I have a plan for the training that I want to do whilst over here. So far I’ve done some of what I wanted to do and the rest of the time I’ve been well, making it up as I go. There were way more people in the dojo this morning and it was good to see people as they arrived and shared their travel exploits.

It’s a bank holiday here today (Monday) so there are loads of people around Naha and so after training DJ (Australia) and I headed to the fish market, upstairs where we ordered no fish at all! This was the first time that I’ve had Goya Champuru on this trip, I literally love this stuff, which someone commented ‘you know you have been here too many times when you start to enjoy goya’. Personally, from the first time I had it I’ve loved it! I grew up hating my veg at dinner, now I am a connoisseur of goya, go figure!

After lunch we headed to Shureido completely forgetting that it was a Bank Holiday so of course it was closed…then, after finding where one of my colleagues was staying so I can bring him there tomorrow,  it was back to get some shut eye before training. I could sense that something was up as I started to go up to the dojo, the sounds of voices drifted down to me…it was odd to see everyone outside. Turns out the lock was broken and no amount of fiddling with it would get it open, which to be honest was a good thing, because if we got it open, there was no guarantee that we were going to get it closed again. That said I can’t imagine anyone who would vandalise this dojo…

Those who were involved in the (lock) fiddling even resorted to using YouTube to figure out how to pick a lock, but nothing was for shifting.  So, we had to admit defeat and headed out for food! This turned out to be a lovely evening of laughter, sharing and reminiscing! We’ve decided to go to the Karate Kaiken tomorrow… just in case the lock situation doesn’t resolve itself.