Wanderlust

 

At one time I had high hopes for 3 or more different blog posts.  While the inspiration was there, my desire to sit down and put words to my thoughts was not.  So rest assured that my lack of being the cool and frequent blogger is no reflection of lack of living, but laziness and awkwardness in doing the blog thing.  Actually, the last few months have been quite eventful as I have had two good legs that have carried me into the Jirisan Mountains, around Seoul, and into Japan (with the help of airplanes, buses, subways, and one very old car). 

Wanderlust is a strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world.  It is becoming more and more apparent that the more I see....the more I want to see.  You don't realize how many things you haven't seen, places you haven't been, and cultures you haven't experienced until you start to travel.  While it requires me to temporarily miss the people and comforts of home, it affords the opportunity for so much...making me (hopefully) a better, more intelligent, more loving, and more tolerant person when I return to lovely Texas.  We like to look at ourselves and those close to us and put blinders on the rest of the world or those not exactly likely us, but we were all created by God for God and have more in common than we do differences. 

Traveling is an interesting thing.  You come to learn a lot about yourself when you travel.  The best and the worst comes out in a person when they are away from home (even if it's a temporary home).  If you want to know if you stress out easily, are impatient, have a low tolerance for changes and things going wrong, or that you aren't as easy going with others as you thought... take a trip.  It's hard to mask the flaws that you can carefully camouflage when in your comfort zone.  But traveling doesn't only bring out the worst in people...it can bring out the best as well.

Traveling can remind you just how independent you actually are.  It can empower you to take charge, overcome obstacles, and make important decisions with confidence that you might otherwise mull over for days. This is especially true for travelling alone.  If you want to know who you are and what you are made of, go someone by yourself.  There is no one to blame when you take the wrong turn, miss your bus, or take time and money to see/do something that seemed like a good idea at the time but was actually a waste of time.  It's freeing to know that every decision and every minute of your day are not impacted by another.  I've taken trips where I pretended to care about things I didn't care about, or woke up earlier than I wanted to because I was sharing a schedule with someone else or preferred to go along with the flow instead of make my own destiny. 

For Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) I went to Kyoto, Japan.  It was short but fantastic trip.  While I had several friends that were going to Japan, everyone had different interests and wanted to go places I did not want to go (read: Tokyo).  So we had coffee at the airport and then boarded different planes to different locations.  I went to Kyoto alone. I had friendly coffee on the way to Japan and lunch at the airport on the way home with friends...but the rest of the trip was mine and mine alone. 

I went to a city where deer are sacred and therefore have the freedom to roam the town as they please.  I went to the top of a hill where there were monkeys not in cages, but just walking about. The only rules were don't touch them, don't feed them out in the open, and don't look at them in the eyes to avoid aggression (eh...safe enough I suppose).  I saw temples, Buddha's, geishas, bamboo forests, met other lone travelers, and had an all around great time. 

Here are some pictures from my trip for those who keep asking why I don't have any.  

This is the house I stayed in.  Every person for the past 5 years that has stayed here has left a message on the walls and ceilings.  I counted at least 30 countries represented.  It was a super cool place for backpackers.  I met some girls from Finland while there. 

This was day one.  I got lost and found a completely different area that I didn't intend to find or see.  I didn't leave upset that I had found myself lost. 

 

This is Fushimi Inari.  This was a super cool place!  There are huge passages made of torii that go up the side of the mountain.  It was a double bonus if you were a fan of Memoirs of a Geisha as this was one of backdrops of one of the scenes.  

 

This was my absolutely favorite little coffee shop that I found riding my bike through a little neighborhood.  I'm almost positive it was part of their house.  Inside it almost looked like you were in their living room. 

 





 

This was Nara.  This was the land of the sacred deer and there was no shortage of deer to be seen. 

This is the Gion neighborhood.  This is an old traditional neighborhood where the geisha train.  Unfortunately the few times I saw one, they didn't seem too keen on being photographed.  So short of putting up blurs or backs, you just get random pictures of the neighborhood.



















This was the monkey park.  The monkeys are free roaming and I was able to walk as close as I wanted as they swung overhead and did whatever monkeys do all day.  This one group didn't seem to like me much.  I got a little closer and one of them started screaming and heading my direction...so I kindly moved on before I was Japan's next headline "Foreigner Attacked by Band of Monkeys". The only time you were separated was if you wanted to feed them.

I wasn't smart enough to figure out how to upload and insert the pictures in the blog to where they would actually be uniform in some fashion.  You get what you get. 

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