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09/10/2012pm

I had a busy weekend chasing the Noda Danjiri around Kumatori with the kids, and dispite saying I wouldn't carry Colin around again, I did, and boy are my legs not letting me forget it either. The kids had a great time though, and after seeing my local pysiotherapist my legs aren't hurting too much now, so all in all, a fine weekend was had by all. Also got back on my longboard this morning, up at Tsubasagaoka and managed to improve a little bit.



This summer we went on a day trip to Kataonami beach in Wakayama...



...and we also went to Hidakagawa river in Wakayama with the Hatton and Minami families. I especially liked this because myself and Russ swam up the river a bit, and did some diving, great fun! I'd like to go at least a couple of times next year!!



My brother and his wife - Jim and Linda, visited us as part of their honeymoon in September as well!



I forgot to mention in my last post that my Kung Fu Fitness class is performing a routine for the Kumatori festival on November 3rd, so I've got my work cut out trying to memorise the moves and get up to everyone elses standard, but I'm not too bad now, fingers crossed!

Today Naoko and I also bought a second hand zoom lens for our SLR camera, so we'll be able to take better close up pictures at our events!

11/07/2012pm

Whoa, it's been a whirl-wind couple of months. First, Sean crashed the party on the 15th of May, shortly thereafter I tore a shoulder muscle boarding, stopping me from doing much sport. Next, I finally bought a new PC for my classroom, as my old one was getting a bit slow, only for my webcam streaming software to intermittently fail. I've now wired the webcam directly to the reception PC to avoid the problem, which also gives a slightly sharper picture.




Then, I made the mistake of going to Costco to buy some food and drink for our summer BBQ. I say mistake, because I quite often buy something big and not inexpensive when I go, and this time was no exception! I resisted the temptation of buying a huge castle/slide/swing set, but couldn't resist a slighlty smaller wooden play house, which took me a couple of days to put together.



My shoulder is OK for swimming and climbing at last, and I'm now progressing to toe-side slides on my board, now my heel-sides are not bad. Here's another cool longboarding vid of what I'm aiming to do eventually

    

06/05/2012pm

It's been a busy but good holiday for the last week. Busy because I've spent a lot of it helping Naoko decide what new bike to buy (her first decent bike!), then after buying it, fitting a home-made bike seat, a front rack and basket, a kick stand and super sleek mud guards from wiggle. I also fixed an issue with the front derailleur cable route which the shop we bought it from didn't spot! I've also been attacking the garden once again with a pick axe, sand and fertilizer! Good though, because I like bikes and because I bought some new grippy shoes to ride my longboard, and I stuck some grippy grip tape to the board. I just know I'm going to be getting some longer slides in now I'm going to have better grip!

I also took the kids hiking as well as boarding a few times. However, for hiking this time I had the kids attached to me so I didn't have to worry about them falling off the mountain, and I had a mountaineering axe just in case ...

The kids and I have had some fun this week, but they are starting the wear me down a bit so I'm relived they're back to school/nursery from tomorrow, phew!

08/04/2012pm

This week has been very busy, as we've started 2 new classes this month, and have had several new students filling up existing classes as well. So we now have 100 students and are very close to being full!

I also made some new teaching materials for the kids classes during my 'holiday' last week, including some pokemon/digimon reward cards, to encourage the kids to do extra homework. The kids certainly enjoyed getting them this week, and my kids are demanding to do extra homework now, so hopefully my other students will too!!

When I've not been getting ready for classes or making new materials I've been boarding in the mornings and I also started a Kung Fu fitness club last week. It's basically Kung Fu without any sparring. It's great core muscel building exercise and just looks really cool too!

Took the kids skateboarding as per usual this morning, and there were four chaps free-boarding on the same patch of road. Free-boards are much easier to slide than my longboard as the extra set of wheels in the centre of the board swivel and are further away from the board than the regular skateboard wheels. This means that when you turn quickly only 2 of the skateboard wheels are in contact with the ground, skidding. As they're much easier to slide it makes free boarding much closer to snowboarding than longboarding which is cool. I might end up buying one for the kids and me to play on in the future, but I'll stick with my Loaded Dervish for the mo, as my sliding is improving nicely...

We also went for an impromtu walk in the mountains yesterday after one of my adult students recommended the local dam for a walk, as the cherry blossom trees are in bloom. Ended up going for a bit of a hike too, which was a bit scary with the kids, as there were steep drops everywhere. They are insisting on going again though as they really enjoyed it, so I'm going to tether them to me next time!

21/03/2012pm

At the end of last month I took all the family to a ski resort. I went snowboarding whilst Yuki and Leon went skiing. Naoko got the seemingly less fun job of looking after Colin in the childrens snow play area. However, he was really cute and funny on his sledge so it was quite entertaining. We went with another family whose son I teach with Yuki, thanks again for the pictures Yasuno. We went to Imajyo365 which is quite a small resort, but only 3 or 4 hours drive away and with the parking area right next to the ski lifts so it's very convenient.

