The 12(ish) Days Of Christmas

Ok, because (a) it’s now mid-January and Xmas is well in the past and (b) people’s families are largely less interesting if you’re not actually in them, I am going to speed through the Christmas break.

The point here is we had an 11 day period between taking off in San Diego to come home to the UK, and taking off in London to get to Thailand, in which to cram all the various relatives, friends and festivities we could handle.

And then a few more than we could handle, for good measure.

So, here’s the whistlestop tour, and after that we’ll get back to the training and travelling stuff.

21st December 2012

Kicking off with an early start (the car had to be back by 2pm), we hurtled down the freeway from Costa Mesa to San Diego, scooping up a fish taco or four on the way.

All racing behind us, we then had an eight and a half hour wait in San Diego airport, which is in the process of renovations.

All I’m gonna say here is that they will be welcome and that the absolute highlight of the afternoon/evening was some chicken in a basket.

After a 10 hour flight through the night, and some exemplarily rude BA flight attendants (watching a six foot something chap refuse to help a woman load luggage into the overhead locker was awkward) we landed in the UK.

22nd December 2012

Where it was already nighttime, the next day.

Another hire car, and a chance to switch my brain into left hand drive, manual control mode.

Andy’s official job was navigator, but unofficially he was in charge of feeding me various combos of chocolate, cheesy biscuits and dried tuna jerky so I could keep my eyes open for the two hour drive to his mum’s in Wiltshire.

23rd December

Family Part One, the boys vs girls edition. Trip to the pub for the former group, silly cocktails and tapas for the latter.

24th December 2012

PJ mode.

25th December 2012

Up at 6am for the Present Opening Ceremony.

Fuelled largely by coffee and excitement, Andy finally got his hands on the Shoyoroll Gold Star (ordered in America and trapped in customs for a couple of weeks).

It didn’t disappoint.

After the heady Shoyoroll rush, plus a full-on Christmas lunch (that he cooked), Andy needed a power nap.

I will point out, for the benefit of his mum's exemplary housekeeping reputation, that the piles of stuff all over the bed are because we hadn't managed to properly unpack by this point, and were existing in a weird holiday-clothes-with-a-woolly-scarf mode.

Well holiday clothes, scarves and an obligatory festive jumper.

Ten minutes later, it was time to head over to his Dad’s for a second helping of Xmas dinner, topped off with way too much chocolate.

26th December 2012

More Extreme Chocolate Eating (my Atos endurance training was not wasted).

27th December 2012

We drive down to my mum’s in Kent for Xmas part, well, I’m not sure even I can keep track at this point.

My mother is not naturally a fan of the season, but had pulled out all of the stops to decorate our bedroom with reindeer, snowmen and twinkly stuff.

Aside from one terrifying moment where I mistook the rustling of the helium balloons for an intruder in the middle of the night, it was much appreciated.

28th, 29th December 2012

More family of various flavours and combinations.

30th December 2012

A round-trip to London – girly lunch for me, burger and martial arts chat for Andy.

After eleven weeks away, three different cities and numerous houses, the notion of ‘home’ is actually wavering slightly. Having vehemently defended living in London for the last 20 years, we’re starting to contemplate other options (living by the sea for example).

Sadly, despite the likelihood of this turning out to be a seminal 'life realisation,' I forgot to take any photos to demonstrate the point. So you'll have to make do with a slightly awkward Christmas-deco-inspired self portrait. Still, it was jolly fun.

31st December 2012

New Year’s Eve. A time for celebrations, champagne, parties, bars and kissing strangers at midnight (actually I’ve never managed that last bit, even in singler times).

Or you could do what we did and stay in, have a nice bit of dinner, half a glass of wine, put on an impromptu BJJ demonstration/gi catwalk and attempt to keep our eyes open till midnight.

The final minutes were headily spent folding laundry, ready to stuff in our cases (the Asiana website had threatened a total of one 20kg bag, which is challenging when you’ve got two gis on board) the next day, and by 12.20am we were both in bed.

1st January 2013

New Year, new destinations, and another round of goodbyes before we set off to the airport.

Destination Phuket in Thailand, by way of Seoul.

Highpoints of the trip included some exceptionally friendly Asiana staff, an extra 10kg of luggage allowance (little bit late but handy for the return leg) and a Korean dinner that I got to build myself (well, I added the chilli paste and the sesame oil to it).

Low points included the journey taking about 36 hours end to end, and being accompanied by a streaming cold that I had picked up in the UK.

It’s tough to pull off that glam air travel look at the best of times, but I apologise to anyone in the vicinity (especially Andy) as I flopped through Icheon airport with an air of pleurisy.

3rd January 2013

At around 1am (Thailand is seven hours ahead) we landed, and by 3ish we finally made it to Fern House, our home for the next month. Body clocks be damned, it was time to settle in and get ready for training again.

The Magnificent Mendes Brothers...

As mentioned back here, we’d decided to spend the last four days of our US trip in Costa Mesa, home to the Mendes Brothers and their Art of Jiu Jitsu Academy.

