Your Japanese word of the week is...

"mizu-umi" 湖 which means lake. However, this is technically the term for "a body of water". In referring to a specific lake, such as the famous Lake Biwa near Kyoto, -ko is actually used thus Lake Biwa is known as biwako 琵琶湖. Don't ask me why, that's just how the Japanese language works heh.....

As such, I suppose that means this past weekend I went to Lost Lake-ko.... uhh...... yeah.... wait, that would be Lost-ko?? And since lost is mayotte 迷って, that means this lake is mayoko 迷湖?? But then that just says lost lake............ and sounds like "lost child".... nevermind heh......

Either way, Lost Lake and the walking trail that goes around it can be found a short walk from the centre of Whistler Village and is an easy, pleasant way to spend a few hours taking in the nature that Whistler has to offer. Including ducks!

The other interesting thing about going to Whistler is that in preparation for the 2010 Olympics, they've expanded and repaved nearly the entire Sea-To-Sky highway. The section from Vancouver to Squamish is entirely new, much wider with a usable hard shoulder, and two-lanes for a large portion of it. Now this is great because the old road used to be a treacherous little bugger with narrow lanes, unforgiving walls, and mid-corner bumps. And then when it got wet and slick it was worse. And then rocks would occasionally fall on people......

The new road, however, is much safer....... but in doing that, it also means it's much easier to go faster without noticing. Which in turns puts that danger element back in. So while the road itself is safer, it can lull drivers into a false sense of security and then it becomes dangerous once again. However, it's not like people didn't speed on the old highway and no road, no matter how good, can protect against uncontrolled drivers. Thus the new highway is indeed a huge improvement. And on a sunny summer day, early in the morning with no traffic, it's a dream to drive on =P......

Anyway, I spent the better half of the day up there with my friend from Japan including that walk, a bit of lunch, and a lot of laughs. A good day all around then =P......

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"sagasu" 捜す which means "to look for" or "search". There's also "mitsukeru" 見つける which means "to find" or "to locate". It seems then, the easiest way to think about them is that "mitsukeru" is more for items to be found whereas "sagasu" is more for larger things, some perhaps intangible.

The thing I've been looking for lately is a language exchange mainly because it's not easy to keep up a language in a city that doesn't speak it on a regular basis. So I put up an ad looking for a language exchange and while I expected 2 or 3 emails, I ended up with surprising 10 (thus far...). I haven't met any of them yet and nor did I really do any formal "language exchanges" in Japan, but we'll see how it works out heh....

In other news, I'm mostly just cruising through the last few weeks before school starts. I'm still doing the whole MWF karate thing and it's really helping me refine how to teach karate. At times, it's easy to get caught up in the details (for me, anyway) and turn it into a science. But what I've found is that I've brought back a lot of timing or "feel" knowledge that can help others build the same foundation by narrowing the range of how each move "feels".

As I've said before, a lot of it is intangible and often times, it takes countless hours of self-aware practice to stumble upon the once or twice when the move just "feels" right. But having done that and then move towards doing it more consistently, it's also important to consider how to explain the feel. From there, the students can watch and try with a much more focussed target on how things should be. It's like being asked to guess a number from 1 to 10, and then being told that the number falls between 2 and 6. It's just that bit easier.....

Other than that, I haven't really been doing anything substantial aside from just hanging out with friends. However, it looks like I'll be headed up to Whistler for a day this weekend, so I'll be sure to bring my camera and grab some pics......

Cuz, y'know, reading pages and pages probably isn't as interesting heh..........

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"sukkiri" すっきり which means "completely" or "thoroughly". I've heard it used as "I completely forgot to do it" so I suppose it could also be applied to these following....

"I'm trying to completely transfer what I learned in Japan to the people in my dojo"

Indeed I am. I've started practicing MWF mornings with the other two instructors of my dojo, Pacific Spirit Wado Kai, and it's been great. It obviously won't be an overnight transformation (as it wasn't for me in Japan either) but they're eager and motivated. The best thing, however, is that they've been telling that training again and being able to learn new things has re-ignited their interest in karate.

And that, to me, is the most important step in helping everyone improve.

We also have lots of plans for PSWK come September and there's lots to look forward to in the near future!

"Tokyo's completely different from Vancouver"

Really it is. It's something I've always known but never really felt. Not even last year as a lot of Shiramizu competitors were here, so I was immersed in a quasi-Japanese culture bubble during the time I spent with them.

But without said bubble, it's quite clear just how different things are. From how people interact to the physical presence of the city, it's the total opposite. Interestingly, however, I find I appreciate Vancouver's attributes more now that I've been away. Things like walking along the SeaWall or just enjoy the multitude of parks and greenery were things I never did or noticed til I stayed in a city where such things were at a premium.

