Welcome or Yookoso

Yookoso,

This Blog has been put together as part of my travels around the globe to study martial arts. The first part of my blog and the contents of it will be focused on the study of the Japanese arts. So I am travelling to Japan on 31st May 2010 to start my journey.
I am a strong believer that all forms of martail arts have their strong and weak points. As many great masters will tell you, to understand the way of your enemy (opponent) is to defeat them.
I take no side with any one martial art, but I do believe that a person must study a system or style to it's fullest to gain a greater understanding before the weakness or strengths can be identerfied.
Therefore I have devoted my lift to the martial arts.

Japanese Tip list.

Japanese Tip list



I want people from all over the place to help with this so if you have been to Japan and have a good tip let me know. Send the Tip to my Email address then I can post it. makiofska@gmail.com

Also if you know of some where cool to go that is also welcome, send them in.





Ok I have three tips and thats from the frist week. So by the end we should have loads.



Tip 1. Don't take lighters on the planes in Japane. Not cool.



Tip 2. Do take gifts they have gone down a strom. This must have been the best tip yet.



Tip 3. If your going to use the train in Toky and or buses get a PassMo card. Its like the English Oyster card. Don't worry if you can't speak Japanese all of the ticket machine can be changed to english. Sweet.

Tip4. Don't use the train if you can help it between 6:00pm and 8:00pm so meany such small trains. Its not the faced they just cram as meany people on as they can but every one needs to be doing something, PSP, reading a book or news paper. I almost punshed him.

Keep them coming

Sunday, 6 June 2010

A Japanese house and a cat called Sasuke

A Japanese house and a cat called Sasuke.

Nihon no ie to neko no Sasuke.



Whilst I am in Japan I am staying with families. The family that I am staying with in Tokyo are all Japanese and they are very nice. Yukosan has Helped me out no end form cooking amazing Japanese food to helping me with the train. She has even found me a place to train. (I will be studying Karate with the JKA. Sweet.)
There house is very cool. It is a mix of old and new and has lots of space and many rooms. The house here are mostly wooden and made in the traditional style. The living room has a sunken floor and walk way around it. Some of the rooms have sliding doors and some of them normal swing doors. Some of the rooms have wooden floors and some have Tatami (or mates), but every room has a very Japanese fell. It is just as I had hoped.

My room is very cool also, it is very big. I found the families through an online company called Home Stay. (Their is a link to there site in the side Bar.) On the site there is a form to fill in. They then send you a matched family. My family in Tokyo can speak very good English and they have been helping me with my Japanese. Yuko San has been feeding me very well and Yutaka San is showing me a very hidden side to Japanese life. I believe that Home Stay Has mad this trip even better.
I get all this for just over £700. (92,000 yen) This is for one months rent and 2 meals a day. (I don't now but staying in hotels would cost a lot more and I would still have to pay for food.) Home Stay and the Hagiwara family are making this stay one to remember.



O just one more thing. The form ask you about the familys you want to stay with. Things like do they have kids, are they smokers or do you mind pets? I don't know how this would affected your stay but I ticked all the box as I don't mind. So I have a cat at my house. This Is Sasuke the ninja cat.

Sasuke no ninja no neko. sagyo

3 comments:

  1. loving your blog, we are all checking it out, your new home looks great.
    Mum

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  2. Dan Im loving the blog....and am still jelous! Looking forward to hearing all about it when youre back - keep the pictures coming, very interesting. Ive seen the JKA Honbu dojo on youtube and its amazing. I would love to train there - be sure to drop my name ;)

    Hai domo, OSU

    Charlie.

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  3. Come on Dan it's Wednesday and we have not had any news since Sunday. Where is the next instalment - what happened at the week-end? We look forward to haering about your exploits.
    Carry on having a good time.
    Sarah x

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