As an added bonus, packing up home early gave us a chance to trial run the stringent 23kg airline baggage allowance, and conjure all kinds of stowaway tricks to get our belongings back to the UK.

The morning of the 17th December, we set off to the hire car facility, a shuttle bus away from San Diego airport.

Whilst waiting for said bus, a kindly passerby offered to take a cute couple shot, which turned less cute when she suggested we took off our sunglasses. Still, you live and learn.

Our faces were even less photogenic when we came to pay for the ‘budget’ hire car.

Ordered as part of an online deal, it had been advertised as $99 for the four-day period, with a $55 insurance waiver charge. By the time the credit card was on the table, and as a result of much headshaking and an “it’s a legal requirement, ma’am” sales pitch, that bill had nearly quadrupled, to a massive $400 (plus $200 holding fee).

Folks, for future reference, Advantage cars are best avoided.

One fright down, it was time to start driving.

Now, I passed my test way back in the nineties, and so far have a spankingly clean licence. I have to admit however that this is largely because, being a Londoner, I rarely drive and don’t own a car.

In addition, I have never driven an automatic, or in the “it doesn’t even count as a road unless it’s got eight lanes” States before.

An immediate four-way intersection, staged traffic lights and a neck-breakingly steep hill start is not the smoothest way to learn.

Two minutes after leaving the centre, horns are beeping, I am crying, and Andy is patting me gently on the back whilst making obscene gestures at other drivers out of the passenger window.

Simple but crucial problem – if a car in 'drive' should roll forward, but because of the incline is rolling back, which order do you take your foot off the pedals? As it happens the answer (thanks to Andy’s automatic driving lessons) was not unlike a manual hill start, but figuring that out under pressure was like learning to cut bomb cables whilst someone makes the 'Countdown' clock noise in your face.

Still, we were soon on the road, listening to Christmas carols in blistering sunshine and congratulating ourselves for getting the bond on our apartment back (I’m not going to detail exactly what happened, but the repairs involved extreme glue, a nail and a Sharpie).

A couple of hours later we pulled into Motel 6, apparently one of the best places in the States to bed on down and set up a meth lab.

 

Unsurprisingly, this isn’t the tag line the chain go for, settling instead on “free wifi”.

Just after checking in, we realised this would be better phrased “free of wifi”, or “free wifi cheese signal on your mac but actually not enough power to hook you up to the internet” (yeah, I guess it’d be tough on the signage).

Starbucks saw a lot of custom from us in those few days.

As many of you have pointed out, this blog is largely led by photos of me and Andy eating, so here are the week’s delicacies, courtesy of one Motel 6 microwave and some plastic cutlery.

Breakfast = banana and honey sandwiches (composed on a makeshift notebook plate).

Dinner = baked (well microzapped) sweet potato with tuna and sweetcorn.

Luxurious times indeed.

Anyway, food aside, we were off course there to train at the Art of Jiu Jitsu academy, a school with more swank than a Hoxton gallery.

Seriously, this place is beautiful.

White walls, white mats, white towels, white gis (compulsory white gis, if you’re thinking of visiting), with a smattering of paintings (done by, as if it wasn’t cool enough, a skateboard in motion) and acres and acres of medals.

Somehow, whilst training, all that white made me zen out and think clearer (I have a touch of the ADHD about me).

Standing outside the door on the first day, it is the most intimidating place in the world.

We needn’t have worried.

We did three competition classes over three days, and each time I was wowed by the clarity of instruction, the friendliness of the teachers and students, and the sheer circus-like moves of the Mendes brothers themselves. One particular roly-poly pass from an opponents de le Riva guard actually made me laugh at its simple brilliance (it goes without saying that perfecting it to that ‘simple’ level was anything but).

Professor Galvao and the Atos San Diego crew had prepared us well for the tough pace in the lunchtime sessions, which are designed as a testing ground for actual competition strategy, and coupled with a Q&A afterwards.

It was an amazing opportunity, even if I did steer clear of the Ruotolo Twins, who looked distinctly like they could kick my ass.

To celebrate our survival (albeit a very sweaty, sore survival) we took a little last day trip to Ruby’s Diner next door.

Recovery drinks be damned - Andy's apple pie and icecream clocked up an impressive 1,000 calories on its own...

...whilst my peanut butter Hershey's shake was a ladylike 850.

We even managed to squeeze in a trip to ‘The Hobbit 3D’ before we flew home.

So twelve weeks in, we’ve sampled two astounding schools (to be honest, I think it’ll be hard to go back to “normal” training).

We’ve lived (for anything from four days to two months) in three different cities, in four different abodes.

I've changed hair colour multiple times, gained one random tattoo, and we've eaten...well, you know about our eating habits.

Strangely it seems both super short and like a lifetime.

We’re planning to spend the next three months in South East Asia, jumping between the famous Muay Thai training camps of Phuket, the bustle of Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh and Phnom Penh, and the deserted beaches of Cambodia and Vietnam.

But between then and now, there’s Christmas…