A pickle of oat in the pretty bum

Well, this is the last week I have to spend at work before leaving for the big trip.
Things are veeery calm at the moment. Way too calm, I would say.

This last weekend I visited my family in Debrecen. I especially wanted to visit them before my departure, as grandma does not look good at all. Her condition is getting worse week by week and I am not sure at all that I can see her alive again. I wish I could be there then. Anyhow, half of my mind will be with her during the trip. I love her so much, she is the best grandma one can have - an angel.

This week is dedicated to not leave anything at loose ends and to complete everything for the time when I will (hopefully) return.
Also, I am receiving not only orders but also money for outdoor tabi - so Gem of All Kungfu Masters, if you happen to read this, be prepared for having gotten rid of some tabi, which currently mess up your apartment :)

The current heat-wave is helping me in the preparation process: just like at most places in Europe, it's been terribly hot here int he past two weeks. The temperature is over 35 Celsius and I've just read that in addition a great humidity is just to come in the next few days. Anyway, I take it as a training for the climate in Japan.
This much heat that lasts for such a long time is very strange in this area. But in general, the whole year's weather has been extraordinarily strange in the past 9 months. It went crazy. Last week for example we had days with hails. The hailstones were as big as a cherry and the last one this Saturday lasted for about 20 minutes. It destroyed all the fruits that grandpa had: grape, peach, apple, everything.

As the time of my departure is approaching that pickle of oat is hurting my bum more and more. The more I fly the more I am scared of it. I would feel much safer in a jet plane, really. I hope you guys will recognize my bravery and the sacrifice I bring now: shivering in fear during the whole trip :)) hehehe. I think I'll knock myself out with some natural tranquilizer for a few hours so that I can at least sleep a bit on the plane. But see the good side: I have the highest class insurance, so at least my family gets a nice sum if anything happens :)

*sigh* anyway, enough of rambling, time to go and get the presents for some friends in Japland :)

Sun on the Danube

As you might have noticed lately I don't write too often in my blog. I have a few reasons - mainly that I don't feel too talkative. There's nothing wrong, it's just a time when I feel better staying in quiet and keeping things for myself. It is a kind of verbal solitude if I can't make the physical one this time. One needs some private space for recharging, and it is like that for me now both in private life and in training. But some of you started asking "whazzup" that I don't write, so here is a quick summary of what I'd been up to recently. However, before that, I must mention a name here: Superdan :) u asked me to put you in my blog, so see ur wish come true :) (btw, I did not forget the T-shirt, I've just been too busy to visit that shop, but will do soon! just keep praying! :))) )

Work in the Summer Uni is getting more and more relaxed, the crazy rush that was on at the beginning has almost completely chilled down. Many students and profs came, many already left; there is one more week left but the five of us already had many happy and hectic experiences, and each of us has some temporary or permanent memories of this year's work - gifts (temporary=chocolate, permanent=jewels, photos, etc) we got from our students and faculty.

Last weekend it was my turn to take a group of about 80 by ship to Szentendre, to the "Jewel of Danube".
We left Budapest at 10,30 am, arrived to Szentendre at 12, then I had let them go around on their own until 4, when we met up again at the ship and came back to Budapest, arriving at 17,30.
The trip was smooth, however once I almost got a heart attack when I saw about 10 people sitting on the very back end of the ship, over the safety parapets. I told them to get into the ship immediately unless they wanted to finish the day by getting chopped up by the propeller of the ship, but some of them pretended deaf, so I pulled out the stict Eva-mama side o my personality - that did the job (no, no bruises left). The rest of the trip was fine and everyone enjoeyd the whole day big time.

Thanks to Bobby, we have some great pictures of the trip, some are here below. Thanks Bobby! :)


Our ship, with the Royal Palace in the background, on the Buda side of the city.

"Fruit basket" - Marzipan Museum, Szentendre









"Puppy Dogs" - Marzipan Museum, Szentendre









"Houses of the Hungarian Parliament" - Marzipan Museum, Szentendre









Some guide - no, not marzipan, just plain flesh and bone, Made in Hungary













More pics to come soon...

B-day - Buddha - Boojie

This Saturday was busy, hot and awsome.

