My third week of Kung Fu training is halfway over, and as promised, here's a progress report:

I chose to check out the local kung fu academy as an alternative to going to a gym. I did this for three reasons: 1. To get into shape (yes, round is a shape, just not a very nice one for humans). 2. To be challenged. I'm sorry, but the challenge of pushing weights, running or swimming is merely a matter of pushing your limits - you don't learn anything from it (hence I get bored with it very quickly), and overall it's pretty useless - apart from the excercise part, of course (oh, swimming may also help avoid drowning). 3. Because it's situated just around the corner and training hours are work-friendly 18.30 - 20. just enough time to get home, get a little to eat, pack the bag and off to the kwoon. The local gyms are not much farther away, yet so far that it's a mental barrier. And with gyms being open from 6AM to 21PM everyday, it's easier to "go tomorrow". Kung fu is monday, wednesday and thursday - twice a week minimum, so there's no room for slacking.

Ok, so much for justifying myself. Training is part set pieces, part self defence / fighting. I guess this shouldn't be surprising, but I admit I hadn't thought about this aspect when I signed up - but it's actually very good. It's not so much throwing people around as in "regular" self defence, but more block-and-counter using hands, feet, elbows and fingers - whatever it takes to bring the other person down. There's a lot of focus on hitting vulnerable points, such as eyes, temples, throat,neck and crotch. Unfair? Well maybe, but if you need to use it, it's probably because the other guy doesn't have your best interest at heart so why should you care.

The style is adapted from the various shaolin animal styles such as the Crane, the Tiger and the Snake. There are 10 fixed sparring excercises and otherwise free sparring which reminds me somewhat of wing tsun. For the more advanced students there are weapons excercises using sticks, staff and sword.

To "advance" (getting belts of different colours) you need to meet certain requirements. You start out at a yellow belt. To get a yellow belt with a white stripe you need to know and demonstrate the first kata (to sifu's satisfaction) and be able to perform 10 push-ups on finger tips. The katas are a series of moves composed into a tai chi like excercise and consist of blocks, strikes and kicks. Some of the stuff requires a finely tuned balance. From yellow it's on to green, blue, brown and black (I think) at various levels (stripes) - which should take roughly 5 years in all.

Oh, and then there's the physical /gymnastical / tenderising part of training. We start the warmup with 30+ situps and 30+ pushups + varius kicks. The first day of training I could've gone home after warming up - I was that beat. It's slowly getting better (I guess the body needs a little time to figure out, that it needs to be able to do this on a regular basis) but it's pretty hard - and if you don't stretch properly after training ... 'nuff said. And yes, there is even one of those torture instruments to help you spread your legs really wide.

So to sum it up: Basically it's going pretty well. I've learnt the first kata and the 10 pushups on finger tips is almost there. The muscles have slowly begun adjusting to the training and have come out of their regression (tiny, hard lumps that refused any contact with the outside world) and I expect the next couple of months to bring lots of progress.

I came across some Cold germs the other day and decided to pick them up... Seems they've settled down nicely now and invited their friend Soar Throat to stay..

Oh well, should be up and about again tomorrow, but it sure doesn't feel like it.

Got a new book to read (computer stuff) while lying here, so it's not all bad, I guess.

Amager has a nice spot of grass and trees right at the beach, called 5-øren. Yesterday DAD played there and Klaus, Signe, Kimie and I were there along with some 10.000 other people.

The first two warm-up bands were... well interesting.. Maybe a little too much metal for my taste, but Magtens Korridorer was ok. And DAD were as they were supposed to on their home turf. Nice to watch a concert, where the audience gets to sing the first stanzas of the classics.

Here's a phone-picture from the picniccy mood from the afternoon leading up to the concert. Nice weather and a relaxed atmosphere. Sweet propably-last-day-of-summer.

My younger sister Karina leaves for Canada tomorrow, making a brief stop in New York, before starting at Ryason University in Toronto. Exciting for her, I wish I had stopped and thought about going over there when I was studying.

I'm expecting to read interesting stuff from her adventures on her blog

I attended my first Kung Fu training session today. I'm kinda busted as I write this. Hurting muscles I didn't know existed. But it was good, the other Bruce Lees seemed like a nice bunch and things were sufficiently slowed down, that even my poor physique was able to keep up - sort of :-/

Training is 2-3 times a week + individual practive Saturdays .. should be able to get me a nice six-pack in a couple of months. Further progress will be reported here :o)

After 2 weeks of going to the beach and pretty much nothing else we were going home and it was time to put the knowledge acquired going out into practice.

We started with a modest amount of fuel, because fuel is less expensive in Spain. Naturally there were no gas stations the first 50 km in Spain.. It got a bit exciting for a while there - but luckily nothing like our experiences in Germany.

Then we headed North towards the freeway we'd come down on. Halfway we were pulled over by the Police. The road was closed because of an accident, and the officer suggested we go in direction of Madrid.

On the Madrid turnpike, road works lead us into downtown Madrid, where we spent a good half hour trying to find back to the freeway.

Things went smoothly and at San Sebastian, we opted for the toll road into France. (a total of 5€). Back at N10 past Bordeaux we had a minor problem with the radiator, but got i fixed and in record time reached Poitiers.

N10 is a nice two-lane road all the way to Poitiers, but from there to Tours it narrows to 1 lane and leads through 5 or 6 villages.. We were back to 50 km/h.

At Tours we didn't get lost and used the toll road to Paris (250 km = €19.60).

Paris was hell. Not only were the roads jammed (rush hour, of course), but whenever you could go more than 100 meters before stopping, the Parisians would speed up to 100 km/h.. They even have roadsigns that can change to reflect whenever there's an accident... scary. But we survived, had a horrible meal at a motor way stop and headed for Belgium - again toll road, 200 km at €13.

