Parrots!

Seeing parrots outside for the first time reminded me of my first encounter with palm trees, when I visited BC in high school. I had never seen them before--it was a totally new experience! (Okay, seeing palm trees isn't necessarily an important experience, but it was still new.)

Same for the parrots. Before coming to Australia, I had only ever encountered them in pet stores and so on. I was super surprised when I noticed one just hanging out a tree as I walked by!

Parrots: Not Just Inside After All!

Sydney Festival First Night

I spent last Saturday at the Sydney Festival First Night. Sydney Festival is a huge bunch of arts events all over the city throughout January. There are a lot of concerts, and also dance, theatre, and I'm sure other things I don't even know about. For the First Night, there were free open air concerts all over the city. I went to The Domain, a big park downtown, to see The Cat Empire. We left the house at one in the afternoon to secure a truly excellent spot in front of the stage, but were quickly foiled by people standing up in front of us. Anyway, the concert was great. Then we grooved to DJ Mr. Scruff, and finally headed over to Hyde Park to see Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.

In summary: there was awesome. Booties were shaken. I'm looking forward to the rest of the festival.

Are you ready for this?

Lots and lots of this? I just put 10 photos of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House on flickr... and I'm just getting started. These photos were taken the on my first weekend in Sydney, way back in October. Now I take a train over the bridge on my way to work two or three days a week... it doesn't get any less stunning!

Dudes, I was remiss about Christmas!

It's been DAYS AND WEEKS since I last posted. I am a terrible blogger. But that's OK, because while not posting I had lots of fun, and fun is good. I spent the week before Christmas doing lots of work, and I also went out dancing a few times, hit the beach, and learned about cricket from my cousin. (Yes, I listened to the rules of cricket for TWO OR THREE HOURS.)

So here's my take on Christmas traditions at home and abroad--and hereby I promise myself that as 2009 rolls along, I'll be a more responsible Albatross.

Of course, the biggest difference between Christmas in Australia and in Canada is the weather--and the difference between summer and winter then spreads out to change a whole variety of traditions. Swimming not skating, barbecue not turkey (or AND turkey), fresh mangos (mmmm) not mandarin oranges from afar... the list goes on.

Some popular Christmas things I've noticed here are outdoor markets, big carol sings--in parks or on beaches--and going to the beach for Christmas/summer holidays. But overall, Christmas isn't as big a deal here. Outdoor decorations on houses are much more rare. I think it's because Christmas isn't alone--in Canada, Christmas vacation is the only thing to be excited about in the cold weather of December. Here, you can totally ignore Christmas and still be excited about summer.

Whether it's because this is my first Christmas as a working person rather than a student, which is to say the first time I've worked right up until December 24th, or because of the different weather and traditions, I totally didn't see Christmas coming. It was just like WHAM. I spent the holidays with my aunt, uncle, and cousins--it was interesting because their family and my own have kindof similar Christmas things in some spots, inherited from my aunt's and mother's family, but it's all inflected by the climate/national traditions. So while I missed the home ways, I also enjoyed the Australian versions.

After Christmas, we all went to the coast, to Jervis Bay, for 4-5ish days. I'll tell you more about that later, with PICTURES. But let me just say there was a lot of ocean.

"Seasons greetings" to all, and I hope your holidays have been as radtacular as mine!

Katsurahama

One last shot of Japan. I took some photos of Kochi's most famous beach with a disposable camera in mid September, and while they aren't AWESOME SHOTS, I love the film-y quality of them.

Wedding at Meiji Temple in Tokyo

A huge crowd of tourists watched this wedding procession. I felt bad for the couple at first, but then I realized that if they hadn't wanted a huge audience of foreigners, they wouldn't have gotten married at a huge, famous temple in Yoyogi Park on a Sunday.

Kyoto Tower

A man in a suit looks out from Kyoto Tower.