Your Japanese word of the week is...

"anshin" which is relief or peace of mind. And due to popular demand (at least, what I perceived to be popular demand haha), I've found a few more posters from the Tokyo Metro's "Peace of Mind/Courtesy" posters which are currently being updated monthly.

Please do it in the yard............ right.... If I may be honest, I've never EVER seen anyone practice golf swings with their wet umbrella. Either that, or we're supposed to practice our umbrella-golf swings in our yard and not on the train platform lest our oversized-dandruff dirties the trenchcoat of a double-monacle'd gormless old man..... this poster also fails to address that fact that nearly everyone in Japan is not fortunate enough to have a yard to fling their dandruff around....... but that kid sure does have good technique- see how his coat flies from the force of his hip rotation.......

This is my personal favourite. Please do it at the beach!! I can assure you no one dives for trains like that. I can also assure you no one uses the breaststroke to try and catch the train. I mean, the relevance of this picture is stretching it a bit......

The poor fellow also seems to have a similar dandruff problem AND lo...... it's the same creepy old man stalking all these train miscreants. Maybe they should make a poster for the man to warn people about stalking......

"Please do it from behind a telescope" or something..........

Oh wells......

In other news, this week is the north-Tokyo tournament which Seiritsu is entered in. And next week is the first time in 31 years that the World Karate Championships will be held in Tokyo.

The World Karate Championships are the highest level of karate competition in the world (well, until karate gets into the Olympics). Lasting from Nov 13-16, I've been signed up as a volunteer translator (yeah, who knew haha) for the last two days, so hopefully that'll mean I can be on the floor, next to the rings watching all the action.

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"gyaku" which is reverse/opposite. It can mean that in both the material sense (like the opposite end of something) or the immaterial sense (like a concept). In fact, gyakusetsu means paradox, with two contradicting ideas within one proposed situation.

白水修養会 (Shiramizu Shūyōkai) - My home away from home

[Picture courtesy of Arakawa Sensei's blog]

In karate, the most common use is in the term, gyakuzuki, which is a reverse punch. A reverse punch is a punch off the non-leading hand. If, for example, I'm in a stance with my left foot forward, my right punch is my gyakuzuki.

Gyakuzuki's are particularly useful for quite a few reasons. One being that because the distance it travels is further than that of the lead hand, it can hit harder. Tying into that, throwing a gyakuzuki requires the rotation of the hip which not only adds to that power, but coupled with a lunge, can actually reach very far. The arm also helps with balance as you lunge into a deep gyakuzuki. Lastly, they're great for counter-punches because you can use your lead hand to parry an attack and dive in with the reverse punch.

As you might have guessed from the picture, I bring all THIS up because there was another tournament this past Sunday- the Sugito Tournament. Sugito, if you remember, is the city that I lived in for a year and is home to Shiramizu. The Sugito tournament wasn't particularly huge, but there was a good turnout by the dojos in the neighbouring cities and it's also a great place for kids to earn some competition experience since the level is a bit more forgiving.

Me, Carl (the current intern), and Amy (his fiance)

Having said that, my results were a bit "gyaku" as well. As usual, kata went in the morning and unfortunately, I didn't do as well as I should have. I lost the round and was rather not happy with myself about that. Still needs more work, as always haha..... oh well........ after lunch, I focussed on warming up for kumite...

That me (blue) ~not~ losing three points (kicks to the head are worth 3 points).

My kumite match was surprising too because, for the first time, I won a match. I'm not afraid to admit that kumite is not my strength but it can be rather fun (unless you get injured haha)... so to win a match was rather........ liberating, let's say, since it's the first rung on the ladder.

I ended up in the final round for my kumite division against Carl, who is a self-proclaimed kumite lover. I didn't beat him but I suppose that means I got second place, which is fine with me haha.......

Aside from that, my weekend was rather uneventful. This coming week is........ hmm.....

Oh, I'll be training at Arakawa Toru Sensei's dojo. Arakawa Toru Sensei (no relation to Arakawa Takamasa Sensei from Shiramizu) is one of the last few Wado-ryu Sensei to have trained directly with the style's founder, Otsuka Sensei, for a lengthy period of time and Arakawa Toru Sensei is actually creditted with helping spread Wado-ryu and karate itself to various parts of the world.

