Shimane 2025

Over the past week, I've been spamming you all with a lot of little notes about my time in Shimane. I'm not usually much of a travel blogger (outside of hiking) but I recently added a map section to my blog and that's incentivised me to try posting a little bit more about the places I've been to.

It's a little bit hidden away, but a short walk away from Matsue Castle is the Jozan Inari Shrine, which has a lot of fox statues. We actually visited it on twice - before and after Shimane had its first snowfall for the winter. I have the before set of photos up here.

If you're visiting Matsue, you'll quite quickly notice Matsue Castle, which rises up on a hill above the town. Completed in 1611, it's part of a very select club - one of only 12 original castles left in Japan (i.e. not reconstructed replicas).

After visiting Daisen Masumizu Highland on the 28th of December, we decided to do a second day of snowboarding at Daisen White Resort (大山ホワイトリゾート) on the final day of 2025. Since the snowfall this year had been a bit late, only a portion of the resort was open.

After visiting Tottori's sand dunes, we visited the Misasa Onsen town, home to apparently the "most radium-enriched hot springs" in the world. The town has a couple of hotels in the area, so their guests can enjoy the onsen baths located inside the hotel.

While I was down in Shimane for the new year's holidays, we took a day out to visit the Tottori Sand Dunes (or "tottori sakyuu") - the largest sand dunes in Japan. When Japanese people think of Tottori, the sand dunes is one of the first things that come to mind.

While I was down in Shimane over the New Year's break, we decided to make the most of it and also do some snowboarding. The main ski fields near Shimane are the ones on the side of Mt Daisen, which is in the neighbouring prefecture of Tottori.

As we were wandering around the streets of Matsue city (after visiting its castle and taking some bird photos) we happened across a coffee roastery called the Matsue Roasting Place (松江焙煎所).