Parkes's In Nippon

ironically, and quite strangely, my mother is currently touring around japan...originally she was going to come and see me in niigata but she was in tokyo yesterday and travels to kyoto soon...incredibly strange to think that she'll be visiting places i did just a few weeks ago...

...I leave the UK for oslo on saturday, with the usual nerves, excitement, trepidation and unknowing optimism...

Sunday Sunday

decided to get a bit of air sunday morning. drove for about 20 mins along the coast in aberdeen (opposite direction to the castle), and stumbled across this beach, which is literally 20 mins from where im staying. was a beautiful day, quite windy, but occasionally sunny, and stunningly beautiful. on the last photo (the one with the gorgeous and inquisitive dog) literally behind those dunes in aberdeen town centre). looking out to sea, the next land mass is in fact norway, (which i would probably pretentiously claim to be poetic if i was currently drinking red wine, but on blackberry juice just feels less romantic...interesting none the less though...) 2 weeks left til i move

Weekend part deux (that's french you know...)

saturday night, despite an awful hangover, managed to drag my solitary arse down into aberdeen to watch a band called 'the levellers'. they have been going forever, and was a great gig. its been so long since ive been in the middle of a sweaty bouncing tinitus inducing mosh pit...great fun

Weekend

friday i took the train from aberdeen to newcastle (north east of england) to catch up with a couple of great friends from malaysia who now live in the uk. havent seen them for about 18 months, so was very excited indeed to see them. adrian who lives in a village called 'twee cute cream cake by-the-sea' or something similar (just by the white cliffs of dover) was up for a stag weekend in newcastle, and met up with him and stoney. was an interesting evening to say the least, as we frequented all of the cheesiest, most towny meat fest bars in the city...havent been to bars that cheesey since i was about 16...was funny to witness, but wouldnt want to go more often than once every 15 years. good night though and was great to get out of aberdeen and see a couple of friendly faces with whom i could relax with. got told by a 50+ 'large' woman that i had a nice smile, so was good to see that i hadn't lost the ol' charm and babe magnatism. no photos unfortunately.

the journey down was pretty spectacular, it was about 4 hours by train, and the train hardly ventured more than a couple hundred metres from the sea, beautiful beautiful train ride,

A bad day...

well, today is sunday, last day of premiership games this season, and all we needed was the champions manchester united to beat lowly west ham at home (they havent beeen beated at home all year) OR for us to draw or win at home to lowly wigan....not only is staying in the premiership worth around £50 million, but would also mean that i could watch them on tv in olso...needless to say, we f*cked it up, man utd lost for the first time, and we also lost 2-1. we are relagated on goal difference (we scored 1 poxy goal less than the team above us), even though we have the same amount of points.

might not mean much to some, but i cant even explain how devastated i am, and dont even have the heart to talk about it anymore.

Funny the first time

Drive Home

Aviemore

aviemore is the ski/snow centre of scotland. theres a funicular railway to the top, which is a great way to travel (see the train tracks)...and lo and behold at the top, IT WAS SNOWING!!! in MAY! didnt expect that at all, was bloomin cold and all. (hence the cold/pained expression)

Loch Somefink Or Ova

Finally...

somewhere where i belong and am appreciated

Cairngorms

the cairngorms are the biggest mountain range in scotland, and hold 5 out of the highest 6 peaks in the country. i drove cross country for 3 hours to get to a town called aviemore, but the journey was more important than the destination. stunning views again

Edinburgh

ha! dont be fooled by the blue skies, it rained on and off all day and was a chotto windy to say the least. anyway, here is the capital of scotland - edinburgh. beautiful city. note, the castle was actually built to defend the scots against the scum bag english who kept invading them. they actually still hate the english, but for many reasons, other than us simply raping and pillaging them for centuries on end

Told you so...

ok ok...everything in scotland, and i mean EVERYTHING is called Glen something. one of the most famous places is called Great Glen...(Glen means Valley in scotish)...

