Japan has a desert — and it sits right beside the Sea of Japan. Tottori Sand Dunes, Tottori Prefecture. 16 kilometers of wind-sculpted sand along the coast, some ridges rising 47 meters high, formed over 100,000 years from granite grains carried down the Chugoku Mountains by the Sendai River. Ride a camel for about six dollars. Paraglide from the crest. Or simply walk barefoot until the only sound is wind and your own heartbeat. The dunes shift every day. Footprints vanish by morning. The ocean glitters just beyond the sand wall. A Japanese father races his daughter up a steep slope, both collapsing in laughter at the top. An American family rolls down together, sand in their hair, cheering. Local volunteers plant grass on the edges to slow erosion — protecting this strange inland-sea desert for the next generation. You stand on the ridge. Sand below. Ocean below that. Sky everywhere. Some landscapes feel like they belong to another planet — until you realize they belong to Japan.