Last weekend one of my friends from Tokyo, Chie, visited me in Amsterdam! She has been studying French in France for a couple of months and was about to go back to Japan. However, not before visiting me in Amsterdam. I already told her she could always stay at my place any time she wanted and she finally decided to take me up on my offer.

She arrived Friday evening around 11 PM, upon which we went back to my place to drop off her stuff before heading into town. We first met up with Maarten (whom she met in Tokyo at my sayonara party) in café Smoes near Leidseplein.

Having had our first couple of beers there, it was time to go clubbing, so we wandered off toward Studio80 for some minimal techno and goa trance (surprisingly good combination). There we met up with Renato, Marck and Roobin, who arrived there just before us. The party was great as usual and we partied till about 5.30 AM.

Saturday we woke up relatively early (noonish), because I of course had to show Chie around this nice little place of ours. We walked around town for hours, showing her various aspects of Amsterdam. We started off at the flower market, where she bought some tulip bulbs and small souvenirs. After the market, we wandered past Rembrandtplein to the Utrechtsestraat where we had lunch in Stacey’s Pennywell (seriously, go have lunch there, it rocks!).

After lunch we walked on to Waterlooplein to see the ever present flee market in action. Then we slowly made our way back to Dam square, followed by our final tour area, the red light district. At first, Chie wasn’t really impressed by it, just some stripclubs and sex stores, so far so good. Then we rounded a corner and entered one of the smaller alleys where the prostitutes are actually standing in the pink lit windows “selling their goods.”

Because we were talking about all sorts of things, Chie didn’t notice at first. However, once I pointed out one of the women (standing in a window at arms distance), she was downright shocked at the blatant display of women in the streets. It felt a bit like a pet store to her with all the women displayed like that. The shock was complete when she noticed a man leaving one of the rooms, “did he…”, “yes he did…”

After this shocking end of the afternoon, I took her safely home, where we had a typical Dutch dinner (well sort of), “gourmetten.” Which is a nice way to eat, grilling loads and loads of meat at the dinner table. We fell asleep watching a movie, but woke up in time to go clubbing yet again! Oh yeah, since I cooked most of dinner, Chie insisted on doing the dishes. Who am I to say no to that? :p

We went to ClubUp and De Kring near Leidseplein, where we partied the night away again. At first the party was a bit weird, with old slow dance music playing. Fun for maybe one or two songs, but after 30 minutes it started to get a bit old. So we just drank ourselves silly while making fun of everything we could come up with.

Once we were free to switch between party areas, though, the party kicked into full gear. Maarten joined us again, and we danced the night away.

Slightly groggy from the whole party weekend, I escorted Chie back to the station on Sunday morning and she headed safely back to France.

Chie, it was very fun showing you around Amsterdam! Feel free to come back any time. Domo Arigatou Gozaimashita.

You can check out my pictures at the gallery section. Chie’s pictures will follow once I have them.

Back in Amsterdam, I’ve been training under Ron den Boer sensei in his Fudoshin Ryu dojo for about two years now. Fudoshin Ryu is a mixed martial art which includes Toide, Ju-no Kempo and Koryu Jujutsu. It’s very “real life” oriented, with as much (or maybe even more) focus on fighting spirit as on the techniques involved. Once a week we are busting our asses trying to get everything just right, although even after two years it’s very hard to master all the moves involved (at least for me ).

This Wednesday we had a special training by guest sensei Raphael, one of Ron sensei’s friends and training buddies for about 20 years now. We weren’t allowed to wear our training Gi, instead we were told to dress in normal (yet old ) clothes for this training.

Training in normal clothes really changes the game a lot somehow. If you enter a dojo in your Gi, your mind automatically goes into some kind of dojo mode, which induces a very relaxed approach to everything that’s thrown at you. Punches seem less scary, as do grabs and pretty much everything you do. When you train in normal clothes, however, it is much harder to reach that state, because you feel “normal.” This fact alone really intensifies all aspects of the training.

