One of the things that gets me really excited when we travel is seeing different markets. I always tell people about how fun these experiences are, but most people don’t seem to get as excited as I do because they’re not into sampling new or different foods as much. I wasn’t always as open to trying new foods, but as I’ve gone into and through my twenties, I want to try as many things as possible. It’s a fun way to explore other cultures and learn what they value and what’s important to them.

Well, I certainly had that opportunity yesterday afternoon when we arrived in Kyoto and visited the 400-plus-year-old Nishiki Market. I had read about the vast variety of tsukemono (Japanese pickled vegetables) before, but I had no idea exactly how many different varieties there actually were until we got here. Pickled vegetables are served with virtually every semi-formal meal in Japan. There were entire stores devoted to pickled vegetables. I tried things as new to me as pickled squash, pickled eggplant, and even pickled soy beans mashed into a clear jelly-like paste wrapped around another variety of beans pickled in a completely different mixture. And to make the experience even more Japanese, if you’d like to buy these pickled delicacies as gifts, you can have them beautifully packaged in origami paper wrapping to resemble artful envelopes. I can’t imagine ever being handed a thin envelope wrapped in colorful paper as a gift, to then take out the thinnest possible tray of six types of Japanese pickles. It’s so much intricacy, care, and beauty put into something (well, pickles) that doesn’t at first glance seem that delicate or “beautiful” at all.