Tales of a Traveler: Kimchi and Husbands

Whoa friends. So much has happened in my life. I have two adventures to report!

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

My story begins bright and early around 6:15 on May 3rd when I was getting ready to leave for the bus to Osaka. I had packed some essentials and thought I was pretty ready to go. Just before I walked out, I took one last look around my apartment thinking, "What am I leaving behind?" Then a thought flew into my head: Vanessa- you are going out of the country. That means bring your passport. Yes, this girl almost forgot her passport and then the whole trip would have been ruined. Yes, I did graduate college. I stopped at the konbini (Japanese convenience store) and bought some snacks for the bus ride. While picking out my iced macha latte, who should walk in but one of my students! Turns out he was off to spend the weekend with his wife to enjoy some shopping and relaxation. It was so great that they were on the bus because they told me how long we had at each rest stop and let me know when I was getting off at the wrong stop. Japan is difficult sometimes. The word for that is mendokusai. It was a great moment when I got to hear him speaking English in a real setting - ah, what a proud teacher I was. Once we made it to Osaka, he and his wife helped me buy my ticket from the bus station to the airport, and then I had some time to kill. I had to try the famous food of of the region, Takoyaki, which is essentially a flour-based battered ball with octopus inside and fried. When it was served, shoot, it looked good. Unfortunately, I got so excited right after they served it that I took a massive chomp and scalded most of my mouth. After washing that first bite down with a gulp of refreshing Asahi, I was ready to sit and wait for it to cool off. I had planned the day so that I would have time to explore Osaka for a while before my flight, but the way the bus to the airport was run on weekends was not to my time satisfaction and I had to arrive at the airport maybe 3 or 4 hours before my flight. That turned out to be just fine because there was an area where you could hang out outside on the grass and see waaaay off in the distance the water (Osaka Kansai Airport is on an airport island) and it was so sunny and nice and I had a cappuccino and there was free wifi. Then there was the plane, whatever, blah, everyone's been on a plane. I mostly slept.
THEN I went through customs but THEEEEN I found my best friend Sarah and we were reunited (and yes), it felt so good. She gave me a great "welcome to Korea" present- a phenomenally creepy piggy bank shaped like the K-pop icon and South Korea's livelihood, Psy. She took me to a restaurant close to her apartment that had some great food I don't remember the name of, but it was similar to Japanese okonomiyaki in that it was a pancake-like item with vegetables in it. The big-time difference between the two was that this was spicy and thin but whoooo-wee I love spicy food. Koreans do too-score! So we hung out there, drank some Korean alcohol called soju (think rubbing alcohol, sugar, and water. Obviously high quality), and caught up.
The next day was marvelous. We went off looking for the Seoul tower, couldn't find it, but stumbled upon the Seoul World Friendship Festival! There was a giant row of tent after tent representing many of the countries around the world. The first row we came across had information on the cultures and I think some of the stuff was for sale. The real treat came when we found ourselves at the mouth of the street of food tents. Now that we had learned about the different cultures, it was time to eat the different foods! It all looked so exciting- but what to try first? If only those were my true thoughts... We had filled up on ramen just maybe an hour before and still had some food babies. After walking to the Mexico tent, however, we could not resist the taste of the tostada. Oh what a magic experience it was. Then we passed the Guatemala tent which had papusas. Upon seeing this, we had to get one because our former roommate used to love love papusas. We made it back to the main grassy park area with a stage to see some dances, children singing, and hear the mayor of Seoul give a speech and tell us he loved us. That's right, the mayor of Seoul said "I love you" and he was talking to a crowd of which we were a part. That's pretty intense. After that we went to meet our other friend from college who lived in the apartment across from ours. We had a great meal that I also don't remember the name of, but you grill beef on a little grill that built into the table. There were different sauces for it and vegetables and it was so wonderful. After dinner, we met up with about 20 other people (with mostly foreigners, we were quite a sight, I'm sure) and went out for drinks. The cool thing about the bar we went to was that it sold beer out of mess kit tins from maybe the Korean war. Or some war. Of course we didn't get to keep them, but what a cool idea.
The next day we spent shopping in Insa-dong with Sarah's coworkers (until we lost them). There were so many cool carts and little stands with street treats. I ate some donuts and some ice cream and another vegetable pancake thing. Obviously practicing my healthy eating. The street vendors were really cool but wow, they also had H&M. That is so handy because not only is it my favorite store, but they have clothes that fit me! Mostly it's difficult to find clothes for a just-under-six-foot female in Japan. There aren't a lot of us.
The last day, Sarah had to work. I spent a leisurely morning hanging around her apartment, getting sneezed on by her cat, then made my way over to an area nearby with a park. I sat outside and enjoyed some lovely time to write in my travel journal (what, you thought this blog is the only way I document my experiences? goodness no). I walked around that area a little more and found an outlet mall and - what - more shopping? Oh yes, my friends. It was justified however by the fact that I bought warm-weather work clothes (which I am told I will need because apparently summer in Japan is the pits).
The next day I flew back and made all of my buses and it was great. Right now I wish I was back with my friend and we were eating kimchi because it is everywhere. Yummm.

