Can we get to all the remaining Sandshrews before time runs out?

When last we left our Japanese-language reporter Ikuna Kamezawa, she was in the middle of a two-day journey through her home prefecture of Tottori, located towards the western end of Japan’s main island of Honshu. Ikuna wasn’t racing around Tottori visiting relatives or checking up on old classmates, though. Instead she was trying to visit all of Tottori’s adorable Pokémon manhole covers, or Pokéfuta, as they’re called in Japanese.

Tottori has a total of 20 Pokéfuta, with at least one in each of the prefecture’s municipalities. Every single one of those covers features Sandshrew, who serves as Tottori’s tourism ambassador Pokémon in a nod to the prefecture’s sand dunes. On Day 1, Ikuna and her visiting friend who was doing this Poké pilgrimage with her managed to hit up 11 covers, but Day 2 was going to have some extra challenges. Many of the remaining nine Pokéfuta are in the western part of Tottori, a part of the prefecture that Ikuna actually has very little experience driving through, and they also had a ticking clock since they needed to finish their journey in time to get Ikuna’s friend back on the bus later that night for her trip back home to Osaka.

So they got up bright and early, rising at 7 in the morning, quickly getting ready and then hitting the road.

Their first destination on this day was the city of Sakaiminato, where the Pokéfuta features not only regular and Alolan Sandshrews, but also Krabby. Why? Because Sakaiminato’s port brings in more crab than anywhere else in Japan.

▼ The Sakaiminato Pokéfuta

However, Ikuna’s plan of getting here early in the morning ended up sort of backfiring. Ikuna and her friend weren’t just visiting the Sandshew covers to photograph them, but also to participate in a stamp rally promotion. By using the stamps located near the Pokéfuta, they could fill up their stamp rally sheets and then submit them for a chance to win various travel-related prizes.

The Sakaiminato stamp, though, is inside a tourist information center that doesn’t open until 9 o’clock, so Ikuna now had about an hour to kill before she could get the stamp. Luckily, this Pokéfuta isn’t too far from Shigeru Mizuki Road, a collection of outdoor sculptures of characters created by Gegege no Kitaro manga creator Shigeru Mizuki.

▼ Sakaiminato Pokéfuta to Shigeru Mizuki Road

Once the tourist info office was open, Ikuna got her stamp, and then got back in the car for the drive to the next Pokémon manhole cover, in Yonago, with guest stars Farfetch’d and Swanna…

▼ From Sakaiminato Pokéfuta to Yonago, 20 minutes by car

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/%E7%AB%B9%E5%86%85%E5%9B%A3%E5%9C%B0,+%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E3%80%81%E3%80%92684-0046+%E9%B3%A5%E5%8F%96%E7%9C%8C%E5%A2%83%E6%B8%AF%E5%B8%82/35.456258,133.361525/@35.4894465,133.2641432,13z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m9!4m8!1m5!1m1!1s0x35565677e922986d:0xb83975828028b477!2m2!1d133.2533597!2d35.5227729!1m0!3e0?hl=ja&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDkyNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

…and then on to Hiezu.

▼ Don’t be fooled, those aren’t two Sandshews – one of them is a Ditto!

▼ Yonago Pokéfuta to Hiezu (approximately 10-minute drive)

OK, these first three were easy, since they’re clustered pretty closely together. Now, though, Ikuna had to head to the western reaches of Tottori. Despite being in the same prefecture she grew up in, she never had much occasion to come out this way, so she and her friend were going to need to rely heavily on the Pokéfuta map and their car’s GPS navigation to reach the next covers.

Having never been down this particular stretch of road before, though, meant there were other things to discover, too, like the breathtaking Sugesawa Dam.

Dam tourism is actually a thing in Japan, and it just so happens that Ikuna’s friend is a dam fan, so even though they still had six Pokéfuta to go, they pulled over to take a quick look at the place. They didn’t have time for a tour, but they did get to snap some cool pics, and also got Sugesawa’s dam card.

▼ An item of envy among dam fans

Via Sugesawa Dam, it’s about an hour drive from the Hiezu Pokéfuta to the next one, in Nichinan, which Sandshrew shares with an Illumise pair…

…and from there another 20 minutes or so to Hino and its Pokéfuta with Sandshrews and Swablu.

Ikuna and her friend had checked off 16 of Tottori’s 20 Pokémon manhole covers. It was now past noon, though, so in order to keep up the pace, they grabbed some snacks at a convenience store and ate in the car.

▼ By the way, did you know that corn dogs are called “American dogs” in Japan?

The drive to the next cover, in Kofu, was just a quick 10-minute cruise, and Ikuna decided to use the Pokémon GO AR camera mode to double the number of Sandshrews in her shot, which also doubled the size of the smile on her face.

However, Ikuna’s smile almost vanished when she noticed that the “roadside station” local products shop where this cover’s stamp is located was closed for the day! Thankfully, the staff had placed the stamp outside the locked entrance, so that fans doing the stamp rally could still stamp their paper.

However, if Ikuna had been doing the digital version of the stamp rally, where you scan a QR code instead of physically stamping a paper, she’d have been out of luck, since the QR code display was inside the locked building. So while you can only ultimately submit one completed form per person, if you’ve really got your heart set on getting all the stamps, you might want to do the physical and digital versions, just in case something goes wrong with one of the processes.

Crisis averted, it was now time to go to Nambu, where the Tottori Hana Kairo Flower Park is a point of pride for locals, and so their Pokéfuta features Sandshrew and Trapinch.

▼ Kofu Pokéfuta to Nambu (10-minuite drive)

For the final two covers, the surrounding scenery got especially nice. For the second-to-last site, Ikuna and her friend made the 20-minute drive to Hoki.

The Sandshrews looked as cute as ever, with Glalie hanging out with them this time. If you look up, though, you can also see Mount Daisen, the tallest mountain in Japan’s Chugoku region (western Honshu).

And finally, the last Tottori Pokéfuta, which actually has more Litwicks than Sandshrews, is in the town of Daisen, a 25-minute drive away through some very lush forests.

And with that, Ikuna and her friend had completed their mission to visit every Tottori Pokémon manhole cover over the course of two days, and completed their stamp rally papers too!

They won’t know for a while whether or not they’ve won anything, but they decided to treat themselves to some ice cream, which will make anyone feel like a winner.

So, as Ikuna has demonstrated, it is possible to visit all of the Sandshrew covers within two days, assuming you’ve got access to a car and are relatively capable at reading maps and navigating Japan’s road network. She even had enough time to sit through a bit of a traffic jam on the drive to the bus stop to drop her friend off.

That said, some people might want to take a more leisurely paced trip through Tottori, and maybe spend some more time doing things other than searching for Sandshrews. In that case, picking just a handful of Pokéfuuta, or maybe just one to visit, is of course and option too, and if you’re not driving all over, the Sandshrew train is an option for getting around Tottori too.

Related: Pokéfuta official Tottori webpage
Photos ©SoraNews24
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