On the weekend will be my roommates birthday party and next Monday will be the Kita-ku (Tokyo's northern region) tournament. So.... busy busy =D...... til then......

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"jidou" which means automatic. Certainly Japan is no stranger to automated-ness what with vending machines (jidohanbaiki) or a car (jidosha). Cars are also referred to as "kuruma" but..... whatever......

And since it's been a while since I've talked about cars, I thought I'd throw in a few things I managed to see this past two weeks.

I guess I'll start off with a week ago, when I was in Shibuya. I saw this...

... the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano. Now, I'm the first to admit, this isn't exactly a triumph of styling cues. In fact, I struggle to think of any new Ferrari in the past 5 years that I would call truly "beautiful". Aggressive maybe, but aesthetically pleasing?? Not compared to their cars from yore. A point seemingly proven by the fact that I was the only one even remotely concerned that it was even there, the black stallion by itself on the side of the road.

It certainly doesn't look like most other cars on the road, but perhaps the appeal of the car is more because "it's a Ferrari" rather than its actual styling. But having said that, the mechanicals are worth mentioning, with its massive 6.0-litre 611bhp V12 up front, transaxle gearbox in the back, and electronically controlled dampers.

On a slightly related note, if you ever see a truly expensive car in Tokyo (and the 599 GTB is worth more than $250,000), the license plate will almost always be registered to an address in Shinagawa, there being where all the truly rich people live.

Moving on.......

On Wednesday I saw this......

... the TVR Tamora. This was almost a better sight than the Ferrari because these British TVR's were sold in America only for a very short period of time, mostly because selling overseas nearly caused them to go bankrupt. In fact, I've never seen a TVR (or heard of anyone seeing a TVR) in Vancouver so seeing on in Tokyo was truly rare. TVR is a British-based car firm known for building very light, very fast, usually scary, and often unreliable sports cars. They really do market to a niche crowd but in doing so, they often find themselves some very devoted owners.

The Tamora weighed in at a very light 2500lbs but came stocked with a 3.6-litre 350bhp inline-6. For reference, that's 100lbs lighter than my Integra but with twice the power.

Tamora is, apparently, the Queen of the Goths.....................

Next up....

...the McLaren MP4-23, the current McLaren-Mercedes F1 challenger. I suppose this is just cool in that it's rare to see an F1 car and even more rare that it's not just some mock-up with no engine.

Seeing as the Japanese Grand Prix was last weekend, it seemed fitting that Mercedes put one on display. These things are amazing to look at simply because of the detail that go into designing them. Every edge and shape is designed purely for speed and that's cool......

I should point out that the picture was taken inside Shinagawa station. As if you needed more proof that Shinagawa is where the money is...

and lastly, on Monday I finally made a stop by this...

... the Audi Forum, in Tokyo. Found a 10-min walk from Harajuku station, this building, also known as The Iceberg, houses an Audi dealership on the first two floors, a hair salon (???) on the third floor, some kind of kids-science-discovery place on the 4th floor, and a very fancy restaurant-type area for wedding receptions and such on the upper floors.

Although my picture doesn't really do it justice, it's really a very interesting piece of architecture, perhaps simply because it different from all the buildings surrounding it. It's one of those things that looks like it was built just for the sake of building it. It's not like those edges make for more floor space or help it dissipate earthquake of typhoon energy.

The inside is appropriately classy and the Audi showroom had some appropriately expensive cars on display. Some noteable ones include the diesel-V12 Q7, the $200,000 V10-powered S8, and my personal favourite, the RS4 Avant.

They also had an R8 which, despite how great it is, I still find to be visually stunted from some angles......

Not that I'm judgemental or anything =P haha.....

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"kondeiru". It's a very appropriate word meaning "crowded", and this weekend, I went to the Tokyo Game Show 2008 which, as you can imagine, was extremely crowded.

