Tales of a Traveler: A Bird of a Feather

I've had my first visitor from far away!

One of my very greatest friends visited from her teaching job in South Korea this weekend. We got to do some really great stuff! Here we go...

I had finished my lessons for the day and was waiting for her bus to arrive. That proved to be very difficult, so I had to watch videos of kittens to pass the time. It sure worked because all of a sudden my best friend was walking through the doors... to my work... in Matsue! After a hushed reunion (classes still in session), she set her stuff down and we waited a few minutes for my shift to end. That night, I showed her Lake Shinji (although there was no sunset due to clouds) and we went for okonomiyaki and yakisoba. If you don't remember, that is fried pancake with veggies inside and fried noodles, respectively. Mmm so good! Of course, that night I had to show her my favorite bar and then we took a night trip to the castle. Unfortunately, there aren't any lights on the castle at early hours of the morning, so we didn't stay long.

After some delicious pasta from the station the next morning, we made our way to the neighboring city of Yonago. Just after we arrived at the station, however, it began to pour. Well, that wasn't about to stop us. We were equipped with some pretty sturdy umbrellas. After the 45 minute train ride, we adventured around the city in search of the festival location. The festival scheduled that night was a fireworks festival called Gaina Matsuri. On our way to the lake where the fireworks would go off, we walked by a stand that was being cleaned up, I imagine due to the rain. As we were passing, the guy working there hands us each a chocolate-dipped banana and says "free!" Of course, we took them and said thank you thank you over and over. After walking away, we decided that there weren't many countries where we would just take some free treats from some random person and have no worry about safety. We continued on our way, through the rain and puddles. It was down these 10 blocks or so that we began to comment on how wet our feet felt. Well, friends, that was just the beginning. We finally found the main street of the festival with vendors all setting up their stuff (it was early afternoon). No one was really ready to sell their food yet, so we walked along the water and eventually took shelter under a little covered area with an old lady and her old dog. She kept talking to her dog and it was really sweet. After some rest, we walked along the lake to another area with tents and saw that they were also not serving food yet, so we walked back to the original spot. By that time, some places were open and we scored some shaved ice and french fries and roasted corn. We heard some commotion at the stage nearby and went to check it out. To our delight, four adorable members of a boy band were ready to perform. We saw some of their songs and they had these awesome dances and just looked so cute. Obviously, they are our new boyfriends. After that, we decided that walking around for 3 or 4 hours in wet shoes was bad enough, and it wasn't worth it to stay for the fireworks. That was ok though, we belted out some karaoke that night with some of my friends.

The next day, we woke up and saw the temple in my neighborhood. That day was particularly windy, and we went over to the lake to see all of the cool stuff. It was so windy that the waves were splashing up over the sidewalk near the water. Just like the ocean! After sorting out a bus ticket and wandering a little more, we met what turned out to be a lot of friends at my favorite spicy nabe restaurant. I'll remind you all that nabe is vegetables and meat cooked in a broth right at your table. It was so. so. good. What was funny about this dinner is that my friend who was visiting had actually met one of my friends from Japan once when they both happened to be in Busan. They were both at dinner and had a little reunion. So cool and such a small world. One of my Matsue friends went out for another beer with us after and we tried some local Shimane beer. It wasn't bad! The next day I had to work.. laaame. Sarah explored maybe a little, we grabbed lunch, then she took a night bus to Tokyo that left around 8. She stayed there and had a little vaca for a bit before going back to Seoul.

Not many pictures, but...