An important notion

An important notion I have forgotten to publish is that my new sensei, 池sensei, looks sooooooo much like Zatoichi (http://www.zatoichi.co.uk/)!!
Well, looking at the pics now, not sooooooo much, but definitely a little.
Hurray!
おす！

KaratetaraK

Alas!
After more than one year break, not taking into account the miniscule amount of times I have attempted at finding a dojo and practising karate in Japan (doh!), I have finally succeeded and am back in the game!
Or am slowly easing myself into it.
Habib, upon his visit, poured into me a thermflask full of motivation and with minor difficulties I have managed to locate a dojo in Nagoya. It turns out the shihan (sensei) is a sixth dan, going for his seventh this year and the only A class instructor in Aichi, giving away that I have probably found the best dojo in whole of Aichi-ken, at least.
Very pleased with myself on that front. The practical one raises more doubts, I feel like a retard for most of the time; there I come, a black belt with shameful despair in my eyes copying the kyu grades during kata, am the one and out of rather few being corrected almost constantly. Which, in the long run, is actually good, for the second dan exam in spring as well as for the self development and understanding; it only makes me feel, well, ashamed and shy, in fact (do believe me please!!!!)
However I do feel I might still have a chance at becoming the pet student, mostly for having the need to be corrected all the time, which also puts me in the situation where everybody wants to explain things to me and correct me even more. That or the post of a useless blonde nuissance of a gaijin. Hmmm...

The Toilet Diaries

My life in Japan, except for being marked by numerous adventures of all sorts, is also, and majorly, marked by endless attempts at `the longest poo ever pooed` record breaking. `How long can one go without a poo` one too.
(Anyone with any fascinating data do publish do so do!!)
Chlorella doesn`t seem to work it`s magic, excercise and massage also remain powerless in the long run, and I do not really want to lower myself, however tempting it may seem, to a coffee and a cigarette every morning. And so please, you who are in the know, do tell me your secret formulae and I shall be forever greatful to you!
(It does save on the toilet paper though. Hmm. What is of what worth???)

山水人 (Yamauto) 2006

Hum. Well, except for a few minor news, such as that Maria the basil has died, that Tom the cricket has disappeared the day after being christened and that I am still stupidly loving Hideto, there are indeed some major news to be reported.
From 16th until 24th September 2006 a festival called Yamauto (山水人）(mountain and water people) was held in the mountians of Kyoto. The lucky ones with no regular jobs, such as Hideto, just-returned-from-Mongolia Hiwako, Takumi and Yoshikochan, etc., attended the festa right from the beginning, the more organized individuals such as myself and Renchan, for that instance, were given no other choice except for the weekend, or stay at home (Rencha~n!!).
The ultimate plan was to find someone who could give me a lift all the way, for looking at the official website and seeing the instructions of travel I felt no more clever than before seeing them. In the week that I was asking all the possible friendly acquaintances I would look at the printed directions every day and every day of this week my understanding was lacking and I was kept in pure darkness of true illiteracy.
Friday came and with it the fact that no one was in the end going to give me a ride and with this notion finally and rather unexpectedly came the long awaited understanding. After a week of countless attempts I glanced at the map and the instructions and at the map once again and sudden enlightenment descended upon me.
And so it was Friday night that I set off on the road, for if it was later I would waste the prescious free time that we, the individuals confined to an order of societal regularity, as much as we dont want to be so, are allowed to on the two days a week.
Friday: before work I rushed to Otsukaya to get a thread for the ceramic accessories, I rushed to work. I then, within the space of 18:00 and 22:45 ran to training (19:00-20:45), from training rushed to the train station (20:45-21:30) to see whether there was any truth in what Chris先生 was saying about being able to get a shinkansen to Kyoto for 2500 Yen, which there was not, and so I was forced to run to the subway and then run home (21:30-21:55), in ten minutes call Ren to try to persuade him to go with (22:00-22:03) and pack all the clothes and things I wanted to sell (handmade aprons, chopstick cases, pencil cases from Slovak traditional indigo cloth, some ceramics, letter sets,...), didn`t persuade Renchan, packed the clothes and the food and the sleeping bag (22:03-22:10), ran decorated with my backpack and a bag to the subway again (looking like a lunatic most possibly), to then continue running to platform number 6 to get the 22.45 train to Maibara. Rather impressive movement me likes to fink.
To celebrate my getting there on time I stood in a ten metre queue for the train and stood for the next three stops in a sardine-like mode though to soon indulge in the half empty train and the onigiri I prepared for the journey. I got to Maibara at midnight, went to check out the combini for items that might be neccessary for a survival at a festival (not stating more details for the Mother reads these pages), got back to the station and dropped myself and the decorations off at the spot I have already spotted on my way out, the spot with a hedge and a tree surrounded by which and under which I was to spend my night with the ever-wandering rollie-pollies.
Sitting back, finally in a bit of a calm, I could see the station further in front of me swimming in the bright lights of nightly workers, and being slowly but gradually overwhelmed by inconspicuous feelings of freedom and quiet happiness, leaning on my backpack looking into the night sky through a dark green crown of a tree, I finally fell asleep.
Woke up at 4:40am, packed and walked over to the waking up train station, got on my train to Kyoto and soon enough I was sat on the bus from Kyoto to 梅の木. From Ume no Ki (梅の木), with the leftover of the passengers who were obviously (real easy to deduce from the clothing and hairstyles) headed for the same destination, we waited for the next bus to take us up up up the mountain and sheepishly we made friends. My new friend was called Toyoちゃん and she was super nice; she works for a bicycle shop in Osaka and we talked and laughed all the way and as this took place I felt a lot better for not being the only lonesome loser with no friends coming up all on her own. On the contrary actually, I realized. We were the cool ones. We have never been there before, we to say the truth, did not really have a very bright idea of how we were to get there, but eventually we did and that`s exactly what matters.
Oh and besides that the camping in front of Maibara station.
And getting in for free. But not really so. I came up to become a staff member of the DeraYukaNakamatachi group, the Hideto candle-make-selling-human-device.
Anyway, I shall not rumble no more.
To sum it up in a rather clear manner...
...Yamauto was an amazing place, amazing experience, an amazing event, so rich in it`s simple purity, reviving, inspiring, full of floating energy that charged you with it`s vibrations from head to toes, filled your heart so all you felt were thanks to the Creator, thanks for being alive and for everything that is around you.
You look around and you feel peace without anyone making you feel it. You feel love, you feel gratitude.
Upon my arrival, finding Hideちゃん in the mode of utter exhaustion (thus lacking friendliness), I also discovered Hiwaちゃん occupying the tent together with Naokiくん, hurray!, Yoshikoちゃんand Takumiくん camping next door, hurray! and Goちゃん wandering somewhere around, or possibly still asleep but definitely somewhere around, hurray hurray hurray!!! for I have not been expecting any of these wonderful people and they just happened to be there and made me feel happy and at home.
My heart was full and loving, and the people with whom our paths crossed, the Hungarian sculpture artist wanderer with twisted moustache, the Canadian Czechoslovak (`Ja jsem spravnej Cechoslovak!!`) selling koncovky with his Japanese wife and a Japano-Czechoslovak baby Niji (Rainbow), Toyoちゃん the bicycle shop assistant, Duan, the Australian mixed-roots university English-teacher-of-course, Naraさん the jambe teacher, Tettchan, the half drunk half stoned friend of ours who gave me a lift home, all just fell in the picture within my heart, and completed the puzzle it is.
We talked, we laughed, we danced, we hugged, we told each other of our love and how we were thankful for it.
That was Yamauto.

