31st August 2015

Today is packing day! 

And recovering from our excellent party yesterday!! 

Check out the video miltos and I made: 

http://youtu.be/QjWQX7thspI

I think we will become a good filmmaking team! I enjoy the editing and filming and he is a Johnny Depp in front of the camera. 

Spent the afternoon packing up all my things, it seems one can accumulate a lot of stuff in 10 months! started with two suitcases and now I have probably double that! Most of it is gifts/ new karate clothes/ memorabilia. It's all useful and precious to me! 

I hope this will be the last time I move for a while. It's gonna be expensive if I decide to move back to England!

(Not happening any time soon so we're cool!) 

Jeff's ready for his next new adventure! 

;) 

I'm excited for the next step in my Okinawa life, change is becoming less stressful and anxiety inducing as it was, or maybe I'm just more ready for it! 

I think I'm growing up. 

30th August 2015

Today was the big beach BBQ! 

This day was set to be a really good 'end' to the best summer ever. 

(Except this really isn't the end of summer here. It won't start cooling down until October!) 

This August has been like no other in my life, kicked it off with my first ever proper birthday party (I'll do the video soon!) then we went camping and saw the most incredible stars I've ever seen and slept on the most beautiful beach ever, too and finally we had the best BBQ with karate, hula girls, water balloon fights and lots of food and drink! 

Turns out being 23 really isn't that bad if life's like this ;) 

We are the top chefs, literally the best pineapple in the world.

This right here is how you get sparkly eyes. 

29th August 2015

Today I woke up earlier than yesterday, although not sleeping any earlier (3-3.30am) it seems to be a inbuilt response to karate days, however Sensei left for his trip to Europe this morning so the normal classes won't be happening for a while. However I still wanted to train and not spend the whole day being lazy again so decided with James we would train in the office. 

Started around half 11 and decided after a warm up we would work up through all 18 kata a couple of times each. 

This gave us a pretty good sweat in itself, it's hard and very hot here recently! 

Still- there's a huge reminder why we are training right here! 

Something silly like 56 days until karate day!! 

That would mark my year here too- been incredible and has flown by! 

Then we got talking and as I've said a lot recently I want to try something new to do alongside my karate, I think I have a firm enough base in karate to be able to enjoy and benefit from new stuff. 

So, we decided to work on groundwork mainly judo/ jujitsu style. 

After three hours of training, my minds made up- I so need to learn this more. It was a lot of fun and potentially will just make me that bit more lethal ;) 

Lots of sweating, lots of chokes, lots of locks. I think It would complement my karate perfectly! 

Then downstairs to prep for our giant summer bbq tomorrow! 

There's gonna be a LOT of good food and a lot of fun. 

Finally, my treat of the day. James bought me a sugar cane. 

Gonna spend the night chewing sugar. 

I'm cool like that. 

28th August 2015

Today I didn't wake up until late, but didn't sleep until after 3am. 

Went to fix bilbo, he's the punching bag we kick over and he just bounces back up (and will hit you back if you don't move!)

I read some of Heston's book- it was a introduction into the history of French cuisine and the theme of his first feast. He wanted to turn chicken testicles into a jelly bean! I think it will be a funny book, although it is a little difficult, purely because of my retardedness with reading and seriously thinking about it, I really haven't been reading enough recently! 

Something else to change/ add to the year two list of things to do eh! 

Dad's package came today, this is a very cool tshirt! I love it, and it is very true and very me. 

Then I cooked more scotch eggs for James, seems he doesn't get bored of pies and picnic food! 

There is the most fantastic piece of advice from my Sensei here: 

'Devote yourself to training daily, steady progress and small steps can lead to astonishing results in the long term' 

I think this can be applied to everything in life, and mainly right now I should apply it to karate and trying to learn Japanese. 

It seems so huge and daunting, break it all down- one step at a time. 

The idea of black belt at white belt was just a laughable inconceivable dream.

Four year later, I did it. 

Small steps eh. 

27th August 2015

Today I woke up all tired still because I had a bad nights sleep again what with creepy spider nightmares and it was really warm last night. 

Still, I was happy because I could just wake up and go to karate, off I went where it was just me and Sensei, I like that- quality time together and I get to learn at my level because it is just me. 

We did basics and we did a couple of the Pinan kata and then onto gojushiho and kusanku. 

