Parker Page

Home safe and sound!

2007-07-10T17:57:00.000-07:00

We are home after a great trip. We really enjoyed spending time with all of our friends and family. but now back to work to get some rest! I have really missed australia, and i didn't realize how much untill i was back there! But we still ahve a while in Japan, we need to get visa stuff sorted out for me first and then who knows?

We had some fun on the way home. This year is Visit Malaysia year! it's 50 years for them as a united country so they have all kinda things happening! So in the airport they had a display of some traditional dancing and folk music and costumes. We were watching them dance and then as a grand finale they all went and pulled up a person to dance with them, and they took Evan! so here are pictures of Evan getting down Malaysian style!

Family Vacation!

2007-07-02T05:49:00.000-07:00

This is us and Andi's family! We have stayed with them a week and will be seeing Leanne and Pam off tomoro at the airport, they are going to Taiwan with a team from their church to run two kids camps. Then they'll be back for a week and the whole family will head to the States, Mom, Dad and Leanne to Chicago and Pam will be of to College in upstate New York. So the family is really spreading out.

We've had a great time together and revived lots of old and silly family traditions, and it's been great, but it's exciting that everyone is off to exciting things!

More Strange Japanese Food

2007-06-08T05:39:00.000-07:00

One of the things that Evan wanted to try while we were in Japan was Basashi. Raw horse. So a few weeks ago when we went to Matsumoto to see a funky black castle, were in a region who's specialty was Basashi, so we made the most of it and gave it a go. It was pretty expensive. About 10 dollars for the plate you can see in the picture.

Evan really liked it. It didn't taste much different from steak tartare, which is pretty much the same thing. I thought it was ok, but i'm too cheap, for half the price I had a massive plate of Tempura and Soba! so i guess we are trying some Japanese food that we are really enjoying, and finding some that we really don't care for.

Next on the list is going to be sea urchin I think (for Evan, not for me, obviously).

Cos Play

2007-06-06T18:03:00.000-07:00

Ok, so i was thinking about other things that should be on the blog. And i remembered our trip to Tokyo in January.

One the things i really wanted to see in Japan was Cos Play. It's when the Japanese young people dress up in really weird outfits and hang around in a part of Tokyo called Harajuku. It's always an entertaining place to people watch.

I guess the reason they do it is to escape the 'normal' style of their lives. They wear uniforms all their lives, in school and then when they start working, suits, suits, suits! so to dress up like a gothic Bo Peep, or Victorian governess is a bit of escape and rebellion. It's a good idea and it doesn't hurt anyone, it's just dress up! That's my theory anyway.

So here's to the brave and the bizzare!

Gambatte Harajuku girls!

New Japanese Food!

2007-06-05T17:46:00.000-07:00

So I went to the vending machine on Sunday to get a drink and i found THIS!! it's grape flavored Jelly (Jello) in a can! It's solid when you buy it and then you shake the can to loosen it up, and then you can pretty much drink it! It tasted really good! Who would've thought, jelly in a can! It's one of the greatest ideas ever!

Festival! Is that Legal?!

2007-06-04T20:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, So life in the summer in Japan is never boring.

My Branch is in an undercover shoping arcade in, kind of the centre of the city. This past weekend there was a festival! Work got pretty exciting.

This area used to be really Agricultural, it still is now, but mostly as an extra, not as primary income. So the story of this festival is that farmers got a month off, so they had a festival to celebrate during their month off.

So what happened was, the street my branch is on got really busy! But work got really really slow, because everyone wanted to party, not study i guess. So there were street vendors in the next street over, and they blocked off a 6 lane road for a block and there was all kinds of stuff, carnival shooting games and food and the Toyama professional Basketball team was there and the kids could challenge them to 2 on 2 games, and the Hokuriku soccer team was there (they are 2 leagues down from the J-League, which is the top league, but they were there, so that was pretty cool).