Then again, there are things found in Tokyo not found in Vancouver. But I do concede that a lot of the Tokyo things would be hard to transplant into Vancouver. The transit system, for instance, would never work in Vancouver.

Or this, a life-size Gundam robot built in Odaiba to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Gundam series. I don't think that would happen in Vancouver here either heh....... I'm not sure if I posted this earlier but I wanted to go see this before I left. Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance but enjoy the pics I found on the internet instead heh.....

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"(noun) shika (verb)-nai" ~しか～ない . It sounds really complicated but it's another double negative like this one. This time, however, the shika part can be thought of as "other than" and the nai part is "not".

As an example, futari shika inai 二人しかいない means "Only two people are here" or, technically speaking, "Other than two people, no one else is here".

Likewise watashi wa beeru shika nomenai 私はベールしか飲めない is "I only drink beer" or "Other than beer, I don't drink anything else".

If I'm honest, it makes perfect sense but it's having to wrap your head about the double negative while hearing it said quickly in a conversation that's confusing..... what makes it particularly difficult is that most people learning Japanese soon find that listening for the "nai" at the end of the sentence/verb usually helps them understand that it's a negative verb. However, in this case, the negative modifier has nothing to do with what the sentence means and thus it's very easy to mistake "I only drink beer" with "I don't drink beer".

I bring this up mostly because this is a bit of Japanese I only picked up quite recently (two months ago perhaps) and it's actually used quite often. It comes in handy because a friend of mine from Japan is in Vancouver and every so often, she needs to switch back to Japanese to full express herself, and these bits and pieces show up so..... well, I guess it's quite convenient I figured it out haha......

Besides that, being back in Vancouver is nice.......... for the most part. It's hard to explain because I quite like it here and while there are things to do, they're much less accessible than they are in Tokyo; I have to drive everywhere to do things. And while I love driving, it doesn't change the fact that it's a bit of a hassle considering where to park, paying for parking, decided if going somewhere after is worth the time, etc. But, for now anyway, Vancouver being the novel city that I haven't seen in a long time, it's still nice to be here. And seeing all my old friends again is great...

Of course, culturally it's also different. Vancouver doesn't have, for example, the awesome "Manner Posters" like in the Tokyo Metro. This month's is particularly ridiculous....

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"kazan" 火山 or volcano. Yes indeed, despite having just come back from across the Pacific, on July 17-26, I headed back out across the Pacific to Hawaii for a one week vacation with my family.

We started with a night's stay in Honolulu just up from Waikiki beach. The next morning I tried my hand at surfing and, I must say, it's not really my thing. I dunno if it's just me, but it seems like it's a lot of paddle in exchange for a short ride back. I'll stick to my motorized ski lifts thanks =P... Anyway, later that day, we boarded our boat, the conveniently named "Pride Of America".

NCL is Norwegian Cruise Lines although, since the cruise only goes to American ports, the boat itself is registered as an American vessel. As cruise ships go, it wasn't the best nor was it the worst. The ship was a decent size though a bit lacking in things to do... luckily there were ports of call everyday so that kept the trip interesting.

The first port of call was Maui. We had a rental car book so we headed off to a beach for the morning (Sunday the 18th). I really don't remember the name of the beach but I suppose they all look like this haha......

For the afternoon we headed up the Haleakela, a dormant volcano on the eastern side of Maui. Maui's actually made of up to overlapping volcanos and Haleakela is the taller of the two at 10,000ft. While the upper panoramic shot is a bit small, the second shot does a better job of showing off the iron-rich redness of the crater on Haleakela. It truly is a magnificent place mostly because it looks like nothing else. In fact, it's special enough that NASA uses it to test Mars probes and such.... They also recommend walking slowly at 10,000ft because the air is thin, but I really found no problems up there.....

As might be expected from such a high place, it's a popular vantage to watch the sunset from. It's also popular with the military, universities, and other sky-watchers as near the summit look-out are observatories constantly scanning the skies and beyond. Maui's western mountain, Pu'u Kukui, can be see in the second picture above. It stands a measley 5800ft compared to Haleakela =P...

Our second day of Maui included some other sights on the island such as the Needle (some geological mountainy feature that pales in comparison to Haleakela) and a fruit plantation. The plantation was actually quite neat since it has a flower garden filled with neat flowers and duckies (see above). The neat flower in the first picture is the Bird Of Paradise. Another interesthing plant to note was the Miracle Fruit Tree. This rather unassuming looking plant produces Miracle Fruit, which has the ability to, after eating the seeds, make anything eaten afterwards taste extraordinarily sweet. It's likely to do with something about blocking off the other taste receptors. I tried it in Japan and it made grapefruit (!!) incredibly sweet tasting heh..... water, however, doesn't work =P....

Day 3 of the cruise saw us visit Hilo's Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. As its name suggests, it's a huge park with active volcanoes (unlike Haleakela) as its focal point. Lava flows have and are still occurring and while they're a bit hard to spot (since the volcanoes aren't erupting), the energies involved do manifest themselves in other ways, like this steam vent.

