Japan Part 2 (Awa Odri Tokushima, Himeji, and Osaka)

Oh my gosh, the last three days have been so amazing! I'm so glad that we have splurged a little here and there and I am really grateful for the research that has made this vacation EPIC! Our trip has really just started and I can't believe how fast time is flying.

On Monday we slept in, then made our way to Tokushima, where a famous dance festival is held. We met a lot of people. Some who planned the trip a year in advance just to get a hotel room. When we originally started our planning we wanted to stay near the festival because our JR-Rail passes took us the long way around, and we didn't want to leave the night life at 7 or 8 just to get back. The hotels were filled up so we decided to figure it out when we got here... Well we tried and everything was full. There ferry couldn't take us nor could any of the buses. We were stuck with the train. We decided to stay as long as we wanted and take the last train back. Well..... haha little did we know that it was just the last time for that train not the other two we needed to transfer to. We had to run and catch a train at the second station and when we got to the third, our last transfer, we found this.

(If you can't tell, that is a very blank train Departures/Arrivals board)

The trains stopped running! Lucky we kinda knew something was going to happen and decided not to care. We had to look for a place to stay the night; and after some deliberations we decided we would spring for a full up hotel.  The next morning we decided to make the best of our predicament and visit Himeji Castle on our way back to Osaka.

Now about the dance festival Awa Odori, I would recommend planning a trip during the time it is going because it is amazing. We bought tickets for reserved bleacher seats and watched people dressed in costume come through parade style doing the same dance for two hours. It was repetitive, monotonous, beautiful, busy, entrancing, and enchanting; We LOVED it and could have watched them dance all night!  As they danced, they would also sing words which translate loosely into, The dancers are fools, the watchers are fools, since we all are fools we might as well dance. You can watch a really cool video about it here.  By the time we had to leave if we were to catch a train out of the town, we were both trying to do the dance moves ourselves.

Here are some of our pictures from the festival:

Before the dances began

During the Dances... Nick called her the match maker! (she looks like the match maker from Mulan)

Nick had to have an outfit!

I wish I got a close up of their shoes!

After we spent the night in Okayama (our stranded stay) we decided to make our way to Himeji Castle. It was a quick, awesome, visit. It started by picking up free bikes. I guess many people didn't know about this or there wouldn't have been bikes left for us. I have to give Brian and Stephanie credit here because they found out about the bike thing. We rode them to the castle and then walked around for a bit before we ate lunch at a small cafe.  The castle is undergoing some major renovations (which are slated to last till 2015) which have encased the main keep in a huge shroud as they replaster walls and retile the roof but it was still worth the visit.  

Bikes

(part of) The Castle

Nick surfing up the bike escalator

When we got back to Osaka we went back to our hotel, took showers, and rested before we went out on the town. When we did go out we knew right where we wanted to go.

Sorry the picture is blurry (Nick sucks at taking photo's) Anyways it is a really cool building that is intended to be a modern rehash of the Arc de Triomphe (in building form) kinda weird but Japan isn't what you would call the most normal place. Underneath it is an Edo-era marketplace recreation and at the top a beautiful wide open view of the city.
  

We got hungry so we also ate dinner at the top! Good, fancy food!

When we got home we walked to a nearby grocery store and picked up some things we have never eaten before. ALL OF THEM WERE FANTASTIC!

Left to right in the picture above we have Schweppes Blood Orange Soda,  The Japanese Marble sealed soda (no idea what the name is), Pino chocolate covered ice cream bites, Lady Borden's Chocolate Ice Cream, Vanilla Ice Cream Wafer Sandwich, Some other Ice cream sandwich thing, Spiral Grape soda (it says it's new here), Milk, and Mochi encased chocolate bites.

The next day (Wednesday) We slept in and then went to find the Pokemon store and on our way we discovered this awesome shrine.

 It is a giant Japanese lion's head whose mouth is a stage.  We aren't sure what the stage is used for but it looks cool nonetheless.

The Pokemon Store
(fellow video game nerds, I have been to the promised land and it is good!)

 Also while walking around Osaka we found this can. A postcard will be sent to the person who can correctly guess what is in this can.

Today ended with this, a huge Kirby, given to my by this boy (the one that is not Nick). We were all in line to spin this free wheel after enjoying one of Japan's many massive arcades, and if a pink ball came out you would win a giant Kirby! Well the boy in front of me got that pink ball. When he did, he grabbed Kirby, spun around, and gave it to me while saying "present!" I was so excited! I'm glad I got a picture with him. If you are wondering how we are going to get it home, well he is actually a beach ball covered with Kirby skin; you just unzip him, deflate the ball, and he is easy packing!