I woke up at 5.30 am to catch an early train to Budapest. It was a cruelly early time, especially as I went to bed at 2.00 am the previous night, because I've been searching for the string of my bow for hours, as I was suposed to (among others) supervise some archery on Saturday.
Anyway, I quickly threw in a cup of chocolate milk and was off for the train. 20 minutes train - 15 minutes waiting for the tram - 5 minutes tram ride and I was at the Bus Station to meet Bobby (our intern) who also wanted to come to the Dalai Lama's birthday celbration to the Buddhist Centre at Tar.
We bought the tickets, had a coffee, hopped on the bus and left Budapest. We arrived to Tar around 9.40 am, which was just in time as the event officially started at 10.00 am.

As soon as I arrived the secretary of the Community grabbed me and put some papers in my hands, indicating that I was supposed to give a speach and host the event. Although it's always been like this in the past years, this time I was pretty much surprised as I told them weeks ago that this year I'd prefer to avoid giving any speaches. Anyhow, it seems tho that representative tasks will always be left on me :-))
After the speach there was a one-hour-long ceremony with instruments, which was cool. The only one unpleasant factor was that it was terribly hot and the sun was very strong (the event took place outside, ont he top of a nice hill). After the ceremony was over, it was party-time.

Indian Bharata-Natyam dancers gave a little demo, which was very nice. In the same time at some other places professional masseurs volunteered to give different kinds of massage to those who asked for it (for free). There was thai-, music-, foot-massage, and also shiatsu.

Luckilly some other archers arrived meanwhile and they took care of teaching those who were interested in archery, so I could meet the martial arts guys and discuss the order of their demos. It was a great surprise to hear that some Boojie guys from another city came as well - I have no idea whom they discussed it with, as *I* was supposed to organize the "warriors" for this day and by my latest information they could not accept our invitation. It seems that they changed t=something in the Matrix :)) Although I did not know them, but since I had my gi with me and I felt it would have been a shame not to use this coincidence, I offered my body to them :) only as an uke for their demo of course :)) So I got paired up with their leader, a shodan.
Instead of having lunch we quickly went through the choreography, which was not a big thing, just some warming up and discussing who will do what, but nothing spectacular. When I first did the Gogyo no kata on one of the guys, they asked me if I was a student of Dean :))))) hehe, I took it as a compliment :))))

After then we went down to the bottom of the hill as the crowd was already waiting for us. It was quite hot in the black gear but despite the heat (35 Celsius) at least it was much more comfortable than wearing civil clothing. We started up with two children doing some ukemi, and after then we adults did some more advanced stuff. I had to do the Goho no kata and some play with hanbo. The guy I was paired up with did all sorts of defenses against various knife attack, and also applied some hanbo techniques. It was a big success as by the feedbacks I got later during the day. Both lama's watched it as they never seen this "violent" side of mine, and as far as I noticed my lama kind of liked it. Not that I was violent, but he also has some of this "warrior" aspect in his personality, or at least he can understand the concept of warriorship. When we finished with the demo he told me "They killed you so many times with that knife that I was about complaining and telling your opponent not to kill our girl-friend!"
So I enjoyed "working" with these Boojies, they were cool. Although they belong to another Shihan, still there was something between them and me - a feeling of belonging to the same family. Cool stuff.

There were also some Iaido guys, but I don't know - somehow they were not so convincing to me. Maybe I am too much biased for our sword techniques. I did not see much of the demos of the Kyokushinkai and Wing Chun guys. After having a big bowl of fish soup I had to go to the archers and help them out, as people kept flooding to the archery field. It's good to see how Magyars are still interested in their ancient warrior art.

It was 5 pm when I got so much sunburnt and exhausted that I decided to pack up my stuff, have a cold shower and relax a bit before leaving for home.
I went up to the guesthouse, had the shower, dressed back to civil gear, packed everything and went for finding a car that could have taken us home. We easily found it but the girl who offered her help planned to leave only in the evening, so not having to work the next day, I decided to stay and wait for her. In the meantime some Tibetan refugees asked for volunteers to teach some Tibetan dance at sunset, so I decided to join them. Well it was even more difficult to learn than performing some sophisticated kata. My feet kept fouling and could never catch when to step where. I felt so stupid, but it was a big fun :)) Lama Chopel and his Tibetan master were laughing hard about us :)

Anyway, soon it became 9 pm so we left with the girl. Got home by midnight, and she had to stay for a light late dinner and a coffee so that she would not fell asleep behind the wheel on her way back home.

It was past midnight when I went to bed and was so dead tired and exhausted that I woke up only at 11.00 am on Sunday but only because the dogs were barking too loud. So it was too late to leave for Visegrad to the Medieval Games :(

Anyway, next year, hopefully...

