On May, 23rd of 2009 I went to one of the most important demonstrations in the world of Aikido. The 47th All Japan Aikido planned by the Aikikai Honbu Dojo.

In this event, all Aikido dojos, schools and clubs show their skill at the Nihon Budokan.

Interior del Nihon Budokan (日本武道館)

In 2009’s edition approximately 6000 “aikidokas” took active part.

Here you can see some videos from Youtube and some pictures I took myself:

Now, a video of my Wednesday’s teacher:

Hiroyuki Sakurai sensei, 6th Dan Aikikai

And Thursday’s teacher:

Hiroshi Fujimaki sensei, 6th Dan Aikikai

Last but not least, a video of the actual Doshu:

Moriteru Ueshiba – 10th Dan Aikikai

And his son:

Mitsuteru Ueshiba

The day after arriving at Cocoloco Island, then with a bit more light, we could check what kind of paradise have we got to. The previous article about Palawan finished with a picture of food, and as it should be, this is beginning with another one, breakfast:

Bread, pinneaple, cheese and scrambled eggs

And another one:

Fried egg, fish and cucumber

After having breakfast at the beach:

Paradise

And another one…

The day was really “tough”, you know… scuba diving, sunbathing, swimming in tropical water…

Baywatch

Sun set at Paradise

Because of the size of the island, there was no much people there, just some tourists like us and the natives living there:

Some natives living at the island

Minifilipinas

This was the hut where we slept:

We spent Christmas at Cocoloco island. There, the “resort” natives set up a small Christmas party where everybody was welcome and food was free! what food!

Roasted fish

Crabs

Roasted suckling pig

Peculiar party with dancing natives…

And the musig brought by “PALM RADIO”

The day after Christmas was the last there and we headed to the airport from where we would flight to Manila to spend some days visiting the capital of Philippines and our “icexians” pals.

Goodbye Cocoloco

Once on the Shinkansen, I met all the others. The wait was getting longer, and when we were chatting, while reading a magazine I found this:

What seems to be a retrokaraoke system, you know, to sing to yourself… They really doesn’t know what else to invent, and if we see the picture on the right of a chairburguer… no comments.

Once we got to the Joumo Kougen station, around 19h, we tried to find a place where to eat something before heading to the onsen. Mission impossible, who the hell are we to try to eat something at 19h! at that time all the village was completely dead! the only thing we got was a warm cup of tea from a vending machine (god bless that machine).

Seeing that there were nothing to eat we decided to get a couple of taxis (for 9 people) and head to Takaragawa. This was an odyssey as the only one that spoke a bit of japanese (almost nothing yet) was me… at least I learnt how to count taxis.

When we got to the onsen I was feeling anxious about starting with my ninja gestures…

So I chose the ninja gesture of the sleeping dragon dressed in a smooth Japanese Yukata. After the ninja gestures and the compulsory pictures, I realized the amount of people we were there:

Well, time to splash the ass! Step 1: Previous general shower.

It’s not me being bad taking pictures (I am) but the steam in my camera’s lens on entering the room… As the onsen tradition reminds, before entering rotenburo (thermal exterior bath), it’s needed to have a shower, sat on that mini chair and splashing water over the body with a small bucket. For the first time I felt like Shin-Chan

Once cleaned, we were heading to the first natural pool when suddenly… Oh nooo! to get to the pool we must pass the first test! Zamburgers! Straigt from Takeshi’s Castle!

At least we weren’t being pursued by the chinese Kudeiro (くでいろさん).

It was a dark night so I couldn’t take any good picture of the pools, only say that I went to bed at 3 a.m. cooked like a sprawn.

To be continue…