Rest

I'm pooped.

The week was pretty busy with Karate stuff. I rode in Shimada on thursday and that took it's toll for training for the rest of the week. Thankfully today is sunday and I get to sit around the appartment and chill out. It's even raining mercifully outside so there isnt much motivation to go outside.

In the Biking category, Kaz is fixing my bike. The Hub on my rear wheel needs replacing. The whole thing should cost me about 112 bucks. Ouch. I didnt really come to Japan ready to handle expenses like those. I just hope there aren't too many more of them.

Anyways, back to chilling out. Hope all is good back home.

Plugged in

Well finally I have been able to get myself plugged into the local mountain biking scene here in Japan. Thanks to word of mouth, my Narita class was joined by Kouta, seen here in the middle. He mountain bikes like I do and offered to take me up one of the hills in Shimada, one town over from Fujieda.
So I was up at 6am on Saturday to make a 7 am meet down at the bottom of the hill. The group climbed up the old fashioned way, peddle peddle, sweat sweat. I managed to make the entire climb (about 4km up?) without stopping. I wanted to stop for a break, but I think pride was f***ing with me and I pressed on. Thinking back, 2 months of the Cruel Tutalage of Sensei Sakurai may have had something to do with my trip up.

This is a picture of me and owner of Naruoka Cycle in Shimada, his name escapes me of course. But thats not the point. Check out the view.

We made it to the top and a little bit of down was followed by some more up. Ach! Eventually we made it to the entrance of the main part of the trail. The ride began and It was nice and fairly easy. Lots of loamy loose ground tho, so I took it easy until I could get used riding with a lot of slip and slide.

The ride down only lasted about 20 minutes. I was wondering how you could get to the bottom of a hill when all you were doing was riding up the f***ing thing. Im not complaining though. It's nice to be plugged in here and finally able to some honest riding. The morning was nice and cool and there was no complaining about the view.

In other news, Sensei was finally able to bring his computer over. I installed a new hard drive and put windows on it. Sensei was nice enough to hang around and translate the Japanese text so I could finish the install. He has some files on his old HD which is in it's death throws. I hope I can get his email back, he's got a lot of stuff there that he can't get back.

As a reward for helping him with his computer he brought over a whole flat of beer. And this while I thought helping him with his computer was just my chance to help give something back for the opportunity to be in Japan. He is very generous indeed. The man gives everything and I have not been able to give much back yet. I hope that changes.

In the BIG NEWS catagory, I rode Mt. Fuji sunday morning with another group of friends. I'll post up pics of that on the other site. Please check it out.

Goofing off

Sensei Sakurai has been absent from the last couple of training sessions. I'm not sure where he is but I guess he's busy being a pilar of the Karate community somewhere. Sensei's Osawa and Adachi have been filling in for him. At friday nights B&B, Ikki let us through some pretty hilarious warm up excersises like this attempt at a 3 legged race across the floor.
Takumi here got his Nidan a few weeks ago. It was nice of him to pose for this goofy looking pic. I quess he's still just a kid afterall. - maybe we all are?

I was taking part in this relay race in the dojo before I realized I should stop and get some pictures.

I found myself wondering if I would look back on this trip as a chance to relive my childhood. If all that is expected of me while I am here is to relax and goof off with the kids when Sensei isn't around then I think I can handle that just fine. I wish there was some way for me to convey to my readers just what great kids these are. But words fail me for the time being at least.

Anyways, for those of you who think that I should be more serious in my pursuit of Karate excellence, here are some pics of actually training.

Team Empi in mid-flight

Team Empi, not in mid-flight.

Adachi Sensei prosides over some Ippon Kumite before Sensei Sakurai arrives on Thursday.

The fujieda story blog has a new post up. Check it out. Its just a few pics from the fireworks in Yaizu last month.

In the crappy news category, the news I was hoping to share didn't happen this weekend. I'm not going to share what it might have been, only hope that next weekend I have better luck. Lets just say that Japan and Vancouver have a common trait when it comes to the timing of rain fall here. I think my friend IFO would feel right at home, if not a little grumpy, here in Fujieda.

