With only four days to go until I leave, I thought I would write up a little bit of a description of the town I'm going to be living in: Izumo, Shimane
Izumo is city in the prefecture of Shimane. I will be sort of south and sort of west. As you can see, I'm pretty far from Tokyo, and since the interior of Japan is mostly mountains, it will be a little challenging for me to travel to the other coast (but still totally doable!). The nearest cities are Hiroshima and Okayama, and I could definitely travel to Osaka. I'll have to take the Shinkansen (bullet train) to get around the country! I'm also pretty excited to be close to Korea!
Izumo has roughly 150,000 people living within the city. It's also nicely temperate, staying mostly between 40 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Izumo is mostly famous in Japan for two things: Izumo Taisha and soba noodles! According to Shinto beliefs, every October all the gods in Japan travel away from their homes and convene in Izumo at the Izumo Taisha, the oldest temple in Japan. It's said that while at this meeting, all the gods discuss the fates of man. During this time, it's popular to travel to the temple and pray to the gods to consider you favorably.
WhaleWalk 
I’m so excited to read more & know you will bw loving where you are ‘loving’!
Haha clearly I’m typing on my iPad and not on a real keyboard. Thank you for the help autocorrect
This is amazing and still trying to visit you out there when things settle. Just a year? That food and wheather. Awesome!
Well, my contract is for a year, but we’ll see how I’m feeling this time in 2015!
Christine – you are so smart to explore the world while you are so young. Many an older adult wishes they would have taken some chances when they were younger. (Me included.) Soak it all in and take all the opportunities you can to immerse yourself in the culture. I look forward to follow your journey. Please take us along with you at least in your blog. Love you sweetie! – Dolores
I look forward to more Whale Walk messages. I know that you will have a challenging and exciting time. ‘Hmm; what to throw in the suitcase at the last minute??? No, I can buy it when I arrive. ‘
Bon Voyage, Christine!
Welcome from Matsue, across the lake! :D Just a heads up, the meeting of the gods takes place according to the old agricultural calendar, so the time the gods are actually there is different every year. This year, they’ll be processing in on Dec 1 and staying until Dec 8. There will a lot going on around Izumo Taisha in that time, especially the procession from the beach on Dec 1.
Oh! I’m actually glad to hear that! That means I’ll be there during that time. Thanks for the info!