How ironic, I went to sleep with the impression that we’d adapted our biorythm. But we both woke up very LATE, with a headache and I had had a bad dream on top of it. Our plan was to go to Asakusa, so we did, but we first had a LATE breakfast.

We where going to the station and came upon the luminous idear to go by the one hundred yen shop. Because a visit to Japan is not complete without a visit to the one hundred yen shop and there is one very close by, at the station square right across the main street from where we are staying in the ryokan. So we lost some time here too.

When we bought our ticket we couldn’t enter the metro with it, so we went back to the ticket office. There we waited in a suddenly sprouted meandering line in front of the desk for ten minutes, before we realised that it was not the ticket that was the problem but we had tried to enter the wrong metro.

In Asakusa itself, we first had a snack,… My advice for you: NEVER go to eat in a Kentucky Fried Chiken (KFC), for you’ll get a measy little portion with the cheapest quality of ingredients for way too many yens! I was disapointed a little that I had made a bad judgement. Tamou, Tamou, you know the advertisement pictures are bollocks! I’m beginning to feel like Obelix who thinks with his stomach instead of his head, hahaha!

The temple complex itself is not hard to find, but we didn’t find it instantly, it takes some time before you can orientate yourself. Best is to do this before you walk down a street. When we arived at the Temple, there’s a whole alley towards the entrance that is literally paved with shops. All very close next to eachother. These shops are stuffed to the sealing with prullaria and paraphernalia of every kind. It seemed to me they had not thousands but millions of items all arranged in a way that you can see them. T-shirts, kimono’s, fake and qitch stuff like medals and statues, little keychains and sweets to name just a few.

Don’t get tempted too much. Because you’ll linger the whole hundred yards and be LATE for the temple, like us. Most temples close at four, that’s something we learned the hard way. The only thing still open were the drawers on the both sides of the entrance compound. You should take a waiver out of one of these drawers (after you deposited 100 yen in a box) and it’ll tell you wheter you have bad luck or good luck. If you have bad luck, you must fold the waiver and bind it to a rack next to the drawers, so that your bad luck can get blown away by the wind. We asked someone to transLATE our waivers and apparently we had the BEST OF LUCK you can draw from these boxes.

After some lingering and taking pictures of the surrounding statues we headed back for the busy streets. Determined on finding empty Kakejiku (for which we are searching for a few days now) we went into the information office. The two ladies there put soo much effort into it that they came up with not only one, but three different adresses where we could buy them. Time eliminated our choises as only the shopping center was still open. We got to the seventh floor but after asking it turned out that they didn’t sell any, we bought some paper instead.

Hunger was setting in so we decided on having a quick go in between in a conveyor belt sushi shop. Japanese style fast food. We took the next train and were running LATE, first we thought ten minutes, but it turned out to be a half an hour. We didn’t want to make a bad impression by being LATE for a training with Soke, so we regretfully and shamefully decided to turn around when we were suppose to transfer in Kashiwa.

We felt the full weight of gravity when we were fully realising that we had been running LATE the whole day. What an irony, even with the best of luck we could only blame ourselves for this lost day.

Today we had planned to pay a visit to the town of Kamakura and training with Senou Sensei, but we were so tired that we slept very long and didn’t get up until noon. Thanks to that however I’m feeling a bit better and my system is beginning to adjust. We took a shower and had sushi for breakfast.

Then we headed for Suidobashi instead. There, we heared, were a couple of good martial arts shops. Well, we found two of them. In the first I bought a straigth bokken, in the second there were a lot of other nice things which we couldn’t afford, hehehe.

It’s really easy to underestimate the time you are underway in Tokyo, as we found out when we tried to make it to Duncan’s on sunday. So this time we really calculated more traveling time to get somewhere.

We left Suidobashi at around half past four to make it all the way to Kita-Matsudo. When we arrived at the station it was quarter past six. So we thought we had plenty of time to search for Senou’s dojo. We stopped by a supermarket to buy something to drink and we went straight onto the main road and looked for any markers that where advertised on the little map. We had a map with the dojo on it but apparently we still had difficulties with locating it. We went way past the street where we were suppose to turn in and ended up some two kilometers uphill in a strange parking lot and cosy Japanese homes around it.

In a spur of anger and frustration we headed back to the station.  Ofcourse still searching for the right street to take. We eventually found it pretty close by the station and we were still on time to enjoy a nice training.

Training went on until nine and one minute. We left for home at around nine twenty and got there around half past eleven. So you see, don’t underestimate the traveling time if you have to find your way. Once you know your way, it takes a little bit less, but still.