Well that is it until part three comes along!

Japan Part 1 (Travel and Hiroshima)

This all started because the four of us wanted to travel through Japan. From left to right you have Nick, Lauren, Stephanie, and Brian. This picture was taken at 6:30 am while waiting for our taxi to start our adventure.

We grabbed the bus to Busan.  This time, thank heavens, there wasn't SNOMIT!!! (Praise the Frog) The ride took us 1 hour and 5 minutes. We stopped by Mcdonalds before we headed to the subways. We then took the subway to the station nearest our ferry. For those of you who want to visit Japan, we loved our ride, you can find out more here.

  

As we pulled away from the docks the stewardesses that helped us board the boat waved goodbye

We hit land again in Fukuoka and grabbed a bus to the train station. Once we figured out the JR trains, things got easier.We are super glad we got our JR-Rail passes ( find the website here) The passes allow us to travel anywhere in Japan on specific JR-Rail lines. You can only purchase a reservation outside of the country and you redeem it when you get here.

We caught our first train from Hakata Station to Shin-Osaka. We have made Osaka our homebase for 6 nights while we take train trips to surrounding cities. Today we went to Hiroshima, and to be honest I didn't know what to expect. There was a huge Memorial Park and Museum. The museum that cost money wasn't all that great. The exhibit that I would recommend was close to the main one but mainly underground called the Hall of Remembrance. There wasn't nearly as many people and I felt like I learned more and connected more with what happened there. I don't want to overwhelm you with pictures however, I will post the ones that touched us the most.

 The A-Bomb Dome
For those of you who don't know, the Atomic bomb exploded above this building and the people of Hiroshima had split opinions about it. Some wanted to knock it down, forget the tragedy, and move on, while others wanted to keep it as a memory of what war brings.

 The Child's Memorial
This one really touched me. The elementary school was quickly turned into a foster home. It started with a woman who was asked by a government official to watch over the lost children. Her journal entries were translated into English and played in the Hall of Remembrance. She told stories of happiness where the children were reunited with their parents and ones of sadness where they weren't. Schools all over the world donated money to build this memorial for the children who died. Behind it are strings of origami cranes that are folded by visitors as a prayer for peace in memory of the lost children.  These cranes are kept in display cases and cycled out as their colors fade.

 The Rock
This rock was given by Scotland as a token of peace. The rock came from the tallest mountain in Scotland!

 The Phoenix tree's were exposed to the A-bomb, died and regrew in their place.

 The bell of peace.

Hiroshima was an eye opening experience. I'm glad we were able to visit and better understand the history behind our world today.

When we finished the park we walked down the Hondori Shopping Arcade and then headed back to Osaka.  What a great day!  Stay tuned for more adventures from the Far East!

Teakwondo Update

That's right.. We did it! By some miracle we advanced to blue belt. Four down and two more to go until we take our black belt test!

As we mentioned in our previous blog we are on summer vacation schedule (8:30-5) So we joined the children at their 5:40 Taekwondo practice. We have had a blast everyday hanging out and messing around with them.

At the beginning of July Mr. Park our Taekwondo Master told us that the kids were going to a water park on the 10th of August. We were really depressed because we wanted to go with them, but we already had things booked for Japan. During our class time with the students he handed us a paper, and he had changed the dates for the water park so we could go with them. We had already made plans for the weekend, but we changed them because we felt like it was important for us to go. We are so glad that we did!!! We had a BLAST!! Here is our weekend story:

Master Park picked us up Saturday around 9:30 am. We met up with all of the kids that we were going to hang out with for the weekend. Most of them knew us and have seen us before, but we felt like we were starting over as we tried to talk with them and help them come out of their shells. The time came for us to jump on the bus and Nick and I chose to sit in the middle of the bus so we would be surrounded by kids. At first we were ignored, and just observed the kids as they talked with one another. Then we started to bring out our snacks. Cheetos were first and the kids didn't know what to do. You could tell they wanted a taste but they didn't want to ask, so Nick squished the game and handed a boy a Cheeto. He licked it and passed it to another boy who shoved it in his mouth and sucked on it. Finally they started opening up and communicating with us. 

Here is the Cheeto licker... who also ate most of our popcorn! (the evidence is all over his face)

Here is the Cheeto sucker! His English skills were pretty basic (better than our Korean) He was fun to talk with.

