Seoul Mama

It all started like a normal evening... We were walking around in the city of ummmm... wow, i'm drawing a blank - some city on Kyushu, just north of Aoshima. Anyway, we were walking around trying to pick a place to eat, bickering about our picking methods and just all around annoyed because we were both hungry.

Ryan finally gave up and demanded that I pick a place... which I did. A Korean Japanese restaurant. It looked good, had pictures on the menu, seemed busy so we went in.

Within minutes of walking in we embarked on what would be the most stressful 24 hours of my trip so far... We sat down and the man sitting next to us quickly greeted us, asking us where we were from and offering us a plate of spicy octopus. It was amazing and we ate it up pretty quickly while making small talk with him and the woman working behind the bar / counter we were sitting at. Another group of people also sitting at the counter mentioned how our hashi technique was quite surprising ('Very nice!!') (Hashi happened to be my word of the day so I actually understood what she was saying!)

Finally, the man next to us asked what our plans were for the next few days. Unsure of what he was getting at we said that we weren't quite sure yet but that we were thinking of heading North. He immediately explained that the woman working behind the bar - to be referred to as Seoul Mama henceforward was wondering if she could show us around town and then bring us hiking down by Kagoshima the following day. She didn't really speak any English. And the man sitting next to us couldn't speak English all that well either... The man kept calling up a friend and passing the phone to Ryan so that his friend could translate what was going on for us.

Ryan asked me what I thought and having a sudden desire to have some form of adventure and wanting to actually talk to locals I jumped at the opportunity and said yes.

We agreed to meet at 10am the next day, outside our hotel. Ryan and I left the restaurant after eating some more (the man sitting next to us was quite nice and paid for our dinner) and then decided that the evening was strange enough already - that maybe we'd just better go back to the hotel with some beer and sake and watch a little pay-per-view.

The morning rolled around and the reality of what we'd agreed to started sinking in. Our plans were being radically changed just so that we could spend some time with this woman in her fifties who wanted to show us around. Regardless we didn't want to be rude so we waited for her... and waited... and waited... Finally at 10:45 Ryan decided that we should call her. When he finally reached her she said someone would come by and pick us up at 11:30. At this point we started thinking 'maybe she's backing out??' and we were a little relieved. Regardless we still had to wait.

11:30 rolled around and a car pulled up with a new older man in it. He introduced himself (Sata San) and said that Seoul Mama couldn't quite make it just yet but that we'd see her later and that he'd show us around town for the afternoon. At this point we'd already planned an out - we had to move up to Beppu that night so we had to leave early but that we'd spend the afternoon with him and Seoul Mama.

This is when it got surreal... We went to the airport with Sata San to say goodbye to his son who was leaving for Vietnam for work. It was very awkward. The whole family was there - parents, son, wife, kids... everyone kind of looking sad... and Ryan and I - the two strangers who can't speak more than 10 words of Japanese on a good day. We made friends with one of the kids who was learning English and tried to have a little conversation with her. Eventually the son left and we were off to go sightseeing with Sata San.... except that now we couldn't find the car in the airport parking lot. I stepped back and let Sata San and Ryan search for the car as I tried to keep myself from cracking up. Again, it was very surreal...

We spent the rest of the afternoon sightseeing - it was beautiful, warm, the waves were huge... it was nice... Still no sign of Seoul Mama though.

Sata San called her a few times and every time she seemed to be busy doing something new. We had the distinct impression that she no longer wanted to see us. It was pretty weird - and poor Sata San didn't quite know how to react to what was going on.

We finally went out for a late lunch and bought our tour guide some ramen and then decided we'd try to catch an earlier train and leave this poor man to get back to his family. I couldn't help but think that Sata San had given us his whole afternoon just because he was nice and didn't want to say no to Seoul Mama.

I'm glad it turned out the way it did. The whole thing was just weird... and the thought of spending 2 days with a woman who couldn't speak any English was just stressing me out.

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The last couple of days have been pretty crazy here. It's Golden Week - everyone seems to have the week off... which means EVERYONE is travelling and everything is booked up. The night we left Sata San we tried going to Beppu and ended up having to go all the way back to Fukuoka to find a place to stay and the only thing we could find there was a single room - it was pretty funny trying to explain to the people at the hotel that a single room would be fine for two people 'It's okay, we have an extra pillow and our toothbrushes and towels... we just need a room' I think Ryan actually told them 'I can sleep on the floor'. Last night we couldn't find a place... Ryan tried calling about 25 different places and all the touristinformation offices kept saying the same thing - Everything is booked up.

We ended up coming into Osaka for the night (we wanted to be in Hiroshima) and spending the night out at a club (our　bags in a locker at the train station) until the trains started running again at which point we got on a train heading 3 hours away and got a couple of hours of sleep. We then made our way back to Hiroshima and visited there for the afternoon. With Golden Week happening, the museum there was pretty packed and there were all kinds of dances happening outside. The museum was interesting but left us with a lot of questions as to how they seemed to be positioning some of the information. There's really very little mention of World War II - in fact they keep calling it the Pacific war - almost like it was completely seperate from everything else happening at the time... there seemed to be some information missing and left us with a couple of pretty big questions. Don't get me wrong here - I think the memorial and museum are a really good thing but it's interesting reading about it from the other side's perspective.

I have tons more to say but I'm really quite tired and would like to get some rest before we set off on another crazy day of sightseeing. I guess I'm nearing the end of my trip. I refuse to look at the date because I know it's almost over... *sigh*