We crashed instead of eating something, but we weren’t actually hungry.

We got up too late (eight thirty) and had to skip breakfast because of it. The first train would leave at nine thirteen and we had to hurry to make it to the training on time. We were running late and we missed the first train. Because of this we had some six minutes to get our transfer in Kashiwa, we used this time to search for a bakery and boy oh boy, what wonders will a little Japanese do for you! It’s actually very simple if you know the very basic structure of asking a question.: “ …….. wa dokko desu ka?”  fill in anything you’re looking for and you’ll get a simple answer to a simple question: “bakery where is?”  no, this is not a typo, this is the simple Japanese grammatical structure. The bakery in question is a big chain of shops and they sell all kinds of sweets, bread and nearly any other imaginable eatable thing that is made with flower.

Don’t eat on the train, actually, don’t eat anywhere in public! It’s considered rude,…but we had no choise. My stomach was already aching and my system drained from minerals and fluids after many visits to the little room, so it was time we had a decent breakfast, so we did. In Belgium we have this nice saying: “nood breekt wet” which translates aproximately like: in war and love, anything is allowed. If you keep it clean, nobody will notice but if you make a mess, people will eyeball you to death!

The dojo is not very far away from the station, so we made a little run for it. This was going to be a fat training, Soke was coming! There already were about sixty or seventy people inside, so we had to squise in a little bit. But the real fun here starts when they’re beginning to swing around with swords and bo’s!!!

When you go to train in Japan, you get to train with the very best shihan. These shihan are very good and skilled people. Not only that, they are evolved enough to get you to a higher level at a fast pace. It’s helpfull to ask yourself some basic questions and to reflect upon your experiences. This will improve your training and keep you grounded (in the sense of being in touch with common sense or you’ll get too carried away) It will change the way you percieve the teachings. Because we’re not studying merely techniques, these thechniques are just a means to get to the core of our existence.

As he transmits his kuden, Soke brings you in contact with this higher realm; the unspeakable and unexplainable. You are there in honbu, but at the same time, you’re somewhere else, at least: I am. Soke’s words are striking a chord with my thoughts. It’s a kind of being in synch with the universe. Distance, timing and rythm fall into place and you are moving like zero.

We have to learn how to forget, learn to get rid of things. You could think of yourself as a rocket, the more fuel you burn the more velocity you get and ultimatly being empty, reaching heaven where you are free of up or down, and left or right does not exist and is all a matter of interpretation what (your) direction is. But what goes up, can come down and that’s why basics are so important, before flying, you should first learn how to rol and breakfalling properly, hehehe

After a wonderfull experience with Soke, we had the honour of watching a vistior perform his arts of the ‘flying top’, as usual a picture is worth a thousand words, so imagine what this following video is worth!
open source video, online video platform, video streaming, video solutions

After training we roamed the neighbourhood and enjoyed the rest of our croissants and sweets in the afternoon sun. It kind of struck us how aware Japanese people are of their environment. The lids of manholes (sewer) are beautifully decorated with various nature themes, concrete buildings and steel structures blend in with nature without surpressing it. The streets are generally very clean and we even saw someone vacuuming the street. You don’t find any garbage bins however. The vendingmachines have a recycling bin next to it, but these are specifically meant for can’s.

After a long journey back, we realised we were not going to make it to Duncan Stewart’s training. We did make it to the sento however! A surprise awaited us when we got ‘home’. Mama San gave us two free tickets for the sento right down the street and her husband gave us a good tip on where to eat sushi! How about that for devine intervention?!

We got up  early, meditated and hit the shower, we wanted to make for noda and find some breakfast there. We bought some ‘Anman’ kind of bread with soya bean paste stuffing inside.
Not bad but not really substantial enough to last two trainings. That’s one of the factors that let us to decide we would skip the second training and go for some shopping and lunch closeby.

We came by the tabi shop and bought us some tabi-socks. They had all kind of sizes indoor and outdoor tabi, socks, kyahan, teko and paraphernalia. Then we let our stomach guide us and magically we suddenly found ourselves in front of soke’s old residence. He himself lives in the countryside now. As we walked on, we came to a little dining and we couldn’t figure out if it was closed or open, because there was only a sign in Kanji.

Don’t just walk in anywhere, because many shopowners will leave their door unlocked while they are actually taking a break. They won’t tell you they are closed but you’ll notice when you’re staring at the prularia and suddenly the lights go on and you realise that it indeed was kind of dark inside,… awkward to say the least.

While we tried to prevent another one of these mishaps, someone finallay came out so we could safely enter the dining and have some nice dish. I took noodlesoup like usual and Diana took a rice dish.

