage to see Kyoto during springtime once in my life. *sigh* I really like the cherries blossoming in your pics. :)
I'm glad you had a good time. How are you doing? :)

[furiosity]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! :D Looking at photos of Japan always makes me feel super nostalgic; there's no place quite like it out there (that I've been before). I didn't get to see Kyoto in spring this time (I was in Tokyo for most of the trip) but I am with you on wanting to, one day!

I've been doing okay! Quit smoking a year ago, other than that, same old -- writing fic and angryfacing on Twitter a lot. How about you? Baby is a toddler by now, right? :D

[moia]

Baby is going to be 20 months old this week and being her mum is joyous and fun and very exhausting :) she's learning words and running around, climbing doing all sorts of crazy things.
I'm great, most of my life is taken by being a mum.

[moia]

I had to reply quickly yesterday, my kid woke up. Just wanted to say reading the post made me miss your writing. I am not into manga really, so I haven't been reading your bleach posts...
It's nice to hear you're okay and that you are sticking to the quitting smoking thing!

[floppy_snoopi]

Thank you so much!! It will be very handy xD
I'd like to ask something though, i saw a post on tumblr about a bakery near Iwami-station, where if you make a reservation they will bake you Iwatobi-chan cream pan. Do you know of this?

Thank you again for this awesome post!!

[furiosity]

You're very welcome! :D

We didn't run across it, just the mobile bakery mentioned above (they didn't have any Free! related baked goods). Maybe this only happens when there are more people visiting, or it might have been a time limited thing. You might have better luck asking the OP of the tumblr post!

Most of the shops we passed were closed, though, so there was also that (they would reopen later in the day when peopel started coming back from work, I am sure, but we didn't stay long enough).

[floppy_snoopi]

Thanks for the answer :D

Oh, ok i need to find the post lmao kind of hard task xD i thought you may have went there too ^_^

How long did you stay around Iwami-Tottori? My friend and me will probably stay 2/3 days we want to visit the splash free sand-dunes xD do you think it's enough time?

[furiosity]

It really depends on what your sightseeing style is -- if you're super fast and like to be "efficient" you could do both Iwami and the sand dunes in a day! If you're more like me and like to take your time and wander around and take a billion photos, then I'd give a day to Iwami and a day to the sand dunes, so 2 days would be okay, 3 would be perfect. ^^ We only went to Iwami and we arrived in Tottori around 11AM and caught a train back to Kobe (from Tottori) at around 7 -- we were in Iwami 11:30ish-6PM.

But also if you are renting bikes your Iwami visit will be much much faster. :D