Kaori Mizumori -- Tottori Sakyuu（鳥取砂丘）

 

As crazy as it sounds, my home province of Ontario actually has something approximating a desert and it's located in Sandbanks Provincial Park in the eastern part of the province right by Lake Ontario. Looking at its Wikipedia entry, the park boasts "... the largest bay-mouth barrier dune formation in the world". I've never had the opportunity to visit the area although as a (not-so) tiny kid, me and my family had visited the Thousand Islands area not too far away (and yep, the famous Thousand Island salad dressing apparently originated there although the nitty-gritty of it is still up for debate).

Well, several years ago, I found out through my translation work that there was also a desert of sorts in Tottori Prefecture. Known as Tottori Sakyuu (Tottori Sand Dunes), it's located within San'in Kaigan Geopark, one of the UNESCO Global Geoparks.

I was also reminded of Tottori Sakyuu recently while watching Episode 10 of the popular anime "Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!"（宇崎ちゃんは遊びたい！）when the main characters won a trip to Tottori Prefecture. They actually did visit the dunes.

Last night on "Uta Con"（うたコン）, enka singer Kaori Mizumori（水森かおり）appeared on the program where she and the hosts did their "post-game analysis" as it were of her performance on the Kohaku Utagassen a few weeks ago. She sang a cover of the Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）classic "Ii Hi Tabidachi" (いい日旅立ち) which had video shown of her traveling all over the nation admiring the various scenic sites as would be the case for someone who has been called The Queen of Regional Songs.

However, as for her number on "Uta Con", she reprised one of her earlier singles, her 11th to be exact, "Tottori Sakyuu" from April 2003. With lyrics by Ryutaro Kinoshita（木下龍太郎）and music by prolific Tetsuya Gen（弦哲也）, the song roars in like the proverbial dragon with a thunder of strings and timpani before they are joined by a tenderhearted guitar. It's quite the dramatic song for a sandy area but the titular setting is meant as both post-breakup destination and metaphor for the fragility of love.

Considering that this is the first of her singles to get its own article on J-Wiki, I'm gathering that "Tottori Sakyuu" was also her first big hit. It reached No. 16 on Oricon and was a long-lasting success that earned Mizumori her first of nineteen appearances on the Kohaku Utagassen beginning from the end of 2003. By New Year's Eve, it was the 77th-ranked single and a year later, it even went up to No. 75.