After a nice meal we headed back for the station and came across a little shop with a little older woman inside. She was on to us; when we looked in, she stood up and opened the door and invited us in. We couldn’t decline. We even felt obliged to buy a little something and we did. Then she revealed that she was actually a kunoichi by identifying us as students of Hatsumi. She explained that Budo is not only about the body but moreover about the kokoro (heart). This experience shows how intricate things are connected through and with and around the theme of the year, (Seinô, Tamashii, & Utsuwa)

Then we headed for the ryokan, but while transferring at Kashiwa station we decided to take a look around. This led us to the kashiwa hotel where I stayed last time. Then we wondered if our fellow buyu from Ghent would be interrested in going for a drink, since we didn’t see them on training. (they had a hangover)

After a short meeting in starbucks café at kashiwa plaza, we headed back to the ryokan and were planning on doing a laundry and visiting the sento hot-tub, but we underestimated the jet-lagging AGAIN and fell sound asleep and woke up at twelve,…

AGAIN we had to scramble for food in the stupid udon shop. Okay we did first search around for something better, but ended up asking for a vegetarian dish in “the pork shop”! So no more subtle little hints for us this late at night I guess. We where at the WRONG place, at the WRONG time. Hellooo! Could it get any more obvious than this!?

Hopefully there’s going to be a better devine intervention tomorrow. Concerning food as well as the sento. After a whole lot a hassle with uploading today’s photo’s onto flickr and writing this blog-entry; it’s five-thirty in the morning. We’re going to sleep now.

After an exhausting trip we finally made it to the ryokan, that’s a traditional Japanese ‘inn’. We made this choise very consciously because we really wanted to save some money and we both don’t like big hotels with lots of rooms that are too small to turn your arse.

Persides; a hotel has some very fundamental drawbacks with which you must recon, like there is a closing of the doors after a certain hour. Our ryokan doesn’t, which makes it perfect for the jetlagging experiences.

At a ryokan the ‘rules’ are basicly like they are at a family home. At the entrance hall you will find shoes at the side and on the higher leveled floor, house slippers. When you are welcomed by the lady of the house, please be nice and don’t turn your back to her while you take off your shoes. After you’ve put on some slippers you will be led to your room to be explained about the workings of the house.

Basic things to remember are; be carefull with your luggage when moving about; most walls are finished with paper which makes them easily damaged by hard things like your luggage or wet hands etc. In your room the floor is made out of tatami, which means you will need to leave your house slippers outside your door and don’t drag any luggage over the tatami.

First thing we did when we settled in at two a’clock, was sleeping. We planned to go to the sunto later on but we woke up at nine, too late to go out and search for one. Bummer!

We hit the shower and finally left for some food rampage at half past eleven. We found a little noodle-bar on the main street that was still open. They have a machine with all kinds of choices but since we’re veggy we didn’t want to take any chances and asked politely if there was any NIKU in it. (meat)

It’s sure a VERY neccesary thing to at least know some hiragana, this will allow you to read some basic information that can heed you from disaster.

There is also a special thing called the syncronous flow of alternate energy information wich you can pick up with your internal radar. You can call it intuition, coïncidence, god’s favors or whatever you like, but it comes down to be open enough to allow for it to guide you and you don’t have to ask yourself too much questions about it. Just being aware of this flow of things brings you the things you need when they are required or when they are bound to happen.

These experiences can range from anything like finding your way trough the city or stumbling on the right kind of cable for the adapter which is hidden away in a cupbord under the tv set. Thanks to this we could charge the computer so we could post to our blog.

Then we went to sleep for the first night on a futon.

About an hour before landing you get some papers to fill out on the plane. These are for customs so make sure you fill them out totally and correctly. In order to do this keep at close hand the address where you will be staying during your trip, your passport (you will need the number which is writtin on the first page; usually starting with EE or EG), you flight info; both coming and going.

When you’ve done this correctly you’ll have no problem going through both check points. First you’ll have to show everything to an immigration officer who will ask you to put your 2 index fingers on a scanner and pose for a picture which will ingeniously be cross checked with the digital version of your (chipped) passport.

After that you can go to the luggage pick up point to wait for your bags. Then you need the pass the last control point; customs. Kindly present your passport and filled in papers and put your bag on the table. Don’t start trying out your Japanese just yet, because they’ll start asking questions in Japanese to you! Your bags are likely to be searched, but just lightly. And you’ll have to answer to some regullar questions. Don’t mention Bujinkan if possible, it’s a not needed attention! If you bring soft weapons and they ask what they are for; stick to popular answers like Kendo or so, just to avoid suspicion.

