Last two days

Well, I got to the gym on Friday, got a fair bit wet but ah well.

Cycled in 3rd gear all the way there.

Weight was 104.7kg
Did the following

Mobility Warm up
Bench mark routine-
Press ups 25
Pull ups 7
Chin ups 4
HLR 9
Dips 6
Time: 2.38

Then Deadlift
70k x 5, 100k x 3, 120k x 3, 130k x 3, 150k x 2, 160k x 1, 170k x 1, 180k x 1, 170k x 1, 170k x 1,
170k x 1

Only just made the 180k lift, so cut back and did 170 for a bit.  180 was more difficult, possibly because of ride, or maybe approached differently or maybe just hungry.

Pulls up 6, Chin ups 2, Dips 6, Hanging Lat raise 10

Bicep (21's protocol) 20k x 30, 40k x 15, 50k x 3(exhaustion)

Tricep behind head 20k 5 per side

Felt that for rest of day.

Got back, ate loads, rested.  Was going to go to BJJ but Mike rang me up and asked if I wanted to go for a drink with him and Dave.  So I said yeah.

We started off in Naha down some back street in some little place Dave knew.  I'll never find the place again but it served the best ribs I have ever had in my life ever.

EVER.

I mean that.

You know in 'Once Upon a Time in Mexico' there's Johnny Depp's character who has the same thing in every Mexican restaurant he goes to and says that one day he'll have to kill the man who makes the best chilli a it's not the in the correct order of things?  Well, yeah, I understand where he was coming from.  Those ribs were beyond awesome.  I truly felt that I needed to burn the place down as there was no way in hell that such ribs should have been made there.

From there we made our way to Okinawa city, which is about 15 miles away.  There's a big street full of bars in Okinawa city, and at one end of the street is a US army base (Marine or air force or something).  White and black people really stand out when you hardly see them.   So we went to a club... well, what an American calls a club, we call them bars.  And it was nice enough, but the poor bouncer looked really out of his depth.  From there we made our way to Paddy Mack's.

Now, whatever country I go to I make it a point of pride that I visit an Irish bar.  I'd already been to one in Naha, and it was a disappointment, quiet, no Irish people, no music...

This one was different.

Abrasive Irish bartender/owner CHECK
Guinness CHECK
Jameson's CHECK
Darts CHECK
Actual Irish artefacts as opposed to this shit you get in O'Neil's CHECK
The Craic CHECK

All US military personnel as customers and us... it got messy.  Good messy, drunken messy.  Complete with playing some marines darts for drinks (poor guys are shipping out to Afghanistan on Monday), people being thrown out, arguments with the owner over how backward Achill Island actually is and whether or not we do eat our babies there (he's from Dublin)... that kind of stuff.

And then it was closing time and we had to leave and make our way back down the island.  A great night out, and I'll go there again.

'Course, the next day I was paying for it.

Saturday me and James had the kids; he had to work in the morning so I had baby sitting duty complete with hangover.  We watched videos, no stick fighting that morning!

James got back and we wandered over to the beach at Naha to look at the sumo.  Only kid's competitions (and it was rainy as hell) but interesting to watch.  We then headed over to the shopping mall.  Big mall, cinema, arcade, shops...

We decided to see Alice in Wonderland, but had a few hours to wait so we spent some constructive time doing the following:

1) KFC - KFC in Japan tastes different.  Tastes better actually.

That's it there =>

Oooh, huh?

So much for no junk food.






2) ARCADE TIME

Okay, this was my first proper visit to a proper Japanese arcade.  I'd been in a few tiddly ones before, but this was my first outing in a massive arcade.

It was heaven.

I played a game called Elevator Action Death Parade.

No word of a lie, here's proof:

It was a shoot 'em up like time crisis, only you were in an elevator...

Also played a kind of Gears of War game, which was good.

Then there was the Gundamn game.

4 Fully immersive pods with complicated controls, seriously, there was even an instruction manual!  You played in a multiplayer game against other people playing the same game across the country!  Your actions and the disposition of your forces were also shown on a wall screen outside the pod area.

Of course, I had to have a go.

It was 500 Yen and I sat in, got comfortable and... couldn't play.  It kept asking for a card.

So I went out and found a machine that made the cards.  On this machine you needed to design your Gundam Mech and it's pilot and it uploaded that design onto a game card as well as creating your gamer ID.  I didn't have enough change for that as well (another 300 Yen), but next time, next time...

Instruction Manual

Screen with what's happening, pods behind it and make character machine is the blue thing.  Trippy.

Alice in Wonderland was in Japanese, but that's cool.

Now it's Sunday, it's been raining non stop for nearly 18 hours and... and we're going to go see if we can enter the local sumo tournament!  I'll keep you posted on how it goes!