To all Muslim friends and family

Office Trip 2011

I am very fortunate to be part of yet another annual office trip this year, which means that the firm is doing well. After much debating on the destination this year, it was settled: Gold Coast, Australia! There is not going to be any sun tanning at the beaches though since we are making the trip during winter.

The flight was a good flight. I usually sleep during the flight (or rather, when it is time to..). I managed to watch 2 1/2 movies and do abit of a stretch-about to keep my limbs from seizing up. The weather on the first night was good; cool with slgith breeze. From what the tour leader told us, we would be having dinner at an Asian restaurant. We were under the assumption that she had made reservations at the restaurant as it was quite late unti the night when we arrived at the hotel and we were not entirely sure whether eateries will still be open at that time. Plus she told us that she did some surveying on the day before. We enjoyed the weather and sights until we arrived at the restaurant; it was closed! so we walked around some more until we came to a kebab shop. I felt like having something else then so a colleague and I had some pizza. that was the first night.

The second and third day was taken up by making trips to the Universal Studios' Sea World and Movie World. Below are some of the pictures taken at Sea World.



The fish detectives. No prize guessing who the star of the show is.



My favourite show. I am always amazed to see the dolphins physical prowess and intelligence.

Taking this picture made me feel like diving.

The penguins were most amusing. Marching back and forth.

The lone and contemplating penguin. Looks suicidal almost.

 Pcitures taken at Movie World:


One of the cartoon characters I managed to capture on film. I missed out on alot of the characters because of the time we spent in the queue to watch the stunt show.



The stunt show is a must see if you are going to Movie World. The stuntmen were awesome!

Grand finale.



The fourth day was supposedly an exciting hot air balloon ride trip. I could barely wake up at 4:00am to get ready for pick up at 4:20pm. there were 8 of us that signed up so we were quite excited although groggy. It was very chilly at that time of the morning and the heater was turned on in the van. that with am empty stomach and lack of sleep..not good. The driver told us that the balloon would be launch in one of several sites and the pilot is driving around to see which site would prove to be most conducive for take off. Alas, 45 minutes later at the pit stop we were given the bad news: windspeed of 30-40 knots per hour. During to the unsafe weather conditions, we went back to the hotel to have breakfast at 6:30am. With the trip cancelled, the group decided to join the rest for a shopping trip at a factory outlet shopping mall. And that was the last day.

There were some very good moments during the trip and my friend and I finally found out who those hot sexy ladies wearing little golden shorts are: they are the meter girls! Took a picture with one of them for posterity. Hehehe.

Only thing is, it would have been better if I got managed to train one session at a dojo!



Upgrade

Once again I find myself in Jakarta since the company trip last year. This is around it is for aikido seminar. I had the pleasure of being taken cared of by my Indonesian hosts, who too the time and effort to pick me up from the airport at midnight.

Upon arrival at hotel, I was told that my room had been cancelled! I did not know how my room was cancelled as the booking was made through my Indonesian hosts. So I picked up my book and started my reading whilst the gentlemen tried to resolved the issue with the receptionist. Whilst the resolution was ongoing, I was informed that sometimes the hotels here employ certain tactics to compel the guests to upgrade their rooms thereby generating a little more income for the hotel in the process. Just like my case, single lady, tired and standing at the lobby in the middle of the night.

Suffice to say that with some fanfare the issue was resolved. I ended up getting a suite with no extra costs. For that I am abundantly grateful to my hosts.

I took some pictures of the suite and I must say, it is not too bad at all.

The living area

At the living area leading into the bedroom

Ahh the bedroom. Nice bed but I did not sleep well on the first night.

48 hours

No man is an island
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

-John Donne-

Went for  short trip to my second home over the weekend which I thought would only involve 2 things. Catching up with friends and aikido. It turned out to be much more than that.

I managed to do both but because I only had 48 hours time management was abit of a problem. So on short trips like this I only tell a few of my friends. But then again which is worse, telling your friend but able to meet up or not telling at all and they found out later? It all depends on your discretion and conscience really. Maybe at the very least you should call?

First thing after arriving I went for dinner and a stand up comedy performance by the local up and coming comedian by the name of Kuah Jen Han. He first appeared as Rambo Tan and then by himself in his first solo act. He takes the CinaPek approach and speaking Chinglish. It was a night of laughter as I find myself relating to things Asian, Chinese and Malaysian. It was drinks after and I met a new acquaintance and a good friend whom I met from diving. The acquaintance was occupied with a personal matter. Good friend came over a little later and that is where the fun begins! First of all he commented on my slack in consuming standards but hey, I never did have a chance to practice back home. As the night went on it gets more and more interesting. We spoke about boundaries and innuendos. I don't think I will dwell into my mode of communication but suffice to say that the words "too straight, naive and blur" ruled the night. 