Coming out the controlled area, you’ll find closeby a bank where you can still change cash if you want. Then it’s straight on to transportation.
Busses are right outside and an escalator will bring you to a lower level for trains.

You’ll find several ticketing machines there, go to the lovely pink one for a pasmo card! Click Pasmo card, then English, and go for the nameless card. Choose the amount you wish to credit it with, (start out with 10.000 yen for instance) it will deduct 500 yen as a deposit (which you will receive back when you deliver back the card). The card you get can be used on most lines (JR Lines, Tokyo metro, private rail roads and more) AND it can be used like a proton, for buying things in little shops like drinks and the paper or whatever. When you top of the card entering, transfering and exiting, the machine will show you the amount deducted and left on your card (you can always check it on the machines too), when your credit is low, you can easily add credit on the machines).

Okay ready to go now; tap your card on the blue area saying Pasmo/Suica (Don’t try to put it IN the machine like a credit card unless you wish to be the laughing stock of the controller! hehehe) and you can go through to the trains.

Off you are to the center of Tokyo. The Keisei line (which is a private rail road) will bring you to Nippori and Ueno, which are stops on the circle line of central Tokyo, the Yamanote line. Don’t wurry about the language here, above the doors there’s a display saying at which station the train will stop next, and the conductor will also regularly pronounce it in English, expecially for the majour stops like Nippori and Ueno.

When you need to transfer to another line, be sure to tap your card at the transfer gates to have the right amount calculated for you! If this doesn’t work, hand your card over to the controller at a desk at the gates and he will make the transfer work for you! Don’t just go through or exit and re-enter, as this will result in wrong calculations of your total trip fee, which will not be for the benefit of you.

Smartest thing is to just go to your hotel/ryokan and check in, have an easy rest and shower and then go out to eat something in the neighbourhood. But don’t sleep too long, so your biorythm can adjust properly AND so there will still be places open for you to go eat.

This is what you hear when a train is approaching. Trains arrive at intervals of about one minute or less.

When everything is set and done there’s nothing left but leaving. But leaving everything behind is not always a pleasant thing to do. And also for the ones you leave behind, even though they know you’re coming back it seems as it is going to be forever. Which it isn’t.

You have to make sure that you’ve had a decent meal the night before and enough sleep so you can start this journey fresh. If you can, then it would be wise to have a warm breakfast. This will give you enough energy and you will last longer against the stress of traveling.

And believe me, you will need it because first you’ll be spending an hour and a half on the TGV. Wich is pretty fast. Threehundred kilometers an hour approximately. After that you’ll need to get to the check-in counter and through customs, this takes not so long if your luggage is not too heavy or doesn’t contain a bomb.

Now those not having had a decent breakfast will be getting hungry at this point and you might spend a lot of money on sandwiches that cost you a fortune because you’re still an hour or two away from your first meal on the plane!

The flight itself goes fast forward. We’re flying against the sun so it’s rapidly going dark. This night is swiftly folllowed up by day after four hours more. You have a range of movies and games to choose from the menu and I’ve just finished watching the film Largo Winch,… what a watered down plot from the story in the comic book.

After a visit to the toilet you must try to sleep a bit, because it will be morning when you land in Tokyo. Ofcourse this only applies when your flight leaves Paris around noon. Ofcourse, if you’re like me, you don’t get to sleep. It just won’t happen even if you have earplugs and an eye mask.

If you plan on taking a sleeping pill, then don’t eat! Because your meal has to be digested and your system is shut down by that pill, so if you do eat  you will get sick from food that is laying on your stomach. So eat well before or after you have slept. Then as you wake up, you’ll be starving for food, without the possibility to eat right up until you reach your hotel and have stuffed away your luggage, which is still a half a day away, hehehe,…

So I was smart not to sleep, this will only upset your internal biorithm but that is less of an inconvenience I think.

Meals on the plane are ok, you have a choise between meat, fish or veggy. You make this choice when you book your ticket. Attention!: the noodles soup contains chicken bouillon, so those are not veggy unfortunately. You’ll be getting a second meal (breakfast) but this won’t be elaborate so don’t get your hopes up.

Keep the water from your meals even if you don’t drink it imediatly, because it’s good to hydrate your body with fluids.

Don’t get bored, talk to your neighbour or watch a movie. Also take short pauzes in wich you stroll around in the pathway; this will ease your muscle-aches and prevent your blood from clogging. In an extreme case this could lead to a trombosis, even wéll after the flight.