We also went to see Rhys Darby live, (dec 2010)  Danny Bhoy, and Katy Perry both in May 2011.

For new years we stayed up in Maraetai House sitting – that was cool – and relaxing – had Xmas with Charlotte’s family.

We had a couple of tramps – one with Isobel round Lake Waikaremoana in January over long weekend, and the Northern Circuit with Charlotte’s Family for Easter.

In March 2011, the ITF Taekwon-do world championships were held in Wellington – I helped with the registration and ID card system which was really cool but a lot of work -Charlotte did not see a lot of me during the lead up to the tournament but the tournament itself was amazing and NZ topped the table with most golds!

In May we both competed in Midlands regional tournament held in Tauranga. I won my first two sparring matches and ended up with a silver in sparring:) Also a gold in power (which is an event where you break boards) winning with a reverse turning kick – my first gold medal in TKD – Charlotte also won a sparring silver and gold in patterns, and gold in Specialty – Nationals is in August this year -in Auckland so there’s a good chance she’ll do well in that.

We have bought tickets to Paris for November – and we are both looking forward to that trip

Dracula’s was as usual awesome – and the theme parks although busy were still fun.

In the beginning of December we both graded to Blue belts (4th Gup) so now the real hard work kicks in – new pattern , new techniques , a few flying

Websites and Taekwon-do are as usual taking up most of my time.

Although we are off to tramp around Mt Egmont on Long weekend

The flight was quick only bout an hour. we tried the noodle soup at the airport, the beef was better than previous noodle soup, but wasn’t nowhere as yummy – and then some dunk’n donuts , they were also okay. Arrived at the airport and the power was off, stopping the conveyor belt, it came on but wasn’t on for long, it then turned off again and proceeded to stay off causing chaos. Everyone tried to find their bags all at once as the baggage handler bought them out one at a time into the darkened room, everyone was pushing in on the baggage holder and leaving no room for the baggage to actually touch the floor, and no-one could see. So after about a 30 min delay we found our driver – this time a mini-van but we were the only passengers- so that was cool – first impressions of Phuket were of a slightly rural more western looking place than  Bangkok – as we got closer to the beaches the common street vendors reappeared along with fancier looking tuk-tuks and tons of motorcycles/scooters – most people seemed to get around this way – most without helmets and wearing ridiculous clothing like jandels.

Our hotel was being renovated at the front so looked a little run-down, but the lobby was nice and the interior of the room and the pool look flash. We have a pool view room, but not of our nice pool – but of some other algae infested green pool of the neighbour hotel. We went for a quick walk around and discovered the Karon beach only 2-3mins away, it was already 4:30 by now so it wasn’t very busy, but it did look nice and the water was warm- we headed back to the hotel with the intention of going for a swim, but we discovered we had left our togs behind in Bangkok hotel. This was a minor set beck so we then proceeded to buy three pairs of billabong shorts for 1500 B – $75NZ, of which Charlottes turned out to be real ones this time.

As it was getting late when we decided to check out the pool. Very nice but started to get wrinkly and hungry. Went to Karon Cafe, run by an American.western food was on the menu and we both had some yummy food and long island iced tea and singha beer. The street was similar to Khao San on a low key scale and we only had about 6 touts come up to us this time selling the same stuff as in Bangkok.  Got very drunk very quickly, but Charlotte felt a bit sick so we headed back to the Hotel early, a 5 minute walk.

The second day in Bangkok started pretty good with a buffet style breakfast which included a combo of both thai and western food – after breakfast we caught a taxi to the Grand palace, of which the drive ‘claimed’ he had no change, so our tip was over double of the actual ride. We then had a guided tour of the grounds and took quite a few photos of the surrounding area. After the tour we were convinced to do a river cruise – which was a very different experience along the polluted waterways. After the river tour we walked back to our hotel through the maize of bangkok street vendors and tuk-tuk drivers in the 30 degree heat.

After a quick break we decided to head into MBK – a massive 7 story Mall – the driver seemed to take us on the longest route possible and indeed turned out to be double the normal cost. Once there we proceeded to spend large quantities of money on all sorts of stuff – including t-shirts, belts, jeans, shorts, figurines, and presents.

When we finally emerged it was raining – not a great thing , as all the taxi drivers suddenly ramp up the cost to the desperate tourists – we ended up paying 150 BHT for a ride home , previously being quoted up to 300bht- the ride in cost 60 bht ! – although – in reality 150bht is only $7.50 NZ – so no real big drama ! it is incredible here that a big mac costs more than a taxi ride across town !! NOTE: rain is not normal, its heavy and always comes with loud thunder and bright lightening, this combined with the drives inability to stay in the same lane or drive with any consistent speed while sharing the road with tuk tuks, motorcycles and other crazy taxi drivers, made that ride home very exciting indeed.

We had thai McDs for dinner that night .

Day 3 – Chatuchak Markets, some more MBK, outback steakhouse, swim, locked out of room – dinner + drinks, another 8000bht , prada bag, terminator

We were finally starting to get used to the heat by the 3rd day – and we headed into the Chatuchak markets via taxi – then Train – the skytrain is very modern and is comparable to any train line in the world – it was reasonably easy to navigate and the trains ran consistently on time.

The Markets were sprawling over 9000 stalls with everything from live fish and turtles to common household goods. They were definitely not a highlight for me- as we had spent most of the previous day on our feet – and that was in the comfort of aircon – this was a confused mess of open air and fan -driven enclosed stalls ,with varying levels of noise pollution

After getting a bag and a couple of other small gifts we headed back to the train , and into Siam center which is a flash high end mall – not really of any comparison to MBK in price -value – i decided (poorly) to choose Outback steakhouse for lunch – very overpriced and of poor quality.

