Tottori

Last weekend I traversed Western Japan from the Southern coastline, where I live, to the Northern one, which separates the prefecture known as Tottori from the Sea of Japan. The reason: sun, sea, sand, surf and psytrance. The long journey was necessary because the few of the aforementioned items that can be found in Okayama are of poor quality, mainly thanks to the Kurashiki industrial zone which pours crap into the sea and air in such vast quantities that both are frequently a dismal shade of yellowy grey. The Seto, being an inland sea, is both a pollution trap and flat as a pond.

Thank heaven for the San-In Beach Party! Tottori is blessed with a clean ocean that actually moves! There are people there who allow visitors to take advantage of this fact (they lend their surfboards)! There are people there that put on outdoor parties and actually know what to do and play at them!

After a series of conflicting weather reports, the weekend turned out to be almost entirely gloriously sunny. The air was clear and so was the sea. Did I mention that the sea was clean? Bliss. I even had to dodge ocean wildlife while I was swimming! (not the five ton toothed kind you find in Cape Town, thank goodness). I haven't had an early morning outdoor stomp since Thailand, and that didn't count because it was inamongst the Eurotrash and their trash on an overexploited tourist beach. I have seen lone Japanese people at trance parties before in Cape Town, but at this party I finally experienced being the minority, jamming with a bunch of crazy and free-spirited Oriental hippies.

I'll still be here when it comes around next year. I have only two scheduled events for 2007 so far. One is the San-In beach party and the other is returning to Cape Town where the things I had to travel so far for here are there in abundance!