No picture documentation done, if you want to see what it was like, come and look in my eyes. They shall be the mirror of the days.

Simple Matters

This input is going to be an account on the developments of the last month, dated as off the day we officially split up with Hideto (13th of August), for it seems that this event has given a free way to occurence of other rather random events.
So, to sum it up very simply and clearly, since we split up with Hidechan my heart has been aching so badly that it still is and despite various barriers it persists on desiring the one it should not. It hurts. Every day.
But that`s more a sum of my current emotional state than events. So, once more, to sum it up simply and clearly, since we split up with Hidechan I had a ragazzo italiano seducing me almost completely, Habib attempting at seducing me by the means of a sensual massage, wandering hands and his mastery of soul-touching, I had two almost underaged Japanese twenty-two year olds telling me they wanted to be my boyfriends and I had Ethi kissing me so that I wanted to pull him in rather than push him out of my door which I had to do.
Upon these happenings, for they took me by surprise at their quantity and intensity, I shall try to draw an analytic bio-social model in order to understand, though I fear it might be all of a biological basis and the social element of it would be enclosed in the fact that we consider ourselves humans.
To support this claim comes the account on my own desires which have proven to seem a reaction to my bodily wants, which, to say the truth, I am not, turning to my moral inner being with questions, totally opposed to.

This random last month`s row or column was topped up and brought to absolute excellence by meeting up with Benjamin Fulford in Tokyo, a person of substance in the circles of Japanese journalism, politics and more recently literature. He calls himself a revolutionary and in his not so obvious though very present weirdness he is adorable and most respectable.
He gave me a ride on his bike while giving me an update on the 9/11 incident. We rowed a boat, fed fish, ate ice cream and talked over possibilities of changing the world into a better place and so now I feel I have a motivation which if it begins to decease, I know where to reboost.
Vivat!

Understanding...??

Once again the time has come which requires an urgent and inevitable change, or rather than that an urgent improvement in the areas of personal qualities of self.
Hard work and improvement is needed in Kanji and Karate studies though rather than in these (comparably more) material qualities it is absolutely essential in the ones of the hidden inner self.
Since the time when Hideto has decided he would rather like to be by himself than with me I have become once again self-absorbed, negative and bitter despite all my vehemently expressed attempts to hold a positive attitude.
Once again I have to be careful about the things I think and I utter, the ways I think them, the ways they come out, about the ways my surroundngs comes to my understanding for now these are dirty with bitterness and I am once again disgusted with myself.
What is needed is a determination and modesty until it is possible to take a quiet day of knowing nothing and no one so one can know oneself.