Master Park was amazing with the children. You could tell that he loves all of them and enjoys being around them.

Our bus ride was about two and a half hours. When we arrived to the amusement park we grabbed everything off of the bus and they showed us to some cabins. The girls had one cabin and the boys had the two other cabins in the grouping. I was grateful because the boys were crazy!

After we got settled we changed and ate some lunch and then it was water time.
Some fun Korean swimming rules, you have to wear a cap on your head and you have to wear a life jacket. Both were annoying!

Master Park's wife let me borrow her waterproof camera sleeve and it was awesome!
As we were swimming in the wave pool Mr. Park came and found us, and took us to a ride he wanted to go on. It was a very common water park ride where there is a large boat of people and you go down a steep drop and get soaked! This is us in line waiting to ride.

Watch our water park video:

Time was up and it was time to change and eat dinner. Nick and I were not looking forward to the locker rooms because when we quickly passed through to enter the water park there wasn't much nudity but enough to realize what we had gotten into. However, we knew we were expected to shower and change just as they did. Nick and I talked about it and what we were going to do because we didn't feel so comfortable with it. We ultimately decided that when in Korea do as the Koreans.  It wasn't the most awkward thing we've ever done, but it's up there.

After, we went back to camp and rested for a few minutes before we ate dinner. They gave us wrist bands to enter the amusement park and we lined up. This little boy thought it would be funny to move his wrist band all the way up his arm. 

Master Park then spent 5 minutes trying to work it back down to his wrist.

Dinner was amazing! It included Donkas (돈까스) Kimchi, rice, cold french fries, sweet pickles and my favorite noodles and oh dang (오뎅)!


The rides at the amusement park were pretty typical. The first one we regretted almost immediately because of the whiplash and stiff jaw that it left you with. The second wasn't a roller coaster. It was a "I'm going to puke" ride where everyone sat in a circle with your feet dangling and then it spun you around and swung you like a pendulum until you were parallel to the ground. The ride lasted a good 2-3 minutes. I felt very sick after, but we had only one more ride to go and that was the one we had been waiting for. I decided against my best judgment to get on board. We sat in the back and as I held on tight the only thing I could think about was holding in whatever wanted to come up.
FINALLY it was over and I jumped off and sat down and started some deep breathing. We left the park shortly after and went back to camp. We washed our feet and hands and got ready for bed. It was during this time I introduced my favorite game to the girls. I taught them how to play Spot It! They loved it! When I thought things were settling down for bed we were told chicken was coming and that we needed to go to the boys room. So we got up and joined them. The girls all sat around with me, and Nick came and joined us. He brought with him his notebook to write down their names in Hangul. They loved it and they loved him! We stayed in that circle for a long time playing this korean slapping game that uses the letters of the english alphabet to determine whether or not you get your hands slapped. Nick had learned the game from some of his kids in Summer Intensive earlier that week (and of course came home with his hands red and bruised) so he was able to teach me so that I could play with all of them. Luckily, girls are so much nicer and gently tap your hands when you put up the wrong gesture.

I know you  aren't suppose to pick a favorite but I do. I really love all children, just some I fall in love with immediately and can't help it. This little girl is 8 years old Korean age, but I'm sure she is 6 American age. It took her a while to warm up to me but when she did we were best friends! 

  

Everyone got restless because the chicken hadn't arrived yet so we started doing things to occupy our time. The boys decided to put blankets on the stairs and try to slide down them.... I, being a responsible adult, handed them a pillow. Then I handed Nick a Pillow and yelled pillow fight! It only lasted a minute before Master Park walked in and all the kids acted like nothing was going on. Finally about an hour and a half after we were moved to the boys room the chicken finally came (around 11:00 pm). We ate, brushed our teeth and passed out.

The girls all started out the night laying normally and when I woke up the sight was hilarious.

 It took me a second to realize that the bundle of blankets at my feet was actually a child. She moved all over the place!!

6:00 am came way to soon. Nick and I got dressed for church and met up with a taxi at 7 so we could catch our train to Daegu for church at 10:30. After church we ate some yummy homemade sloppy joe's at Elder and Sister Fairhurst (our new senior missionaries) apartment, then home to meet up with the girls to make skirts.

What a fantastic weekend!!! So busy, but so much fun!

Busy July!