The Game Show is a show about...... games.... It's a gigantic convention hall that remains half-lit on the inside so that thousands of LCD TV's can show off the latest and coming video games so companies like EA, Konami, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sega, and Tecmo (to name but a few) can increase their share of the video game market in Japan, worth some 238.8 billion yen (some $2.3 billion CAD) last year.

And despite the nature of video games, it was something every company took seriously, spending lots of money on booth design, brochures, staff, and props. In fact, there were actually very few children there since, as might be obvious, the video game market in Japan has just as many adult players as there are children, if not more. Part of that is, I suppose, due to how much time people spend on trains, which means the portable game market (whether on handheld systems or on phones) is huge, evidenced by the fact that major cell phone providers had displays at show as well.

Beyond that were the chances to try out lots of games (provided you stood your way through line-ups as long as TWO HOURS), see lots of people dressed up in costumes, see lots of unpaid fans dress up in even more complicated costumes standing outside, and, this being Japan, watch throngs of cameramen move from booth-girl to booth-girl.

I went with my roommate, his girlfriend, and a few of this co-workers (who all work as computer engineers) and while it was fun, I didn't find it as satisfying as the auto shows. While that might seem like a pointless statement to make, coming from me, the reason I say that is because at auto shows, no one expects to be able to drive the cars. The point of the show is simply to be able to have a chance to see the cars in person. After that, information is available if you want it.

At a game show, everyone wants to try out all the wares. I wanted to try GT5 but there was a 2-hr line-up for that game since everyone else wanted to as well. And likewise with all the other booths. So, in the end, it's slightly unsatisfying in that you end up wandering around looking at stuff when what you really want to do is play the games.

Having said that, there was still some really great stuff. I particularly liked the section of the show that had games from computer programming or design schools. These student-made games rarely had lines to try them and while some of them really weren't that great ("Let's jump from cloud to cloud" or "Let's stomp stick-figure zombies"), some were designed with really fresh thinking coming from the next generation of video game designers.

Yes, someone dressed as a robot. No, he wasn't part of the event.

The other interesting part of the show was Konami's Metal Gear Solid Online World Championship Final Round. Having qualified from all over the world, individuals and teams all met to determine who was the best...... umm....... Metal Gear Solid Online....... Soldier...... At any rate, I only watched the individual match which was pretty interesting, especially with the energetic announcer shouting out "HEADSHOT!!" every so often. Well, technically, he said "HEADDO-SHOTTO!!" but anyway....... Perhaps unsurprisingly, the title of world's best MGS Online gamer went to some 13-yr old kid from Japan. At least 4th place went to a Canadian soooooo....... I guess Canada has the 4th best MGS Online gamer..... yeah!!

Oh...... and I took a picture with Bomberman....... yeah!!!

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"shihan" which, despite not being in my dictionary, is an honourific word for a teacher. But more than just a regular teacher, shihan actually refers to a master and is one step above "regular" sensei. And while academic teachers are referred to as sensei, it seems that shihan are people who've mastered some kind of art form, be it painting or archery or music or martial arts. It's also something that's seemingly given to the masters by students out of appreciation. For example, a student may start referring to his teacher as shihan while some others still refer to the same teacher as sensei. But this is just what I've gathered, I have read elsewhere that some people actually receive a shihan diploma........... Regardless, but it does add that extra edge.

In my case, Arakawa Sensei refers to his teacher as shihan. And rightly so, as Takagi Sensei (or Takagi shihan) is brimming with knowledge. I've trained at his dojo a handful of times and his speed, strength, timing, and general understanding of body mechanics and thus applications of karate always amazes me. And it's not "amazing for his age", it's amazing, period.

Like today, when we had a special 3.5hr seminar. Admittedly, I was nursing an injured foot, but I still learned a whole lot. And now that I'm living in Tokyo, I can start attending Takagi Sensei's classes once a week, so this is sort of like the next stage for me. Suffice to say, Takagi Sensei is on the Wadokai technical committee and is generally regarded as one of the few sensei still alive who can be linked directly to Wado-ryu's founder, Hironori Otsuka.

So, onwards and upwards!!

Aside from that, I went bowling tonight with my roommates............. turns out all this karate training had no effect on my terrible bowling haha........ oh well =P