How do you like Nishiki Market?

It's a lovely place. It's very nice and there are a lot of different shops, different foods, different things to see. It's really a wonderful place. I like it a lot.

Why did you come to Nishiki Market?

Acutally, I was supposed to come to Kyo-matsuri, the Gion festival since we're here and we've heard about it and it was not such a so long way from Gion matsuri so might as well have a look. We're very happy with it.

Have you been anywhere else in Japan?

Around Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Nara, Tokyo, Kagoshima. Yeah.

You've been to Japan several times. Why do you keep coming back?

The Japanese martial arts, actually. I know traditional martial arts that I do and it's not really available outside of Japan so in my country, I'm the only one doing it. So I have to come to Japan if I want to keep learning otherwise I go home and teach so it's quite difficult. But you know, it's lovely place, lovely people and I really like to come here so that's the reason why. It is called Daitou-Ryu Aiki Jujutsu. It's the ancestor of aikido. In the martial arts world, it's quite known but otherwise people don't know about it. It used to be samurai arts and it was Takeda family arts. It's been introduced to probably at the end of last century and since then, it's been kept quite small by design. So the quality of the teaching remained constant. So they are not used to have foreigners coming here to learn that so in the beginning was quite difficult to gain their trust and everything. But once people know that you are serious and honest, they're really helpful and they really enjoy that you have this foreigner take on what they do. So it's a two way process, I guess. We bring the curiosity and they bring the knowledge and experience. It's good both ways.