I felt bad for making the same mistake but am glad that the conversation happened. Sometimes it is very important who you interact or choose to surround yourself with. I realized that sad as it may sound, you can only interact with a person only in a confined situation, or specific situation. And yes, I am very glad for that night. Alas, after the analysis and diagnosis it was time to go before I could speak more to my good friend about his happenings in life. Next trip I shall make a better effort. I will call on you when I next come over buddy!

The next day I managed to have a short chat with my SM and caught up with her. Soon it was time for me to get ready to meet up with my aikido friends and off I went. I met another friend who was the taxi driver that SM introduced to bring me around. Very chirpy and friendly Punjabi who spoke fluent Cantonese. 

The afternoon spent with some very good friends in my aikido life followed by an instructive training lesson. I also got a very nice gift: a kuro obi with my grandfather's name on it. I will leave the aikido part for another post. 

For the evening I was supposed to cook dinner and make chocolate fondant for SM but..ahem...that did not happen. I feel very bad about it but then again I can't really do all that much in 48 hours. I should not have been overly ambitious and promised SM. So once more I did not live up to my promise. I shall make it up to her in a few months' time. This time it will be a much longer trip and I will feed her silly! Hehehehe.

Catching up with E over dinner was wonderful. I apparently amused her husband with some of my recent happenings. To his joy he found out that SM is also a Manchester United FC fan and the European Champions finals between Manchester United and Barcelona FC was due to be aired in a few hours' time. I watched it with SM and boy Barca outclassed Man U. Man U just could not keep up with Barca and I felt a lack of spirit among the Man U players as a team. Oh well I only watch soccer once every 4 years and occasionally with SM so I should just congratulate Barca for a winning the championship.

Although the 48 hours were exhausting it ironically injected me with some positive energy. It was because I was around some good people with some really good energy. People who love and people who care. People who take relationships seriously.

Thank you friends for being part of my life. 

A return to my baking days?

I started baking at the age of 15 and stopped after I went to university. From baking I worked on my cooking skills to keep myself properly fed. I don't really like eating out and still don't.

Chocolate pudding/chocolate fondant is one of my favourite desserts. Actually most deserts with chocolate tickles my fancy. Of course that would mean eating out. One day I said to myself, "why do you have to eat out when you can make it yourself?". So I decided that I will start baking again. 

What you see in the picture was my first attempt at making chocolate fondant after a long break. The taste was good but the batter ended up being too thick although I followed the recipe. What was missing was the vanilla ice cream.

My next project is apple pie. I have made the dough which is now chilling in the refrigerator. Will post up pictures of the pie, if it turns out ok. Have a great weekend!

The 7 dollar Dutch butter

The last time I went to Indonesia I was requested to look for a certain Dutch butter which supposedly is top quality and wonderful for baking. I bought a couple according to the picture she showed me but it ended up not being the one that she wanted because the cans I bought were not meant for baking. Oh well, can bake with it but I can still consume it.

Here it is.

The front view.

The content.

I happened to have some chocolate raisin bread in the house so I save myself from having to "kahwin" the bread with another spread. That and a glass of nice cold milk. Nice.

The butter has a strong fragrant and is rich in taste. But somehow it is also telling my heart something too. Hahaha. An enjoyable breakfast :)

Good day everyone!

Seminar by Horii shihan May 2011

I had the opportunity of attending a seminar by Horii shihan again after the first time 2 years ago in Malaysia. I first met sensei in Tanabe in 2008. I was pointed out to sensei by Z sensei who told me to take the opportunity to train with him. Being very much a baby practitioner then I was very shy but when I eventually mustered up the courage to move myself across the mat to be near him, he got "booked" by a regular. Nevertheless, my chance came a year later when Horii sensei took one session at MAA's 15th Anniversary seminar. I wanted to learn more and my chance came when I found out that Horii sensei makes his rounds in Malaysia and Singapore at certain times of every year. 

Although the seminar was only for a day, it was worth the trip. Made some new friends along the way too!

Looking forward to my next seminar in Jakarta!

Take it easy

There are ups and downs in life and right now it is down down down. Maybe I am just being pessimistic because things are not going my way. Being selfish as usual instead of seeing things as they are. Many a times you just have no control over anything because of the timing, persons involved, karma..etc etc etc.

But hey there is light at the end of the tunnel because this weekend I will be travelling somewhere to attend one of my favourite events! I haven't been training as often as I should but I am determined to have a jolly good time!

 In the meantime I will learn from this baby and relax...

Have a good weekend all!

Something interesting today

It has been a rather eventful week before and it looks as if this week will be more "eventful". Training goes on as usual. C took the class tonight and just before class started he was sharing with me something he learnt about executing a yokomenuchi attack. He asked me to execute a yokomenuchi. As I move forward with my tegatana C proceeded to raise his arm straight at me with a fist. I was taken aback and could not finish my attack as I was contrained to block the punch. Hmmmm. So C explained to me why there would be no point in him receive my yokomenuchi. It is the same for katatedori and morotedori. I was in his direct line of attack. That was a good reminder. We explored on this a little bit more after class and N pitched in and we discussed about whether it would make a difference if we it was static compared to irimi-tenkan. It was a good discussion and I realized that we seemed to be doing it abit more after we became yudansha. Truly, this is where we begin to learn about aikido.