WOW!!! July has come and almost gone and it's that time again, time to update the blog.  We might as well name this month random month.  We've done quite a few things and they really don't have a connecting thread (other than they happened while we were in Korea)  So this post might seem a little choppy, sorry.

This month it has been very hot and humid! I'm sure we are going to get a hefty bill for our AC come August.  It is supposed to be monsoon season, but so far the amount of rain we have gotten is nothing like what I've expected and reading the posts on Facebook it seems that the south has gotten more rain then we've had here.  Kinda sad, I was looking forward to a real rainy season. 

At the beginning of the month we celebrated the Fourth of July with everyone on our roof.  We had a mighty fine Bar-B-Que up there that would make Uncle Sam kinda proud (there is only so much you can do that's 'merican here in the land of the Orient)

Nick was able to find bottle rockets (which are ridiculously expensive out here) had a great time throwing them off the roof. He even taught the other guys how to light, count and throw them as they weren't lucky enough to grow up in the land of wetness where everything can withstand a lightning strike or two.

Lauren and the other girls were more or less content to watching the boys attempt to lessen their digital responsibilities (ten fingers is just too much responsibility for some people out there) and playing with sparklers!

Our Korean lessons have really been helping us to get around here, especially in our little town.  On a whim we decided one night that we did not want to do any cooking so we mosied on down to our local beef and leaf restaurant to try out some of the phrases we had learned  in class. Let me tell you it worked out very well.  The Korean's loved it when we try to use their language to communicate with them.  Nick walked in and said "두명이유" (Du myeong e yo) which essentially says  two people.  you should have seen the smiles light up their faces.  They showed us to a table and I asked in Korean "what is delicious?"  They showed us their signature dish (which we've had before, it's called bulgogi jongul).  We had excellent service and they were so happy when we left saying "it was delicious!"

Afterward we went to the basement of the same building to play screen golf. It was a lot of fun! You get this big room with a green huge screen.  In the back is a fay couch and they bring you drinks and candies and all that nice stuff.  Then you whack a real golf ball at the screen.  We didn't do too well but I beat Nick by three strokes, mostly because he kept hitting his ball into the hazards. in the picture he is attempting to chip his ball over a water hazard, he failed three times or more.. I didn't keep track.

I've talked a lot about all the frogs we have around here.  There are many cute little ones. This one is one of the larger, poisonous, frogs, but I still love him! During Monsoon season the frogs came out to play and move from pond to pond, but as soon as the rain stopped the frogs ran away and hid in a pool of water. :(

 Here is another nature picture. This is taken at the front steps of CEV. If you look close you will see a bunch of black dots flying in the sky, that's not crud on your screen, those are dragonflies. They are everywhere!  I love them because they come in many pretty colors and they eat mosquito and other nasty flying bugs.  Last night I coerced Nick into going on a walk with me among the fields.  We ran into a blob of those tiny annoying gnat bugs, what was cool about it is there was a big black and white dragon fly that came and started flying right in front of us, catching and eating the little gnats!  It was fascinating to watch him dart back and forth in the cloud of bugs.

 This month we have been eating a lot of stuff to empty the pantry. I have been dying to get into the can of Sloppy Joe's that was sent over by my brother Joe for Christmas. It was so delicious and a great taste of home.

I GOT MY HAIR CUT!!!  The lady that cut it did an amazing job.  She didn't even wet it down, though, before she cut it, which was kinda scary. It was the first time my hair had ever been cut dry; but it turned out really well and it only cost around $7!

This bug is new to us. I have tried looking it up on the internet and I have found conflicting answers as to what it is.  I've found answers ranging from White Cicada (which doesn't make any sense since there is no white on it) to Fulgorid Leafhopper.  Under it's top layer of wings it has red wings with black along the edges. Whatever kind of bug it is I'm sure the Korean's hate it. Watch and see here!

Because we now have access to a scooter, Nick and I have enjoyed the occasional joy ride.  These pictures are from a trip to Namji where we watched the sun set across the river. It was so beautiful I had to share these pictures with you.

We love you all and hope things are going great!

Upo Wetlands

Welcome to the Upo Wetlands, go to the website if you want more information about it. 

We had a great time venturing out on the scooter last Saturday. We packed a picnic and didn't know where we would end up. We decided the Upo Wetlands would be nice. We have heard others talk about it so we decided to check it out. When we got there the first thing we did was rent a tandem bike. We just so happened to get the POS-iest bike they had, but more about that later. We were super excited to try something new, we even had the bike man take a picture of us. 