In total we spent less than €40 on toll roads, so to all you folks scared of French toll roads .. don't be. We saved more than 10 hours and it cost us the same as a refuelling would have.

Belgium and Holland went past us, and we were back in Germany, wher E34 suddenly turned into "40". I was driving and didn't see any exits going the right way, so I ended up in more road works and some time later in the Suburbs of Essen.. lost again.

Somehow we got back on track, and then it was smooth sailing back to Denmark. Result: Going out: 50 hours. Going home: 35 hours.

Final Lesson Learned: Using the toll roads in France is not so bad.. but going through Paris is.

About 10 AM on Sunday, we were close to the Spanish border at Donastia San Sebastian. having stuck to the N10 since Tours, we stayed true to our course - and ended up on a small, winding road going along the coast ... at 50 km/h ... behind a volvo with a caravan.. It took us an hour and a half to get through the traffic and into Spain.

On the upside, it was now 12 PM and we had all of Spain to cross... Nice timing. Luckily it was only nearing 35°C and there was no A/C in the car. Suffice to say, this was not part of the plan.

But we made it through Spain and into Portugal at a town called Guarda, and much to our surprise it got even warmer. Even at 9 PM it was close to 40° and since I had been drinking too little water - naturally I got a slight heat stroke - nice going there. And by the way, we were later told, that it was actually a good day, since it had been relatively cool that day.

Don't cross Spain in the middle of July during the daytime - and if you have to: Drink a lot of water.

So, after an uneventful trip through Holland and a 15€ breakfast (2 week-old pains and 2 cups of coffee) in Belgium we arrived in La France just north of Rubaix.

Having been warned about the cost of French toll roads, we had planned to go by way of the backroads past Paris and find the N10 (yes, the French know how to name their roads - and make them sort of visible to tourists)

It turned out, that even finding our way out of Rubaix proved somewhat troublesome. Eventually we found our way towards Lille and found the proper exit to be on our merry way..

Pretty soon we found ourselves on a nice country road heading for Amiens, but it seemed everytime we hit a village we got lost again. Mainly because we didn't understand that unless otherwise specified - the N5 (which we were following) would continue straight ahead... In retrospect that seems pretty obvious, but at the time it was a little frustrating to constantly loose sight of where to go next.

We found Amiens, and as the temperature had reached 30°C we decided to find a park - which we did, and it was huge and with a nice little stream/river! - and take a nap. (Kimie had been driving most of the night, and I was still tired from the lack of sleep the week before).

A little rest did us (well certainly me) a lot of good, and we continued south towards Chartres. Roads were pretty narrow and only allowed us to average something like 60 km/h, but the countryside was nice. Sometime late Saturday we reached Tours where we got lost again - but found the N10 which leads South past Bordeaux and eventually Spain.

And this is where we learned another important lesson: 24 hour gas stations in France are practically non-existing outside the toll roads. As we reached Barbezieux we were down to 5 litres in the tank, and we didn't dare go any further without gas. Actually we had passed numerous gas stations on the way - and you could use them 24 hours a day, if you possess a French Credit Card!

Since we only had Visa and MasterCard we were pretty much screwed. And worse yet: Next day being Sunday, there was little hope of finding an open gas station anywhere, so we decided to wait til sunrise, find a gas station i Barbezieux and rely on The Kindness of Strangers. A nice French fellow allowed us to use his credit card (in exchange for €, of course) and off we went with another 3 hours worth of sleep in the bag.

3rd lesson learned: If you travel in France at night, use the toll roads, where you're sure to find 24 hour manned gas stations.

We started our trip at 12.30 AM and by the time we got some fuel, it was 2 in the morning. I was really tired, so Kimie would drive and I could get some shut-eye.. It was straight-ahead all the way to Dortmund, and there the Freeway would split: One way going south, the other going West (the way we needed to go)

An interesting fact about some stretches of German freeway is, that signs don't point in general directions - the largest cities in a 200 km radius for instance - no they point to little towns that don't appear on our 1:800.000 map. This may be very useful if you're heading for one of these little towns, but not for us.

Another interesting feature of the German Autobahn - they don't conform to the standards of other European countries when it comes to using international designations. For instance, if I want to travel East to West in Denmark, I would look for E20, (Europe-20) In Germany we tried to look for E34 and E37 -but that's impossible to find. You need to find the German designations (which are 40 and 43 respectively) in order to find your way.

Beign first-time long-distance motorist, we had no idea and consequently got lost. Thankfully I'd borrowed a PDA with GPS which led us safely through the worst freeway hell before freezing up and letting us drift casually towards the Dutch border.

Lesson Learned: Read the map carefully before travelling through the Ruhr District in Germany - or get GPS!

Kimie and I went to Portugal this summer - by car! That's 3000 km (roughly 1870 miles for the metrically impaired) - one way!!

We thought it'd be a nice trip, and air line tickets had skyrocketed, so propably cheaper too (always book your tickets 6 months in advance!)

We set out on Saturday, July 15th at 0.30 (yes, in the AM) with only 5 litres of gas in the tank (fuel was supposed to be less expensive in Germany) and headed for the border.

Little did we know, that there were no gas stations along the freeway - for quite a while. Eventually the fuel gauge wouldn't go any further into the red, and we decided to get off the freeway and look for the nearest town (Schleswig) in which we found the golden clam logo of a gas station and managed to tank 49 litres of gas (I thought there was only room for 40!!)

Lesson learned.. when fuel is less than 5 litres, find a gas station - you never know!