We ended up once again in  MBK and I bought a Terminator model made from scrap metal – it was very cool and we got a discount since we bought another model the day before (Wall-E) , Charlotte bought a Prada knockoff bag along with some more shorts.

We left MBK early this day – after the debacle of the night before (in the rain) – and got back to our hotel early – we decided to try the pool which was suprisingly cold considering the outside temperature.

After the swim , we headed into Khao San road for dinner and drinks, and just taking in the insane atomosphere ! – Touts of every description were trying to sell us this or that , or getting us to do this or that – we picked a reasonably western looking place to dine, the Chelsea vs Arsenal game was on and quite a few people seemed interested in that. We had a few drinks , local Singa beers and cocktails , while we watched the masses of tourists pass by. Dinner was exciting, I had the fries – very small proportion, while charlotte tried ‘beef’ noodle soup, using chopsticks. The beef was rubber, but the rest was yummy.

It was a pretty good end to our Bangkok experience-  I will definitely miss bangkok and the craziness!! The Viengtai hotel was well located, next to the western tourist trap of Khao San road, while of being of a good standard, wasn’t the flashiest hotel, it did serve as a good base to escape from the muggy humidity and heat and the distinctive bangkok smells. I would recommend staying there over the cheaper fan rooms.Wireless was also intermittently free and there are plenty of kiosks for cheap, close by. 10 baht/ 15 min

Day 4- off to phuket …power cut in airport, saved heaps on fantasea and phi phi island tours, swim , lost bikini and swim gear , replaced with new shorts , dinner at Karon cafe, yum food drunk … long island ice tea

after 36 hours of being awake and flying over 12 hours of that – we finally touched down in Bangkok – then after what looked like lax security – and avoiding a couple of over anxious and pushy tour opearator and taxi drivers – made it to our hotel – u definitely notice the heat immediately- its something like 8:34 am now and over 28 degrees C – so yeah its hot

Hotel is of a good standard and bathroom and shower works well – Breakfast was basic but plenty of it – from room temp fruit like watermellon, pineapple and papaya to eggs, ham , croissants and other baked products, to the usual cereals

Khao San road is 3 minutes from our hotel – so even though we were extremely tired we decided to go take a look once we had taken showers. You could tell straight away “this wasn’t kansas any more toto” -from the several touts  trying to grab our attention to sell us something to the street full of clothes, silks, scarves, x-massed produced item – you name it – and the other somewhat bewildered looking western tourists- we bought a couple of items – being not that used to the bartering yet – paid the full $10 for two singlet tops – later i was crafty and saved $3.50 on a pair of billabong (maybe) shorts – go me

its overcast right now – and we are deciding between Shopping at MBK and the Grand Palace – prob both – if we survive the heat

This internet is cheap though – 10b for 15 min – so $1NZ for 30min

At the ITFNZ Taekwon-do Nationals awards dinner on September 26th I won the Gup Student of the year award - it was a pretty amazing feeling! Thanks to my instructor Grant Eccles and Gwyn Brown from Silla club for the nomination.

At the tournament itself I got a bronze in both Sparring and Patterns, and I helped out on the Saturday with Id-cards , the tournament was fun and another great experience.

Both Charlotte and I stayed down in Christchurch with Gavin, Liz, Jayden and Corban which was also awesome – Jayden is becoming very talkative and aware and he’s very smart too. Hopefully we will be going back at christmas time to visit again.

We leave for Thailand in 3 days and the weather over there looks very hot around 34-36 degrees, so that will make it interesting, also all the forecasts look like Thunder storms so hopefully we don’t get rained out!

I’ve had some ups and downs in training for the Nationals this year. I’m competing in Sparring and Patterns and over the last few weeks have managed to injure my knee, neck and ribs. With only 2 weeks until Nationals now i’m hoping i’ve done enough I’ve had quite a bit of extra training in sparring than I did have before regionals, so hopefully i’ve picked up some useful tips and can apply them in the ring – still have a bit of weight to lose to get back into the correct division – time is running out — ahhh !

I’ve been very busy updating the ID card software from last year and processing all the new photos from all the regions.

TKD Nationals this year is in Christchurch so i’m taking a few extra days and staying from thursday until monday. I get to spend some more time with Gavin, Liz, Jayden and Corban this way too.

I am also helping to organise the Midlands TKD camp for next year, which is turning out ok – 1 guest instructor has confirmed so far, venue confirmed, and dates 99% confirmed so not too bad for 6 months out.

A couple of days until my birthday too – wonder what its gonna be like, I have a short TKD training after work, and then some drinks. A big dinner is planned for Friday and not sure what Saturday will bring

Off to Thailand too for a holiday in October- first trip to asia – so doing a lot of reading up of that area and things to do – hoping to get lots of beach time in though and mainly relax …

It was definitely easier than my last pinnacles trip – which was around 3 years ago ? and being a holiday weekend was very busy on the track. Since last time they have put in stairs nearly all the way up to the pinnacles top from the hut so its a relatively easy excursion to reach the summit. 

We ended up getting out just before dark thanks to daylight saving being over.

The grading examiner was Andrew Salton 6th dan from Levin and he conducted a very rigorous grading. I’m now looking forward to learning my new pattern Yul-Gok which has 38 movements.

Grading for the next belt is coming up very shortly too (April 4th) and we have another demo this weekend at Bunnings.