Medieval & Summer

Just a few words about the past one week.

SUN finally started up. Last weeked we did the student registrations at different hotels. I like it big time as this is the first time I can physically meet all those people I've been corresponding with for about 6 months. It's good to see a real flesh-bone individual behind a name. They're usually cool, arriving with overwhelming excitement and enjoying those 1-2 weeks they spend here. I also got to have a nice discussion about spiritual things with our new intern, a Bulgarian college student from Switzerland. First I was a bit hesitant to tell anything specific about my beliefs as I noticed that many people have hard time accepting things which do not fit their conceptions. But she kept asking about things and finally it turned out that she is very open minded and that we share a few interests. All in all, she's cool and in the office she can work like a madman :) she's been a great help for us.

On Monday we held a Welcome Party in a conference center for the newly arrived students and faculty - it was very pleasant. There was a short opening speach and then a Hungarian band gave a taste of some Russian jewish music. Then we all rushed up to the standing reception to stuff our bellies and afterwards it was partytime. The same band made sure we enjoyed the rest of the night. They were awsome. We all danced different folk dances. Since I had four glasses of wine before that, dancing was not a problem for me. Usually it is - Although I am musical, I tend to be shy when it gets to dancing publicly. This is something I brought from my childhood. Anywaz, I don't know how but I got into the middle of a circle and had to show what a Hungarian folkdance is like. It was cool, they all applauded for the rhythm :).
The party was good but too short - it ended at 10 p.m. That night I decided to stay at a colleague of mine as I was too tipsy to take the train alone.
The rest of the week was a bit calmer than before.

This weekend the B-day party of the Dalai Lama will be held in our centre, so I'll go there early Saturday morning to supervise some archery, and be back in the evening.
And then if I will still have some strength, I'll go to Visegrad on Sunday for the international Medieval Palace Games. It is organized every year and is a great success, a very popular event. I love Medieval age with all its arts and culture.

Hungarian horseback archers - I love this kind of warrior guys - they make me melt all-over :) Well, okay, I admit: all old-style warriors do :)

Vital sign

Yeah back again, after some hiatus.
I've been terribly busy in the past few weeks - as a friend says: I've been buzzing like a bee.
Crazyhouse started at work and will be like this until the last week of July. Overtime and overtime and weekend shifts and overtime again - it does not leave too much of spare time in my hands. What is more: it makes the preparation for my next kyu test a real challenge, as I can just only tear myself out from work for trainings. Practising myself solo at home is beyond any possibilites at the moment.
So although I though this upcoming test will be an easy one - I started to entertain doubts about it.

I painfully suck with hanbo, it seems that everything I learnt and new before I forgot by now. I get it in my hands and just can't do anything with it, I feel completely burnt out and clueless. I think it is because I am exhausted but then again the question arises: what kind of knowledge was that which disappeares when one gets tired and exhausted? Very questionable knowledge. Anyway, we'll see what I can bring out from this.


Toshi-san was here again and left a week ago. It seems that it was the last time he could come to Hungary and the last time for us to meet and talk. We went to a Japanese garden on one of the islands in the Duna river in Budapest. I thought I would show it to him and I also wanted to see it again as the last time I saw it was a few years ago. It's however been a great disappointment. It was dirty and dark and it looked like noone really took care of the garden. It's a shame. Toshi-san also shit-scared me while we've been walking in there at night: he pointed at some big dark something in front of us and said: "look, isn't that a dead man?" I made a perfect yoko tobi and then of course we laughed hard, it was funny how I got scared of that big branch that broke off a tree and looked like someone was laying on the ground.
Toshi-san finally left Hungary on Saturday morning, and as I knew it's been the last time we saw each-other, and I had to go to work anyway, we met for a last breakfast in the city centre before he left for the airport. Limited time and knowing that it's the last time we can talk made it really special. It's been always very good to meet and talk to him and I think a cool light friendship has developed between the two of us.
This time I was especially glad as I think I managed to handle the fact of loosing a friend with a good attitude. Instead of the sorrow, I felt happiness over having been able to share many pleasant hours and that we could have great conversations for that short time that life gave for the two of us. It took some work from my side but did worth! I think this is freedom on some way.

Now I am working with full blast at my office so that I can make it to Japan in a month with no unarranged issues behind. Surfing on the net does not really fit in my schedule nowadays, so if I owe you any kind of response in email or any other way: please bear with some more patience, I will write, but a bit later.

Thanks guys, and enjoy the summer!