The main road leads through the park and down to sea level with various look-outs and points-of-interest along the way. Some main ones include the road cutting across old lava flows. Interestingly, while the lava had destroyed whatever life it came in contact with and rendered the landscape bare, life has managed to find its way back there as seen in the first picture. Other interesting things include the world's largest Hawaiian petroglyph (rock carving) site in the world (second picture). It's really amazing just how harsh the volcanic activity can be to the landscape and yet how alive it can still be....... nature sure is resilient...

One of the ship's big "events" is the watching of the lava flows at night. As the ship circles around the island to its next port, it slows down near some known lava flows so everyone can admire the burning hot lava pouring into the ocean. Unfortunately, despite how the picture look, there isn't that much to see. I expected rivers of lava like strings of red Christmas lights draped over the mountain side and giant pools of cooling lava in the ocean. Instead, the not-so-active night only showed a couple of lava dribbles. Consistent as they were, I think I built myself up a bit too much haha.......

Day 5 was spent at the port of Kona. Kona is essentially a tourist town and goes to great lengths to play up the importance of whatever buildings it has, including its shopping mall (read: two and a half stores in one building). After a short walk around the town, we decided to turn the day into a boat day, so I just chilled out on the deck, did some karate in the aerobics studio, etc. And also took this shot of the setting sun while the boat was out at sea =).

Day 6 was the final port before returning to Honolulu and we spent it on Kauai. Our main destination was Waimea Canyon but on the way there we stopped at a tiny little town called Hanapepe. It really was one of those "one street" towns and its claim to fame appeared to be this wooden swinging bridge in the picture. Oddly, if you look closely at where the "swinging" section meets the supports, it looks like it doesn't have to swing at all... as if they modified it to let it swing so that it'd be more interesting....

Waimea Canyon itself is very interesting because, like most of Hawaii, it was created by volcanoes but this time its unique looks have been due to Waimea River and the frequent rainfall on the island. Indeed, this is one of the wettest parts of Hawaii and, living up to its reputation, it poured on and off and threateningly hung clouds in the sky for most of the day. But when it did clear up slightly, the canyon was quite the sight to behold.

Overall, the trip was rather interesting mostly because these volcanically derived areas are a bit hard to come by and thus by nature (no pun intended heh) unique to behold. On the other hand, most people go to Hawaii to sit on the beach and relax and we didn't do much of that, so it was quite a tiring trip as well. But in the end, it was a good way for me to see lots of Hawaii on my first trip around it =P.

Stay tuned next week as we return to our regularly scheduled "regular" Canadian programming =P.

Oh, and because of the boat's height or certain craters' depth, I got to take some more tilt-shift pics. Enjoy =).

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"hatten suru" 発展する which means "to evolve". I figured for my first post back in Canada, I'll talk about one of the last things I did in Japan.

Last Saturday (July 11th) I was invited by Okano-san to the Tokyo Kaiyo University Karate Club's (東京海洋大学空手部) practice because he is an alumni. though he graduated from the Shinagawa campus and we went to the one in Odaiba. The two universities were actually separate until recently when they joined to for the Kaiyo University. There students study everything about marine science and technology, from boat design and maintenance to marine biology and oceanography. I, however, was there for the karate club.

As you might have noticed, Louise and I were actually asked by Okano-san to go and teach kata to the club. I was a bit hesitant at first, considering most university clubs train a lot and it can be hard to compare my personal training to theirs. But I was assured that they had a lot to learn from the two of us and so I agreed, not in the least because I realised I might not have another chance to once I returned to Canada.

It turns out that many of them had only started karate in university, which means some of them at most had 4 years of practice. They also were lacking in any real instruction aside from the experience of the senior students and occassional visits to other dojos. And thus, what I thought was going to be a lesson on various mechanics and details of certain kata, ended up being a rather straight forward class teaching the kata itself. Which suited me just fine because that is, essentially, what I would be doing a lot of the time back in Vancouver.

In the end, I had a lot of fun working with the students. We would go over the kata once or twice with me explaining certain key points, I'd let them work on it for 15 minutes while Okano-san, Louise, and I walked around helping them, and then we'd do it two more times. And it's good experience for when I'm back here teaching. Which brings me to my point about evolution - that when I came I was always the one in the back, working my butt of in each class. And after working that hard, I had a chance to (and enjoyed) sharing what I had learned. I'm still learning but it's this passage of knowledge that is really what brings about evolution as well.

Of course, some things just never change haha......... like me and Louise scaling a wall near the Imperial Palace Gardens =P...

Or pretending to be samurai and having a sword fight... Note to self: Don't bring a twig to a stick fight... =P

Note to Louise: Don't bring a stick to a gun fight =P heh....