Ethi in Nagoya

Oh dear God!!!
Ethi prisiel Sodoma Gomora.
Ethi is in Nagoya!!!
He came yesterday and the result was rather wobbly and unstable, a fragile composition has overcome me.
All he did was that he called me that him and his friend were no longer going to stay at my place (heart-broken) and that they wanted me to come for a dinner with them (yay-yay!).
I got to meet a man, probably the richest I have ever spoken to, Ethi`s patron, and he made us drink probably the most expensive wine I`ve ever drank and because he left at about midnight he made us drink even more. Oh what pure happiness!
I remember hitting Ethi a lot, a crying girl in a corner and feeling waves of feminism rushing through my body and mind (thus more beating for the boys). And then it was morning and my attempt at finding my way to the toilet was lenghty but in the end successful. Being still unable to walk straight at two in the afternoon recounts for a wonderful night of Slovak warmth.

*Huraaaaaaaaa!!!!*

Habib in Nagoya

Yesterday was a Wednesday, the day of the night when Renchan and Hiko and two boys I`ve never met before, Yohei and Yoshi, were going to a secret society meeting, the night when I got as a present from Hiko an Okinawan soup and an Okinawan sweet powder dough, the night when Hidechan had to go to meet someone by bike in rain, the night when Habib was coming down to Nagoya to see me.
We haven`t seen each other for two years and it was really wonderful to meet up after such a long time. A lot of time has passed, a lot of things have come our way, a lot of people have crossed our paths since we parted... we have been changed and remained unchanged at the same time, just like the rocks that are and aren`t changed by the sun, the wild winds and waters.
It truly was wonderful, this meeting, if a little surreal, but maybe that was the magic of the moment. We spoke a lot, about ourselves, karate, our pre-historic-era-us, karate, Japan, we drank 日本酒 (Nihon Shu) and spoke some more about karate. We exchanged massages, strictly no funny business! ...finding Habib attempting at peeking sent me rofl (rolling on futon laughing).
And what it also made me realize was how much I am actually dying to feel single, technically being a singleton, only so I don`t miss out on all those available amounts of touches and warmth, ... though why is it so HARD??!!
I am not in control of my-ness; and the thing that is is locking me out from the free world of love and affection. Everytime I could I can`t for deep inside it feels like I am just about to betray my own self. Not Hide, not our love but myself...

As we would say with Gelato, `It socks!`. Paris Hilton would probably say, `That`s hot!!`

The Subway

Living in the city is indeed rather wonderful.
You have such a great choice of coffee shops to go to and the amount of friends you can go and drink the coffee with is heart-warming. Also you get to see many a different person and that for me, experiencing it now after a year long estrangenment in the countryside, is a rather refreshing hm experience.
I went to see the Shin Sakae guys (Ren, Hide, ...) for a bit one afternoon and I was going by subway. As I walked onto the platform this man, an intriguing figure to say the least, joined the waiting company.
It was an old man dressed in a cycling outfit, full on hundred per cent, low hiking boots, cycling tights, a cycling t-shirt, ones that my dad would wear for his trainings or races even, an aerodynamic helmet pointed at the back, with a dark shield coming down from it covering most of this man`s face leaving only a great grey beard sticking out from underneath, and in his hand he carried an umbrella.
There is nothing really significant about this, only that it was so refreshingly different and mostly bizzare.
And at this sight I felt a strange satisfied elation.

The Movement

Okay, it is exactly one week and some hours since I moved to Nagoya, left Fukuchiyama behind, to begin a new life towards which I was looking with eyes wide open with excitement of novelty and, more than anything, a pleading heart full of shining hope.
And so, after a long fun drive at 140km/h down a motorway where speed limit, despite the perfect state of the local highways, does stubbornly remain 80km/h (doh!), with Hide we stopped at Kimburu, a super cheap recycle store where one can find anything and everything and nothing at the same time and then, wheee, we were finally off towards the heart of Nagoya which we found after a couple of failed attempts.
At similar rate we also managed to find my new house and deloaded, ascended, deloaded, descended, up and down, somewhat like happy walking christmas trees, we concluded the grand move.
The sun was shining from the morning until the evening, the skies were smiling and so was my heart, in spite of sad facts that followed us, an unwanted tail, instead of `just married`, it said `just broken up`, floating in the wind as the white car went forwards to a new existence of two lives.
Anyway, the days that followed I do not remember where they begun nor where they ended, all I remember is the neverending hunger for buying a stove does not apparantely solve everything as I might have hoped, you do need a gas hose!!!! The sleepless nights when warm and wonderful Gelato was keeping me company, the sleepless night of confusion when Hide came to pick me up and held my hand and lay in my lap, the hunger, the wheeee-wind-in-her-hair-`Where-can-I-buy-....?` left me with a cold sore, feverish eyes and a look of the hunted in my face, though in the end it was an underscribable happiness, a feeling of content, warmth, of having a home!! that took over my thoughts, my heart, my soul.
And thus I have a house with a green curtain with yellow tulips, a blue kitchen with orange flowers, frog hooks and a strawberry shower curtain, short hair and a new job.