There is a massive signpost somewhere designating my greatness....need to find it

Loch Ness & Inverness

can you see the monster???!!! im sharing the apartment in aberdeen with a polish guy (i think aberdeen is actaully 50% polish now), and we get the company pool car during the week, and more crucially at the weekend, so we go out every weekend on little we jaunts (almost like a married couple)

the other weekend we went for a long drive (100 miles+) to loch ness and inverness. beautiful scenery, scotland is a truly magnificently gorgeous place. between this and my road trip around japan...ive seen more castles than i could care to imagine.

ps, found this log....may actually be the loch ness monster

Aberdeen

now, ill be the first to admit, that i didnt have high hopes of aberdeen, but its a gorgeous city, right on the north east coast of scotland. its called the 'granite city' as there were plenty of granite mines around years ago, and hence most of the buildings are made of the grey stuff. unlikes most english cities where theres a mix match hotch potch of architectural styles and materials, theres a certain amount of beauty in the uniformity of the buildings in aberdeen. these are just of the town centre. funny thing about aberdeen, theres a church every 100 yards...seriously, the city if FULL of churches, most now in fact are swanky bars, like the ones above. a second interesting fact (my, we are being spoiled tody) is that smoking is banned in bars and pubs...i was in a bar the other night when this was pointed out to me...totally forgot. england goes smoke free in 7 weeks. anyway, aberdeen, jolly nice place. oh, and the castle is about 20 mins outside the centre of aberdeen along the beautiful coastline

10 Things I Love About Japan

1. the people, nicest friendliest politest

2. the total lack of crime, being able to leave your car running while you go into a shop (took me a while to pluck up the courage to do that one). its actually difficult to get theft insurance for your car as many places dont sell it! theres just no demand

3. the scenery. i guess i was lucky in niigata, i had the mountains close by and the beach seconds away. japan is a stunningly pretty place

4. cheap used cars

5. the food

6. onsens

7. the ski resorts

8. tokyo...totally batty/crazy/hectic/huuuuge place....but so cool

9. the absolute lack of chavs

10. dunno...hard to pinpoint, but the whole culture is so so so nice to live in, its such a friendly, warm, clean, happy place. i guess the best thing i can say about it, is that it brings out those qualities in you, it perpetuates you being friendly and caring, which brings the same out in others.... i guess thats the best thing you can say about any place, or anyone for that matter, that it/they bring out the best side of you.

10 Things I Hate About Japan

been meaning to do this for a while...and when i say 'hate', i mean 'get frustrated by'. please feel free to add your own. (these in no order)

1. total lack of parking spaces (petty i know...but there is NOWHERE to park in japan), only time i parked on the road, someone grassed me up and i got a £75 fine

2. total anality of rules, regulations, policies and procedures

3. slow sliding doors. dont ask me why, they are just slower in japan than anywhere...amount of times i walked into them waiting for them to open

4. crap chewing gum that loses its flavour after a nano-second

5. totally crappy drivers...ALL OF THEM!

6. total lack of bins...but where there are bins, you have to separate and recycle. was weird, my first weekend in england, i carried an empty bottle of water around all day looking for a plastic recycling bin, until i realised that any bin would do. ps, i never did work out which bin chewing gum went in...

7. not being able to show any emotion at work or in meetings, even when suppliers are being complete idiotic dumbass pillocks...you are never allowed to raise your tone of voice at all

8. erm...stuck now...think thats it

youll notice that these are little petty things, which kinda goes to show you what a totally ace place it is to live....

8. ooh, the crappy architecture in the cities, ALL cities (apart from tokyo) look identical, i swear, identical. the urban arcitecture is terrible

Update

knickers. managed to find internet cafe in aberdeen to upload some pictures, but picked up wrong memory card. will update soon/tomorrow i promises. knickers.

all ok in scotland. living in a lovely swanky apartment and have the company pool car, so am getting around scotland quite a bit at the weekend. its a gorgeous part of the world. aberdeen is on the coast, in fact our office is just off the beach. currently ive been to inverness, loch ness, edinburgh, and a place called Great Glen....well, i had to... got 2 more weeks here before heading off to oslo.

im struggling to get internet access at the mo, hence the lack of updates...and cant really use it at work...well, not until ive been there a while! but have now found this internet cafe, so will be able to update at least weekly (or weakly). have decided to keep the old blog going once im in norway...which im sure will be as interesting as japan, if not as strange, and hey, if nothing else, its a nice diary for me.

as ive talked about with a few people, japan seems so far away, and so long ago, almost seems like a dream, and living in a place where everyone speaks english and things are easy is a little strange... and i think its fair to say that although i do miss japan immensely, i think i miss the people there more...anyway...