Anyways, I'm back but tomorrow I leave for Hawaii for a week..... expect loads of pictures! See you guys soon =P

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"iwai" 祝い which is a "celebration". Strangely, I've never heard of anyone call it it a celebration. It's always a something-something-kai (---会) whether it's a bonenkai (year end party) or sobetsukai (farewell party), -kai meaning a meeting. But still, there are certain things to celebrate. The first being that this is the 100th Word of the Week! I find that awfully convenient considering it'll be the last Word of the Week (from Japan anyway...) but it also means, having been here for two years, I managed to skip two somewhere down the road haha...... oops.....

Anyways, seeing as my last week here has started, so have some of the "farewell" dinners/parties/coffees/etc.

It was, for example, this past Saturday was my last practice at Shiramizu before I leave for Canada.

I particularly want to thank Okano-san (front L, he has his knee up) who's been extremely kind throughout my past two years here. He's invited me to fancy Christmas buffets, shown me around Kyoto, and, this coming Saturday, has invited me to help him teach at his alma mater's karate club. The latter I'm not sure I can do, but Okano-san assures me I have a lot to offer and I relish the challenge. At the very least, it'll be a great work out.

It was also my last practice at Guseikai.

I apologize for the non-centred picture... I didn't take it =P

I've written about Guseikai before and everything remains true. Headed by Takagi Sensei, it's a well of technical knowledge for all things Wado. Karate aside though, I've also come to know a lot of the members quite well too. The other thing is that, on pure comparative terms, Guseikai is really very different from Shiramizu. Be it practical things like the size of the training space or demographical things like the ages of people there. Despite that, both places have been very welcoming and I'm really grateful for the chance to have met and trained with everyone there.

I'm also grateful, I suppose, for Takagi Sensei asking me to lead the class on Tuesday haha..... well, by lead I mean stand up front and do the count. Things like basics are not often led by Takagi Sensei himself, so this time I got to go up there and keep count. It's harder than you think, counting haha...... mainly because it's easy to succumb to the natural timing of everyone else. But I just stored it in my "Useful for future teaching purposes" box and went with it. In the end though, it was fine. And after class I joined them for their regular dinner-after-practice at the local izakaya.

As for Takagi Sensei himself (see right), it was an amazing opportunity to have trained under him for so long. His has an incredible understanding of the technical aspects of karate and while some of the things he has asked me to understand have left me confused for weeks on end, I'm eternally grateful that he took the time to help me.

Of course, while karate is a huge part of my life here, it's not the only thing. Here's something else...

This is me at a little place called Bauhaus. Opened in 1981 in Roppongi, it's a bar/lounge with a live house band that plays covers of loads of rock songs and is, I'm convinced, one of the best nights out in Tokyo. It's not just that they're good, but the whole atmosphere of the place. They have a mainstay of two guitarists, a bassist, and a drummer to which they add a handful of singers. The best part is that between sets, they all work the bar. It feels like it was something started by some friends and they all work hard to keep it going. Actually, that's exactly what it is...

People can even ask to get up on stage and sing or play an instrument of their choice. Those not as skillfully inclined can request songs from a pretty big list that includes most of the popular songs in rock. In terms of performance, Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen is the funniest to watch, while I find Highway Star by Deep Purple to be the most insane in terms of crazy solos.

I originally discovered the place through my friend Justine back in May (right before I went to Hong Kong actually). She sang for them a few times and became friends with everyone there, so eventually I got to know them as well. Enough that they let me get away with not paying the cover charge haha...... actually, if I did have to pay cover, I probably wouldn't go nearly as much, since it's an exorbitant ￥2835. I suppose though you'd just spend as much if not more on other nights out in Tokyo... still...

Anyway, it's just a good night out with a great band that puts on a great show.

In fact, here a video of them I found in Youtube, covering the aforementioned Deep Purple song (which, in a bit of trivia, was nominated as one of the best ever driving songs on Top Gear, but lost to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now").

The guitarist in white is Masato (who's amazing) with Kei on the other guitar (who's very kind and young beyond his years) and Tomo on bass (who... I almost never talk to haha). The drummer I don't recognize because now there's a different one, who's really nice to talk to as well......

Unfortunately, Masato's left last month to study music in America and they're seaching for a new lead guitarist. Even so, it's still a great night out and, because you can catch the last train home, you can forego the "stay out all night and then try to fix your sleep schedule" routine that clubbing forces you into... wow I sound old haha.....

Anyways, if you're in Tokyo and even remotely enjoy rock music, I highly recommend checking out Bauhaus.

For the rest of the week, I have that university karate session on Saturday and then it's just loads of seeing people one last time kind of thing.

I also have to be all packed by Monday because I'm sending my luggage ahead to Narita because it'd be silly for me to try to carry two suitcases, a carry on, and a messenger bag by myself =P...