Before we hit the trails we ran into  Brian and Stephanie as they pulled in.  Great minds obviously think alike! (although I contend that ours are the greater of the two  since we were there first) We waited for them to get a bike and then we explored together. It was really beautiful and hot.

Beautiful picture of the back of my head! At this point in our little trip our bike was working okay. It had it's problems but they managed to work themselves out. As for Nick and I working together to ride this thing, I would dare say we did a pretty good job! We couldn't bike up any of the hills, so we walked a little. The longer we rode the bike though, the more it broke down. Pretty soon it wouldn't work at all. The chain would fall off, or the tire was rubbing the Y-bar, or every time we peddled it would make a weird popping sound and stop us.

For an intermission of our biking troubles we decided to head up to the Mountain Observation Building.  (Emphasis on the word Mountain) A hyperbolic number of stairs later, maybe like a thousand point two and a half, we arrived at a cute little building that was the graveyard of some of the largest horse flies I have ever seen.  These things were massive!  Like, three times the size of the little frogs I will talk about later.  Oh, there were also pictures of local fauna, a diorama, and a few of those stationary binocular things you usually have to pay to look through, but the real things of interest are the massive horseflies attempting to quantum shift their way through glass.

Nick decided he wanted to try to use one of those binocular things to view a group of birds hanging out on the wetlands and, right as he honed in on them, a group of Koreans who had gone to the patio plopped themselves on the railing right in front of him.  The great part was that they spaced themselves just far enough apart to obstruct the view of the birds from every pair of binoculars in the observatory.  Very annoying, so we decided to have a little fun.

We have observed in our travels that Koreans are, as a whole, ethno-phobic (is that even a word Nick?).  They will go to great lengths not to stand too close to a foreigner if possible.  this had lead to the creation of several fun games, such as 'escalator hopping" in which we inch up closer and closer to a Korean on an uncrowded escalator to see how close we can get before they get uncomfortable and walk the rest of the way up.  Great fun.  Well this time I decided I would help Nick out and go creep out some Korean men.  So we took bets and I went out to get cozy.  Unfortunately, it didn't work.  It was like they had superglue on the soles of their shoes.  I even tried hacking up a lung while standing uncomfortably close to one of them and taking part in their conversations by inserting "Nae" every so often,  they weren't even phased.  After a while of this unsuccessful game, we decided to descend the stairs of  a thousand shin splints back to our tandem bike of cheapness.

After a few false starts, some kicking, and some mumbled cursing, we got annoyed with it and just walked the rest of the way back to the beginning. We stopped at a shop and got a nice Ice Pop, and Nick bought me a sunbrella (my word for an umbrella intended to block the sun but not really rain,  Nick says they are called "sun shades" but all of us know he's full of crap and sunbrella is much cooler sounding) and he got a T-shirt. We then walked outside and sat down by a pond. While there we saw this really cool red dragonfly

As we sat and enjoyed our lunch by the pond we saw some huge fish swim by. At that moment a Korean Mom and her daughter walked up and I pointed out the fish. Her daughter practiced some English, her mom took some pictures of us and they were on their way. 

We also got up to leave because we were tired! We jumped back on the scooter and headed home... or so I thought. When we arrived to a crucial turn Nick asked if I was up for another adventure, "Sure" was what came out of my mouth... then we were lost.

Usually I prefer having a destination and route in mind before I set out exploring, but when you are in a foreign country (and with a crazy person like Nick) you learn to just close your eyes and float where the wind takes you. I hope I remember this lesson and bring it back with me to America. 

Our trip home took about twice the time it normally would have, but we had so much fun and saw so many cool things. We stopped at the town south of us and grabbed a few things from the store before we scooted the rest of the way home. When we got home we changed and I looked at Nick and saw this.....

His arms match his new shirt!

Bless his heart!!!! Even his hands were sun-burnt. (Note: Nick did wear sun screen).  That evening we had a BBQ and shot off some fireworks with friends. When we went to church on Sunday we were grateful to the family who took us to their home for some Aloe and dinner! (Fuhriman's ya'll are awesome!)

This week has been very rainy because we are technically in monsoon season or jangma (장마) as they call it (if you ask me we get just as much rain in Alabama this time of year). We have really loved the rainy season here because all of the baby frogs are coming out. They are hopping around every where and they are super cute!  I keep telling Nick I want one but he's mean and says we aren't allowed to have pets in the apartment. I will leave you with a cute picture of one.

And with that I sign off!  Have a great weekend everybody!