Kyoto

Hello!

Well we recently went to Kyoto, our firstmajor trip in Japan. It started in a pretty eventful way. Our 2 and 1/2 hour train ride became 10 when our train was stopped becuase of a storm. We had to cross a bridge and they were worried about the wind. But we got there in the end and were able to have a good old time touring around.

We also visited Himeji, about an hour from Kyoto, which has the biggest castle still standing in Japan. It was hugely impressive. There were also the castle gardens nearby which were rather pretty and beautiful to wandre through. THe Japanese really have a different idea of gardens than we do, but it was cool!

Kyoto it strewn with temples and so we saw a few, but not being hugely interested in temples, i think we enjoyed Nijo, the Shogun's castle alot more, it was not only beautiful, but so amazingly designed. My personal favorite was probably the costume musuem, there was a 1/4 scale size model of a house and people, all representing the oldest novel in the world The Tale of Genji, which was written in the Heian period and is about a Prince (Genji) and the usualy court intreigues and romance! We even dressed up like Genji and Murasaki! which was pretty cool!

Anyways, that's all for now. Winter is upon us and Evan has already bought his skiis. I go snowboard shopping next tuesday and then we are ready for the snow!!

More as it happen!

Matta ne!

Its been a while

Well sorry that it has been so long folks we have only just got the internet in our home and before that it was kind of hard to do all this at the internet cafe. Well at the moment my parents are here and it has been fun spending time with mum and Tony (Andi thinks so too!) so we spent the last day or so in Nagano with some of the snow monkeys! That was great fun, the monkeys are so tame and at 6 in the morning we had them outside our window and on our roof. Then we went and had a bath with them... The onsen were interesting it was weird being naked in front of people that you have never met before and then bathing with them. Andi saw some men bathing from a distance and stated quite casually "he is wearing black speedos!" she then looked closer and realised that they were not black speedos!! He was naked!! Eating dinner was fun first we cooked our own soup... kind of like a hotpot type thing with vegies, meat and that sort of thing. Then we had some fish that was salted and very nice and we ate some crickets too (yes the insect type!) mum didn't eat them but the rest of us did,and we also has sashimi, tempura plant leaves (maple leaves, hemp leaves and some kind of tempura flower) and finished it off with some green tea.

our work is still going well with nothing really annoying us, we are off our probation period at the end of august and then we will start getting proper money! We have also made some of the places around town regular spots where we visit! We have our local bar (a place called uptight where they speak English and have good cheap drinks), our local restaurant (no not McDonald's! A place called the white gyoza is very nice), eran de kebabs (a local kebab vendor we visit every Friday), the houses of our other workmates and some of the other facilities around town like the pool and the electrical stores.

and how are we going you ask? well we are doing well. Its mighty hot at the moment so we are sweating a bit but we are making our way okay. Andi is better at the language than I am, but I am getting there, it is still very hard and we only know the smallest of small amounts. Well that's all for now and we will try to write again soon.

love Evan and Andi Parker

CHAOS!

Hello cyber land!

So, a week to go before we leave! We have just spent the weekend with Ev's family and his brother, who flew out this morning at 6 am! ouch. it was pretty emotional, everyone really misses him. He is certaininly a highly entertaining fellow!

As for me, one of the highlights of my weekend was being the star attraction of my 4 year old step-neice-in-law's birthday party! I don't remember learing how to do balloon animals, but there you go, i can do a dog, a giraffe (dog with a longer neck and shorter body) and elephant (after about 10 tries, and one popped balloon). Another highlight was playing 1970's DJ! Evan's step dad cleaned the record player and let me play DJ! they had 2 BeeGees greatest hits and not one of their disco classics! but some stellar stuff from bread!

All of this is stalling! the house is in chaos and i'm tired, and excited and nervous and lazy and a million things at once, Evan is wonderful and patient and persistant and pays attention to details (everything i am not, and don't do!)

The countdown has begun!

NOW it's time to panic!!! :)

We Know Where we are going!

Okay, so Evan won. We are going to be living in the Toyama prefecture, in a town called Takaoka. It's on the Japan sea, the Korean side, and looks like it's a fairly smallish place, and it's not too far from Nagano. Remember them, that's right the winter olympics, to winter man got his way. BUT they have a fireworks festival and I love anything shiny!!!

We have the floor plan of our house and it looks like we will be on the 5th floor, and have two bedrooms and an open living area. We seem to have more storage space than presently, despite the smaller size of the apartment.

More as it happens!

Thanks for stopping by!

The Start of a New Adventure

Hello out there! This is,hopefully, the first of many postings that will chronicle the adventures of Evan and Andrea as they move to Japan, try being grown ups, and learn to love sushi (just kidding, that will never happen).

So far I am in the process of packing down the house into boxes, while Evan finishes up at work. The house just gets more and more chaotic, but we are getting alternately excited and panicky!! But it is going to be fun, i think.

We will be teaching for a company called Nova, apparently one of the bigger companies in Japan. We will be flying into Osaka, which means that we will be assigned somewhere from Osaka or west from there. Which is good! I am a summer person, i like the sun and heat and not having to carry extra clothing. The south will be warmer! Evan is a winter person, he wears t shirts when it's 14 C! and he doens't have any fat to keep him warm! that's not fair! Anyway, Evan being a winter person i think he would have preferred to be somewhere up north in the snow fields! but we are going to be in the warm. As far as location goes, at present i am torn between wanting to stay in Osaka, and wanting to have to go somewhere else so we can ride the shinkansen (bullet train!).

Well that's all for now, more as we find out...

Stay Class Planet Earth!!