April 2007: Singapore Kendo Club

In April last year I was part of the training staff in a microarray course in Singapore. Unfortunately, I stayed there only four days and could not manage to visit that beautiful country.
Moving from Torino to Singapore it was a bit of shock since I passed in 10 hours flight from 5-7 C in Torino to the 32-35 C in Singapore. I had to buy some shirts and shorts to feel comfortable outdoor. However, my Torino's cloths were very useful for the training, since in the training room the air conditioning was a sort of winter thunder storm.

Searching over internet, just few days before departing from Torino, I find out the Singapore's Kendo Club, which is located in the Japanese school very near to the International Singapore Airport. I contacted them and I packed my Bogu.
Since my hotel was located quite in the center of Singapore town (the pictures show night/day view from my room),


I had to get to the Japanese School by car. In Singapore taxis are quite cheep there fore are the best way to move around. Sigapore has a lot of traffic and the trip to the Dojo was about 60 minutes long. Even the trip to the Dojo was very interesting since the driver was a martial art maniac and he told me many stories about local martial arts.
I arrived to the Dojo a little late, but fortunately they have only started the warm up with the beginners, so I managed to prepare myself. As usual every body was very kind with me.
A other wonderful characteristic of the Singapore Kendo Club is that the Dojo is conditioned. Trust me, the air conditioning is a wonderful invention if you are wearing the bogu and on the street there are 32 C and 100% humidity.
We started the training together with the beginners and subsequently the beginners continue their training with an other teacher. The training was quite nice and a bit exhausting especially because I was suffering for the jet-lag and I did not know their training schedule. Therefore, I did all my best in the open gigeiko, which I was expecting to be the end of the training but... after we did a lot of mawarigeiko, which finish to destroy me.
I got back to the hotel exhausted but very happy, the way back was again with the martial art maniac taxi driver but was only 30 minutes long. My night ended searching a still open restaurant, at the end I was eating in a sort of Chinese food market but I have to say that I could not manage to recognize what I have eaten, even though it was good.