I'm still getting better at longboarding, and am continuing to take the kids skateboarding once a week. I took the kids skateboarding yesterday as it was rainy on Sunday. Yuki's finally enjoying it, I had to force her to board to start with, but now she's getting more confident she's started having fun which is great to see.

The link below to Danny MacAskill's MTB video I keep seeing on our cable TV, and it's inspired me to have another go at the bike tricks I never managed to do when I was a kid. Managed my first ever bunny hop on Saturday! Now I need to practice getting higher off the ground, and improving my stoppies and wheelies :o) Wish I'd seen something like this when I was younger, still, better late than never...

10/02/2012pm

Since getting back from the UK I've been trying to devote more time to the kids on Sundays. I now drive them into the mountains (I usually cycle by myself) to where I've found a safe spot for them to practice skateboarding. It's also a good spot for me to practice as I can head up a steeper road whilst still keeping them within eyesight. So I can finally give them a bit of coaching and leave them to practice without getting bored stupid

Then last week I decided they were old enough to start running a little more seriously so I took them for a short jog round the park. Then it's lunch, followed by English and climbing our wall, if we don't do any shopping! I've actually had a annoying virus since I got back from the UK, which left me a bit devoid of energy, so I haven't been doing that much exercise. It seems to be going at last as I had a much better swim this week, so I'm hoping to get more cycling, swimming and boarding in from next week. I also started badminton again last week, and am hoping to start doing a bit more running too! I'll be taking it slowly though, as I'm determined not to injure myself! Fingers crossed!!!

02/02/2012pm

It's been a busy few months, hence the lack of updates, sorry!
Both the Halloween and Christmas parties went well and we saw a few new faces at the Christmas Pool Night which was cool. Naoko took a lot more photos this time to try and get some good pictures of everyone, and I've posted some of them up in the Photos Section. Then just 3 days after the last party we were off to the UK for 10 days!

The first main stop was Salisbury, where we spent almost a week staying with my brother and his finacee, Jim and Linda. My parents turned up for a few days and we had a tastey roast dinner with Christmas pudding for dessert. The kids were happy with their numerous presents, apart from Colin, as Leon got a plane and he didn't. So we ended up going shopping to get Colin a plane too to stop the arguing!

We did a bit of shopping as well whilst we were in Salisbury, there was a great kitchenware shop we bought lots from, and finally I got to eat a Cornish Pasty at long last! Whilst we were out shopping Jim did a great job of carrying Colin around, then in the evenings we watched a DVD which was great. The walk into Salisbury Town centre was nice too, through a park and along a canal.

One evening before my parents left we went for a nice walk around a huge park too. That's one of the big differences bewteen the UK and Japan, there's a lot more space and parks.We also met up briefly with a couple of ex-house mates of mine Gaz and Si. We met Gaz at a pub for lunch, then went to Si and Eva's place later where we had a nice chat, and all the kids did a show for us!

Still whilst staying at Jim's place we took a day trip down to Weymouth where I used to live for about 5 years. On the way we stopped off at Ian's place, my boss from my first job. We (mostly me!) got stuffed with lots of tastey Christmas Cake, thanks again Lisa! Ian also took us out into his enormous garden to show the kids his chickens! We went into Weymouth down White Horse Hill, and you can see the horse on the hill in the first photo below.

Once in Weymouth we met us with Gaz and his family again, his partner Katalin, and their cute little'un Thomas. Naoko and I had a pea fritter and chips for lunch, whilst the kids had fish and chips (again!). We then went for a walk along the beach and harbour, then quickly retreated to a pub. Gaz and I played pool and table footy, whilst the kids had fun in the play/climbing area. Then it was back to Gaz's place for a big snack followed by a game of hungry hippos! Reluctantly we had to leave to get back to Jim's place for bed time.

The next day we got up bright and early to head back to London! We'd booked a hotel in Shepherds Bush where I lived for a few years, but it's not the best part of London to be honest so won't stay there again next time we visit. Still, the hotel was OK and it's a good spot to head into London from. We did a fair bit of shopping, I finally found a jacket I liked, and luckily it was well priced too! We visited the National History museum, mostly to see the dinosaurs, and we also met up with a bunch of friends at Kew Gardens, which I highly recommend. We used to be members and visited it a few times a year after we moved to Ealing. We popped there on New Year's Day, the day before we headed back to Japan. We didn't do much on New Year's Eve because of the kids, but even in the early evening there were lots of drunk noisey people about, and police were flying about trying to stop trouble!

And that was about it, got up very early the next day to get to the airport, which turned out to be a very good idea as check-in was very busy, but we got through in plenty of time.

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