London

Had a pretty good start to the bank holiday weekend down in London, went over to the mini Philippines town thats down there, right near Earls court, pretty cool checking out all the filipino food, then we bought the equipment for making lumpea and went home to cook.

Also went out on the Sunday to watch Da Vinci code which was cool, its not quite as good as the book, but well everyone says that I guess. Still well worth a watch though, I think the Langdon character played by Hanks is actually one of the strongest, going against what all the critics seem to think.

Then the long coach journey back to Notts in the rain was a bit on the tedious side, ah well ...

Been to my first lesson of Silat tonight aswell, its excellent, its traditional, fluid, fast, complex and exactly what I was looking for in a martial art. Though as it is not as popular as the Jeet Kune Do or the Kick boxing etc, it is not always on, but I intend to train in it as often as possible.

It is an old, but continually developing martial art from indonesia, but also has elements of filipino and malay arts in it, uses extremely strange and fairly difficult stances, some extremely low or sitting, or possibly standing on one leg, hands out inticing the opponent to attack.

The attacker often moves around not looking directly at the opponent so as to see their movements in the periferal vision and therefore react quickly to any strike. Weapons are often used, including knifes, swords, little sticks, or spears.

Martial Arts

Just started at martial arts this week, enroled for Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do and Eskrima too. The Jeet Kune Do is the martial art created by Bruce Lee, using the strengths of a number of other different styles of Kung Fu.



Eskrima is a filipino martial art that employs sticks, knifes and swords. I have also noticed it's appearence in a new films lately, such as 'The Hunted', 'The Bourne Supremecy' and 'Mission Impossible 3'.



Hopefully it's going to keep me fit, as I seem to be a little lazy usually when motivating myself to go running etc.

Other than that all is great with work, and looking forward to getting my motorbike eventually (should be this coming week!). Hoping Sandy is having a good time over in Sweden.

Mission Impossible

Went to watch Mission Impossible 3 over the weekend with Sandy, Gregg, Jon and Danny. Brilliant movie, though I get the feeling that a lot of people are going to whine because its a bit of a standard issue action film, but there is nothing wrong with that now and again.

I was actually really impressed with the fact they got all the weaponry correct, a little less flying through the air shooting pistols with sniper accuracy. They even managed to slip in a bit of Eskrima during the training, all good!

Well there have been a lot of changes at work recently too, including the departure of my boss, who always cheers everyone up. So that is all going to take some getting used to, hopefully it will all turn out well in the end.

Other than that, looking forward to going down to London for a night out in Leicester Square with Sandy and her Italian friend Roberta at the weekend.

And one more thing my bike is still not back from the garage!! Thank you Mr Walton! just when the weather is getting better too! hehe...

Lazy Creature

Long time no posting, thought I should update anyone who reads with whats happening with me. Since Barcelona I have been down to London again a couple of times, I visited Portobello Market, which was great especially on a perfect sunny day aswell as Hyde Park. Was nice to meet a couple of Sandy's friends down there too, Roberta from Italy and Mary from France, both like Sandy working as au-pairs.

Had a great time this weekend with Sandy coming up to visit Saturday morning, we went down the canal had some dinner at the canal house with some of the guys and girls from EMPICS. And had a very relaxing Sunday, just popping over to the local for some lunch.