Then Sensei made me do the bo, he has a new basics routine he wanted me to learn. It was great except my hand aches like anything now. My thumb is getting better but wow at how much it aches. 

Then Sensei invited me into his house, today is the second day of Obon, where the dead ancestors of the family are invited back to visit the family. It's a personal and spiritual custom here. It's a family thing, hence why I am so moved Sensei invited me into his home and to take part in this part of okinawan culture. 

They have a shrine at the top which has all the names of the family members who have passed away. Then there is drinks and food for each family member, incense and candles are lit and everyday for three days breakfast, lunch and dinner is offered. 

I don't think it's really religious, more spiritual. From what I gather it's a Buddhist belief. 

Either way, i think it's a nice way of remembering and respecting lost family members. 

Mrs A. Always feeds me, she knows what I like and don't like,  I love her and Sensei showed me his final plans for his trip. I'll miss him in the next few weeks while he is in Europe- just gonna have to train with James aren't I! I can feel the pain already.

I went to work, where James just keeps talking about the scotch eggs I made last week. I said I couldn't make him any because I didn't have the ingredients- 10 minutes later he comes back with it, hence we have scotch eggs- or rather he has 10 to eat, and now this means training next week will be extra hard!! 

I need some coffee, it's 2 am and I'm still at work! Tired.com let's hope the spiders go away tonight. 

26th August 2015

Today was the last day teaching at school until October. 

It was the speech competition, long story short- my student came 1st, miltos' 2nd and another class got third. 

I'm very proud of my students and their hard work that gave them the results they got, they really earned and deserved those places. 

Miltos and I found a baby:

Look at his cute little chubby cheeks!! 

An evening off work tonight to start packing for house moving next week and to finish my laundry and relax a little. 

Neverending list of things to do! 

25th August 2015

Karate this morning, It's taken over six weeks of trouble with my thumb and it's still far from being back to normal but it's not sticking out (like a sore thumb- spending too much time with James to make jokes like that!!) 

I'm nearly back to making a fist and reintroducing power into my karate. 

My kata almost started to feel as zoned as it was a few weeks ago, it's not just a blur of pain that I can't wait to end. I'm enjoying it again. I think I love it more than before, I'm crazy. 

Then went with James to buy bedsheets at nitori for the new apartment, who knew that shopping for bed linen could be so difficult!

Then lunch and the arcade - funniest quote of the week- James "I'm the second strongest girl in Okinawa!" (With his Happiest face) we were playing a punching game in the arcade- I was the 10th strongest with my right arm! 

Then work tonight, I'm not feeling amazing recently-  so so tired, need some vitamins. 

The night was slow and rubbish until a lady called Grace came, she had no idea what karate was but after talking to her for a hour I discovered she is very rich and is travelling the world trying to find herself and what makes her happy. I told her as long as I have enough money for a house, karate and food that's all I need. She told me I have sparkly eyes filled with happiness and love and wanted to know how I found karate and why  I would leave everything and travel halfway across the world for it. 

I honestly don't know how it all happened, it just did. 

It was all an accident- a beautiful disaster. 

I didn't find it. 

It found me. 

And it was the most incredible thing that could have ever happened. I am so lucky and so happy. 

We went camping!

So the last couple of days we went camping on ike- jima and Nakijin

This place is just beautiful. 

We spent the first night in ike-jima with Pamela from the little Greek kitchen 

I fell asleep in the sun and got quite sunburnt - just one foot and my face and leg and neck- hurt quite a lot though! I'm sure I'll learn next time! 

Small is still quite possibly the cutest. 

We had a fire, and fireworks and lots of vodka and cooked bananas and marshmallows on the fire! 

The next day I woke up to probably the most beautiful thing in the world, I'm a lucky person to be able to live here. 

Then we went to Nakijin: 

It's like there isn't a part of this island that isn't amazing. 

We got suika! Grown in Nakijin and just sooo oisheeeeee! 

Then small found Jeff and decided she loved him too: 

As much as I adore small, she can't have Jeff. She can have Baymax and Jibanya but not Jeff, not yet. 

The place is beautiful, the camping was an experience- can't say I loved it or hated it but seeing the stars in the first night crossed another thing off my bucket list, as did camping. The stars were just incredible- millions of them, no picture could ever show you how beautiful and how many of them there were. 

The next adventure is moving house. 

Life's changing again- change is constant, and not always bad! 

:)