Take care Vancouver.

A lull in the action..

Well I quess you guys notice that I am not posting as much as I used to. I'd like to have good escuses for this like Im too busy, but the truth is life has taken a turn for the routine here in Japan.

I'm still training karate 5 nights a week. I am noticing slight improvments in my kicks, stretches, and overall physical fitness, but not enough to really quantify. Its not really for me to quantify anyways.

I still worry about what Sensei thinks of the job I am doing over here. I could whine about it but I'll spare you this time. I'm starting to get the feeling I won't know until the end. I speak him before class each day. Each day he is tired. He works a full shift at his job, spends time with his family, and helps out on various karate commitees in the Shizuoka Prefecture. I keep asking him whn he'll have time for me to fix his computer, but there never seems to be an open slot in his week. He told me that a friend of his asked him to go dirt biking up at Nagano. I hope he can make, the man deservers a little fun time.

As far as I go, I am hoping to have some really interesting posts to put up after the long weekend coming up. I'd like to tell you what I have planned but I'm afraid I might jinx it.

I hear that home has had a pretty abysmal summer. A rain every weekend classic. It's been getting like this more and more over the past few summers. I wonder if it keeps happening, is the housing boom in the lower mainland going to get reeled in a bit.

Anyways, to keep my readers interested in whats going on, I have posted a student profile up on the other blog. Check it out.

Other than that, there is news, but Im going to hold on to it for a week or so. So relax for now, but be sure to tune in next week!

Out of the loop

So we had a really nice Typhoon here in Japan on thursday. It was slow moving and took a full 24 hours to clear itself from our coastline. The storm was impressive but without great big trees to fall and crush houses and kill people (like we had in vancouver last november) there really was little sense that my life was in danger. I drove to Karate training in the Typhoon only to find that Karate had been cancelled. haha. Oh well, I took Sensei for a little guilt trip on that one. Normally I like to get lots of pictures of the goings on here in Japan, but to get good pictures of the typhoon I would have to have gotten wet and I just don't like my readers enough to go do that. Instead though, I have recieved a few emails from friends and family with a few pictures that I think are worth posting. None of them have anything to do with Japan, but it's my blog and I'll post up what I damn well want. Anyways, in no particular order......... I hope you enjoy.

The first few are courtesy of Ian and Camerons Surfing trip near Tofino.

Lake Louise is from Lynne at work

And Sami (and his picture) are courtesy of Pat and Ashraf.

Anyways, off to dinner at Hide's (heeday) place. And Sensei Osawa just called to invite me to Yakko. Its rough being so popular.

Take care Vancouver.

Yakko

Last night Sensei called up a few of the more active parents in his Dojo, and a few of his Sensei's and took them all out for dinner. It was nice to be included in this group. I always enjoy heading down to Sensei Osawa's restaurant, Yakko, and hoisting a few with my friends from the Dojo. Just a few pics here that I think pretty much tell the story.

I'm starting to find myself a lot more comfortable here now in Fujieda. The homesick things seems to be done with and I find myself starting to think of the things I need to do to enrich my experience here.

Working out a bit more is on the list, but I must say that training Karate 5 times a week certainly has done a lot for my ability. Even still, I need to spend more time stretching. If I don't improve in that area faster, I likely wont be able to grade until Christmas. That would suck.

Weekend trips are also on my mind. Kyoto, Mt Fuji and some places to mountain bike if I can find them are all on my mind. I could easily burn up my reserve cash planning trips like this but I will probably only make it to Japan once in my life so I had better make the most of it. A student of mine even put the idea of Okinawa in my head. That could be a big ouch but I really wanna go.

In other news, Sensei seems to like the 'official' blog I have created. So it's time to make it public. You can find it at http://fujieda.blogspot.com/ .

There was a Dan grading today and I stopped by to take pictures. I should be making a post about that on the official site sometime tomorrow. As well you may see a post similiar to this one.