At a rest stop to Osaka

Takoyaki

Osaka is really pretty and doesn't look like Japan

View from the outside hangout area for terminal 2 of Osaka Kansai Airport

Thailand represented in the Friendship Festival parade

Republic of Indonesia

Papusas

Main festival grounds

Mess kit tin beer

Street treats in Insa-dong. Donuts filled with red bean paste :)

Insa-dong. Super super busy

Free hug campaign!

I bought a ring from this jeweler and it was too big so he cut and resized it right there

Pinwheel garden

An example of the Korean food I ate. Dak Doritang

There were a lot of beautiful things to see on the way to and from Osaka This is a picture of Mt. Diasen

My beautiful Psy doll present from Sarah making his way back home.

IZUMO TAISHA

The weekend before South Korea I decided I needed to see something local. My other native instructor coworker recommended seeing Izumo Taisha. It is one of the largest Shinto shrines in all of Japan and is commonly referred to as the second most important. There's a really cool story about why it is important that was explained to me which I naturally forgot most of. It has something to do with there was this monster and it was killing everyone in a town or killing this one guy's daughters, maybe there were like 20 daughters. Some hot shot comes over and says hey I'll kill the monster if I can marry your last daughter that is the only one alive because the monster killed all of the other ones. The dad says heck yes, the man kills the monster, gets the girl, and saves the world. I guess? Then there was something like he got a really big rope and pulled all of this land together and that formed Japan. So congrats to you, mythical man-character, for playing a vital role in Japanese history. There's also a shrine at the top of a little baby mountain in the middle of a beach that is pretty but I don't have a picture of because I expected to swim so didn't want the electronics to get wet or sandy. You can see it here.
Anyways, I invited some friends and some of them invited some other friends and it ended up being 5 of us driving out (yes, driving! some of them had cars!). This was about three weeks ago by now so it's going to be the abridged version of the tale. We showed up and walked around and took a million pictures. There were a lot of cool things to see and inside there was even a traditional Japanese wedding taking place! Every 60 years it goes under construction for rebeautification (maybe also spiritual restoration or something), so we couldn't see the whole thing. But that is also a really important piece of history that we saw since you know, it only happens every 60 years. After we felt we had sufficiently seen the history, we decided to go get some soba. Soba is really just a kind of noodle and the traditional Izumo style is to have it served cold with three little bowls of just noodles with vegetables and sauce separate and you add in the goodies. Of course, I got that and of course it was delicious. Totally worth the 45 minute wait to get into the restaurant. Did I mention it was the first weekend of Golden Week? I didn't because I can read back to what I have posted, but that is the big vacation week of April/ May and the area was so busy.
After that, we adventured to the beach where the shrine on the baby mountain was and got super excited to swim. When we got out there, however, we discovered that the beach was a giant dumping ground for trash. So. Much. Trash. It was so sad. It could have been such a cool beach and so much fun, but it was just really really disgusting. How disappointing. Luckily, one of my friends that came lives in Izumo and took us to the pool she swims at. It is this big saltwater pool with these walkways and jets and mini hot pools in the middle and an area where you can stay in the water but swim outside. It was so nice! There was also an area for lap swimming which I enjoyed about 5 laps of - ah, the life of a retired (for now) swimmer. After enjoying the sauna and cold plunge a few times alternating, we found ourselves simply ravenous. Being in a smaller than small area outside of Izumo, there wasn't much to eat except a 24-hour place that could maybe be related to an iHop without breakfast? But not really. Also it had a magnificent drink bar- my favorite thing was the hot vanilla creamy milk (think white chocolate vanilla hot chocolate). After dinner, we had a nail-biting drive home because we were very close to running out of gas. It's not that we didn't pass gas stations, oh no there were plenty. In Japan, almost all gas stations are self-service which means that at 9 or 10 when the workers want to go home, you're SOL gas-wise. But we made it. What a great time with new friends.
Oh, I forgot to say why this part of the post is referred to as Husbands. Apparently Izumo Taisha is supposed to help you find your husband soon or something. My Japanese coworkers teased me about it plenty.

A dance recreating the Izumo Taisha story

You can buy little fortunes and people attach them different places like this tree

You are supposed to make a wish and throw a coin up into the rope, but so many people did it that they had to put wire mesh over the bottom so the rope wouldn't get so heavy it fell.