One of the main features of this festival is that groups of people carry around portable shrines. I'm not sure why. And they ususally wear special team out fits to do it. Well one of the teams was a Big SURPRISE! They had on big tall boots, and what looked like G-strings! The Japanese TRULY have a different attitude towards nudity! So they have like 20 guys in G-strings, marching back and forth and all around the streets, carrying these portable shirnes and shouting a marching word. I can't remember what it is bus it seems to be basically the equivilent of a one-work Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi.

So life stays exciting and we had a great chance for some really lazy festival attendance.

Now we are getting ready for our visit! getting excited about seeing everyone and being literate again!

See you soon!

Tokyo! (again)

2007-06-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we had to take a trip into Tokyo to file some forms for Andi's Australian visa, and we took the chance to see some of the stuff around town.

We took a night bus, which left Toyama at 11 pm and arrived in Tokyo at 5 am. So we got a bit of rest on the bus and then decided to hit the town!

First stop was the Tsujiki Fish market. Guess what! it was closed. It was fine for us because we were already up, but if we had woken up at 5 to get the market and THEN find out it was closed, well we would've been mad. I wasn't all that disappointed to be honest, after almost a year, i still really don't like sushi, and the idea of sushi for breakfast.... bleagh!

Next Evan humored me, and we went to see Ginza. It's like the Park Avenue of Tokyo. It was one of the first places to "westernize" during the Meiji Period (mid-late 1800s, Eureka stockade kinda time). Now it's mostly designer shops, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Pucci (that was a new one on me) and Tiffanys. Tiffanys was beautiful, but as for the others, well it may say "Gucci" and cost an arm and a leg, but it still looks like you made a bomber jacket out of tin foil! Japanese fashion tends to run towards the more gaudy.

In the afternoon we went to see the National Science Museum, which according to the guide book, was a waste of time, but according to Andi and Evan was an afternoon well spent. There was alot of natural history stuff and they had a little PDA with a commentary that you could rent, so i walked around listening to that. Most to the exhibits were about animals and the environment and stuff that Evan already knew so i just listened. The top floor had a bunch of hands on science experiments and stuff, it was fun to watch Evan and the little Japanese kids play!

The next day we did paperwork, and that turned out all right. We are just waiting now for the next step.

We hit Akihabara, the electronics market for the afternoon. I was a good girl, and didn't complain, so i got KFC for lunch and a present! I (well we really) got a translator that does 24 languages. Need any help with handy phrases in Tagalog or Hungarian, I'm your girl!

We took the Shinkansen home, and got back safe and sound, but tired. It was really great to escape work for a while and have some time to remember why we are here and why we love Japan!

More of the 1/2 naked festival to come, stay tuned!

Andi

Exciting Monday

2007-05-08T18:18:00.000-07:00

Hi all!

Okay, it's been a long time since we've posted so the big things are that we have moved from Takaoka to Toyama. It's about 20 kms away and it's a bigger city. There is a small mountain range between them so dispite being so close they function really seperately. We also got promotions, so we are like the head teachers at our own schools.

Our days off are Sunday and Monday now, and this past monday we went and did some sight seeing with our Japanese freind, Yuuya.

There is a small town called Tonami, which is famous for a tulip festival, which finished sunday, but was free on monday becuase it was officially over! so we went and saw some beautiful flowers! and took lots of pictures.

Then we went to a UNESCO World Heritage listed area called Gokayama, where there are villages of large thatched roof houses that have been in the area since the 12th Century. Probably not these exact houses becuase different parts are replaced as part of regular maintainance, but the area is protected. They are also still people's houses, the residents acctually still live and work their. They have little rice fields, but I'm pretty sure they have other jobs.

The Gokayama area is known for Washi paper, made for the bark of a mulberry tree. The area has providing paper for important families and people since the time of the Taira clan (1160s i think).

So after we finished at the village we went to a place where we could make some Washi paper ourselves! It was really cool!

We are heading to Takayama next week!

More soon!

Kyoto

2006-11-23T17:40:00.000-08:00

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

2006-08-23T17:57:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-06-13T05:02:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-06-05T03:19:00.001-07:00

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!

2006-05-31T16:28:00.000-07:00

The Start of a New Adventure

2006-05-31T15:58:00.000-07:00

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!!