Festivities

Another big break from the blog. Lots of bits and pieces, no big news though.

I moved out of the guesthouse and in with Kazuko.
I went to the Koenji festival, a rainy day but it meant the crowds were smaller and I could get some photos.
Popped over to Odaiba and a little theme park type place called Muscle Park where you do different games - a bit like The Krypton Factor or The Crystal Maze. Didn't do too well at that, but we did win a couple of drinks by doing 100+ sit ups, press ups and pull ups between us within a time limit.
Also visited a very strange little Izakaya with games, toys and an owner who serves drinks as different people! I could describe it in more detail but it's better to go and experience it!

I'll be working at the university again from the middle of October which will eat into my time again. I've been trying to catch up with my course after the last term at Waseda but I've had to put off my teaching practice until next year. I'm slowly plodding through the reading and have started the coursework for the Diploma but it's going to be a long slog with so many other things going on.

My private lessons seem to have picked up again too. I have 2 group classes a month and 2-3 privates who have one or two lessons a week. Hopefully the taxman doesn't read this blog!
The extra money from these classes and Waseda have helped me to pay for flights home in December and also pay my local tax off for this year in one lump payment.
Unfortunately other parts of the Japanese government system want my money. It's a legal requirement to be in the Japanese health system. Up until now this wasn't really enforced and I've been sticking to good old travel insurance which covers me in Japan and when I go abroad. Unfortunately evidence of tax payment and health insurance payment will be requirements to renew working visas as of next year. Consequently I've joined the health system and keep getting larger and larger bills from them. :-(

I'm still teaching kickboxing. The number of students varies every week. Had nobody turn up once or twice, usually have 2 students and the most I've had is 5. There's a pancrase competition (pancrase is basically the same as MMA - punches, kicks, wrestling, ju-jitsu holds and chokes) in a few weeks that people have been asking me to try at the dojo but still not sure my ground game is good enough to do that. In fact it says in the rules that you should have 2 years of grappling experience before you can enter the competition. Whilst I've been going to this dojo for about 2 years, I avoided the grappling part for a long time and still have problems. Feel a bit silly saying Been going to those classes a bit more recently but I'm still a long way off most people in the classes.

Got back into running a bit too. I ran for about a year and did a half marathon a few years back in the UK but haven't bothered for a long time. I'm not really near a park and find it difficult to motivate myself to run in circles, so I get a train and travel 3-4 stops and then run home. That way I can't give up! Depending on which stop I go to I normally run about 4.5km or 7km.

Few mixed pictures linked to the title of the blog. I have a few videos of the festival too, but only one of them is small enough to embed in the blog...