Garth

Still haven't had time to put together a real comprehensive post on my trip, but to tide you all over here's a couple of videos of me at the tournament:

My match from the men's team randori event:


The freestyle kata I did with Ash:


I don't think there's any video of my individual randori match, or my koryu dai san suwari waza with Aaron from the kongodantaisen.

I lost all of my matches, ate some good food and some terrible food, drank way too much beer, saw Nijo castle and the Heian Imperial Palace as well as several temples and shrines, and generally had a blast. I will be back.

More substantive posts (with photos!) to come.

Now, to bed. It's good to be home.

All right! Finally, my Kyoto trip is all booked and ready. Got my hotel for the last few days there, a tour for one of those days, and the shuttle to take me to and from the airport. (The hotel for most of the trip was booked ages ago, and the plane tickets and associated misadventures have been documented in previous entries).

Once again, I nearly gave myself a heart attack. When making sure that the stay dates would all line up (since, as nice as Kyoto is supposed to be, I think sleeping on the sidewalk would be none too comfortable), I noticed that the ticket to get back was for a flight leaving on the afternoon of Sunday the 27th and arriving at 11 in the morning. "Oh fuck," thought I, "I thought I was getting back on Sunday! I'm already using up all of my PTO as it is. Shit shit shit!"

So I ended up calling United and, after battling their goddamned speech "recognition" maze until I was about ready to throw the phone through my monitor, managed to get connected to an actual human, who told me that yes, the plane leaves on the 27th, but yes, it also arrives on the 27th. I then realized that I'd totally forgotten about the International Date Line, and felt like a moron. On the plus side, that means I have one more full day to spend in Kyoto. And I'm very glad I found this out before confirming my hotel reservation (doubly so when it turned out that getting the room for one more day actually lowered the rate by a good amount).

So, in short, boo-fuckin'-yah

No, I don't have my tickets! Apparently my card number is not clearing, so they've got the tickets on reserve until I clear that up. Considering that this card is my fucking ATM card, and I know I have enough in my account to cover the expense, I am fucking pissed.

So, I leave tomorrow. Anybody out there interested in dropping by the tournament? It's the 17th through the 19th.

Still have to write the essay for my black belt test (stupid written portion!). Bleah.