Taking C's class is always interesting. He makes the effort to put some life into training (otherwise it is usually very serious and...well serious). I am not saying that he plays around during training but its a different perspective. We paired up for our ukemi and kaiten ukemi practice (which is usually done solo) and that gives us a feel of taking ukemi with a partner. Doing ukemi on your own is good but I feel that at some stage you will need to "feel" the taking of ukemi. 

We first trained generally with our kyu partners on shomenuchi dai nikkyo. J was a little stiff which makes him more prone to kuzushi than others. I am probably not articulating this properly but i hope you get what I mean. As for S, he was abit tense which made it difficult for him to taken ukemi in urawaza. He seemed to be in great fear of the arm lock as it would end up being very very stiff. I would ask him to relax him arm and let fall as if it was asleep. I never imagined me telling others to relax because I used to get that alot from most senseis. Hahaha.

We did some techniques with dual attacks. Firstly katatedori with shomenuchi and secondly katadori with shomenuchi. Moving from dealing with just one attack to two made me a little unsure and haphazard. It is new to me so I have to make sure we practice practice and practice. As I practice I realized that I can now better relate to blending and kuzushi. The need to recover your balance is indeed very important (it is an interactive endeavour after all). Sometimes I wonder at what point is it that you submit to the technique? Do you keep coming back up until there is absolutely no way to or do you discern for yourself whether it is practical for you to do so?

Maybe we will discuss that at our next training session. 

It was a good tiring session and I am off to bed once I get some nom nom to satisfy my wailing stomach. Good night!

Please don't fall!

Sensei is back in action! With his knee heavily wrapped and guarded he went on the mat to conduct the class. I was abit worried at first but after seeing his first few moves I realized that I was overly concerned and he knew his physical level more than I do!

The kyu students practiced on shomenuchi kotegaeshi while N, C and I worked on some other techniques. We started with ushiro kubishime dai sankyo. One of the things we were asked to take note is to be aware of the space that we occupy during training. Although we are blessed with rather generous mat space (not due to the size of the dojo but the number of students hehehe) that does not mean that we can move wherever we want. It is part of dojo etiquette to be considerate of our fellows' space so that we can train safely. Into the second set of the technique I felt that something was wrong. It did not have that many movements... Ah. I did not pay attention to maai when I came out of the grip hence I could not continue with hanmi tenkan when applying sankyo. Check.

Next technique was hanmi handachi ushiro ryokatadori dai yonkyo. I felt very strange in my movements considering the fact that the uke is now so much taller than me. I had a lot of trouble executing kuzushi on the uke and many a times find myself stuck in a position, feeling very vulnerable. Sensei had us continue our training in tate and explained the mechanics to us and pointing out the differences when doing the same technique in hanmi handachi. All I can say is I suck in execution of of tachiwaza too!

Whilst waiting for my turn to train with my group (we were training in 3's) I noticed one student in the kyu group looking at our training and mimicking our movements. He is a newcomer and appeared to be quite an enthusiastic student considering the fact that he lives in Tutong (40 minutes from dojo) and chose not to join another dojo situated in Tutong. I checked on him a few more times and noticed that he pays more attention to our training than his own. This is another topic of discussion in training which I may go into later. After all this is the first time I see him doing this so I will just observe a few more times before I make any comments.

Sensei shouted "Yame!" and we all lined up. Instead of ending the class he called the kyu students to come forward for a mock examination. You can see nervousness manifesting visibly in their performance which would have been otherwise quite relaxed. Many things were forgotten and movements became more abrupt and mechanical. After the mock test sensei decided that he will also have a go with the yudansha. When C was asked to call his uke, I heard my name and my first reaction was "uh-oh...will I be able to stand up?" Moving forward in shikko had never felt so difficult and when the first technique called is shomenuchi iriminage, I can only hope that my legs will move the way I want them to. Sensei decided to see iriminage executed with different attacks. Ah. I am done for. Somehow I managed to blend in with C and didn't collaspe halfway like a ton of bricks. I was tested as well. It was the exam jitters for all of us!

Sensei gave his comments on our performance in the mock exams and also reiterated the etiquette aspect in the dojo. Before class ended I requested to make a couple of announcements. One of which is concerning sensei's resignation as a member of the technical committee. In my capacity as the Secretary General and on behalf of the federation expressed regret over the resignation followed by a formal speech.

On a personal note I am very sad that sensei has resigned. I took note of his reasons and I think that I would never be able to relate to his situation unless I am in it myself. We all know that his post is not easy. Even for myself I discover new challenges at every turn of my job in the committee. Sensei was one of the pioneer members in Brunei aikido even before the federation was formed. He worked very hard and dedicated much of his time in aikido. He will be sorely missed and I hope that he will continue his post as an instructor as he is currently the only active instructor and the highest ranking aikido practitioner in the country.

Well, the training goes on!