Andrea's Rambling Notes - once from Japan, now from Canada

::Andrea's Rambling Notes - once from Japan, now from Canada::

My notes and my memories: sometimes about a mom - sometimes about a wife - sometimes about a woman - sometimes about our life

::Author::

Name::Andrea
From::Small city/town, B.C., Canada
I am a short girl from the west cost of BC, Canada and I am a proud Canadian. I went to Japan in 2000 because my Dad told me I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't. He was right. I lived a good life found my husband from the other side of the world and have a beautiful daughter. Basically we lead a pretty normal life filled with normal ups and downs. We both come from different cultures: me Canadian, him Chinese. Living in Japan was a real eye opener about who I am and about the people I associate myself with. I lived and loved in Japan but the time to move on came upon us and in May of 2006 we left and moved to Canada: a huge move for us all. We are now trying to start up again, remodel our lives and create our future for our family. I now feel like a tourist in the country of my birth, my eyes see different and my life will be forever changed. This blog is my notes and observations of our life, our changes, our adventures and new beginnings. Welcome.
View my complete

::Recent Entries::

::Personal Links::

My Japanese Culture Teaching Notes

::My Family's Sites::

Alisha - a site set up by friends and family of my little sis

Phrax - my step-brother

Blue Mountain Stable

::Index::

An Index of past posts - the Japan Years

::Archives::

::Image Event Album::

My Image Event Photo Album

::My FlickR Photos::

www.flickr.com

::Tech Sites::

Tech2all

Blog Flak

::Extra Internet Info::

Canadian Atlas

National Geographic

Wikipedia

World TimesZones - please check this BEFORE calling me!

Currency Converter

eigoNavi - a pretty good language converter

The Samurai Appliance Repair Man - a funny repair site for N

::World News::

Generation Woman

Japan Times

Counter Punch

Japanese General Union - a must! read before working in Japan

::RSS Feed::

Blogarama

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Sunday, February 10, 2008

Chinese New Year 2008

We went to China town today to watch the New Year’s Parade.
What a waste that was.

Last year the parade was amazing – this year it lacked fire and pizazz.
S. Dion was there but what ever. I love Canada and the fact that we don’t give politicians celebrity status.

That and there were VERY large groups of people completely ignoring parade etiquette and standing right in front of children and people who had marked their spot for hours!! They were so bad they were crowding the street and actually making it hard for the parade to go down. I was getting so frustrated and pissed by this I finally opted on us leaving as I couldn’t handle it anymore.
Lil’Miss Ji showed lots of enthusiasm when the parade first started but that dwindled when she couldn’t see anything.
Last year they did a wonderful job of crowd control – this year it seemed like nothing at all. Keefer Street was awful to be on.
Sucked.
Got a few photos though.

It was raining so the god of fortune was wearing a rain jacket.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

The bag pipers were VERY cool. Lil'Miss Ji was very excited by them.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

This was the only decent Lions shot I got - even the CTV camera guys were standing in the way.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Looking down from the parking garage.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

So we said our goodbys to Grandma and Johnny and headed out to the TnT Supermarket. This was our very first adventure to this store and the parking situation alone almost made me commit murder!
Even hubby started to get frustrated.

After some imaginative parking techniques made possible with a small car we went shopping and enjoyed ourselves in there. We also had heart failure about ten times when we saw the prices on some of that stuff _ 2 liter bottles of green tea from Japan (the kind we love so much) bought in Japan for about a buck twenty, sold at TnT for SIX DOLLARS! Our eyes popped!

We did find lots of good stuff though including a much needed replacement wok.

We then headed to the upper plaza to a Beijing Bookstore and spent tons of money on Hub and on Lil’Miss Ji. She now has some children sing along CDs for in the car, a couple of more books and some posters for the wall.
Hub walked out with a big armload of books and a smile on his face.
While I write this he is sitting on the toilet reading. Betcha he won’t be able to stand up once he finally decides he is done.
Hehehe

Photos from home:

Here is Lil'Miss Ji playing with her new Barbies and their cars. They were a gift to her from the neighbour girl who had outgrown them. She gave her 25, I repeat 25 Barbies!! They have been spread out to other children because no child needs that many Barbies, EVER!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Here are her new Chinese learning posters.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

This one also shows her new cupboard and shelves we put up for her a little while ago.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

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