Anyway, back to the training at hand, we spent the whole time practicing what my sensei calls “chaos fighting.” Chaos fighting starts out with the premise that you don’t know what your opponent will do to you, but you still have to be able react appropriately. In short this comes down to keeping your opponent close and in contact, such that you can feel rather then see what he/she is trying to do to you.

Naturally, this is very hard to do in reality and takes years of practice to perfect it up to the point where Raphael and Ron sensei are. When they execute their moves, you really can’t keep up and don’t really feel their moves. What you do feel however, is a relentless rain of hits on your head, throat, stomach, wherever, until you can’t do anything else but curl up in a corner and weep a little… Well ok, not actually weeping, but you get my point.

I brought my camera for this training, and Ron sensei made some pictures of us training…

[Show as slideshow]

And a short video of me and others trying our best at “feeling the opponents moves.”

A short while later, one of my training buddies punched my contact lens right out of my eye, so it seemed like a good moment to rest a little bit and create a movie of my own. I started with shooting Dick (yes, that’s a Dutch name, get your head out of the gutter!) and Vincent. Luckily, while I was shooting, our two first Dan students, Hidde and Leon, really went at it, so you can see a bit how it’s supposed to be done.

Needless to say, this training was very intense and pretty much everybody was totally shot by the end of our session. My entire upper body aches like hell, but man was it worth it!

Thanks a million for this very special training Raphael sensei!

Last week, for the first time in 12 years, Holland had been treated on some truly magnificent ice on pretty much all streams, ponds and lakes. Holland was in a craze with all skates quickly sold out everywhere and thousands of people going about on the ice (breaking some bones here and there in the process).

Although I didn’t have time to go skating myself, my brother (Dirk) did pick me up and took me to the Westeinder Plassen in Aalsmeer. The Westeinder Plassen are a lake area in Aalsmeer, where I grew up. Like I said before, it had been 12 years since we had ice like this, and it felt very nostalgic to even just walk around on the ice, seeing skaters whirring (or struggling) by left and right.

However, Aalsmeer wouldn’t be Aalsmeer if they didn’t turn this event into an excuse to party (and drink excessively in the process). We watched the fun for a short while, until we ran cause we had other stuff to do.

Too bad the fun only lasted for about a week. Mr. Winter, please freeze some more!

… It was a blast!

What an amazingly wicked New Years Eve. We went to a Sexy Superheroes themed party, organized by Robin and Ralf. After helping with their preparations a bit on the Monday before, it was finally time to go out there and party like it was 2009!

Upon entering the party area, it became immediately clear, this was going to be one of those amazing nights, you’ll want to remember forever. Everybody was dressed up so great! From power puff cousins to Link, V for Vendetta to Opel Manta Man (??).

Everybody was in the party mood from the start and the evening set off rocking to the beats provided by the first dj. As it started to reach midnight, everybody was ushered outside to witness the fireworks and the huge bonfire, which swayed quite disturbingly, but it all worked out.

After midnight, the party kicked into full gear with more people coming in every second (or so it seemed). With two party areas, everybody was partying everywhere! We mostly hung out at the smaller area, where Jasper was playing funky elektro tunes just after midnight, followed by Vincent with an excellent drum n bass set. In the main area the beats where provided by Nicole and Niels. There were two more djs following them, but unfortunately I don’t know their names, sorry!

After Vincents drum n bass set, Renato Fleur and I took a shift serving drinks to the masses, which was very fun. After that, the night got a bit blurry and I just wandered around the place until I could hardly stand anymore and headed for the safety of home.

Oh, did I mention, the booze was free! For only 20 euro per person, Robin and Ralf managed to throw the best, most fun, amazingly wicked New Years Eve party I’ve seen in a long time. What will be next years theme guys?

[Show as slideshow]

12345►

This year, I’m going to a Sexy Superheroes themed New Years Eve party. Today I helped converting the location from a hall full of junk into a full fledged party area. Everybody did an amazing amount of work today, it’s gonna be a blast!

[Show as slideshow]

12►