ATP World Tour Finals 2011

Yesterday I was at the O2 Arena in London to see Roger Federer’s record-breaking sixth ATP World Tour Finals victory. It was a fantastic match! Commiserations to Tsonga. A photo or two to follow.

Glory Money Changer

You’ve just got to love Japan. :)

TFL Engineering Works

For a Saturday, today was chaotic on the London Underground. Maybe I’m exaggerating slightly put travelling across London and then back again later in the evening, it seemed as though it was rush day not rush hour – not that there should be a rush hour at the weekend.

Perhaps people have started their Christmas shopping? The engineering works certainly weren’t helping – how long have they been going on for?! Every train I got on was packed and to make matters worse there was a signal failure at Covent Garden. This meant that travelling from Holborn to Covent Garden took at least 15-20 minutes – bearing in mind it takes about 5 min to walk the same distance!

Just thinking about my annual season ticket soon just makes me feel sick! Worth way over £1000? No.

Ryuichi Sakamoto 2011

For any Ryuichi Sakamoto fans out there who don’t know, Sakamoto-san is on a trio tour and his live performances, as well as archived ones, can be seen on uStream.

Two weeks ago I attended the London concert and really enjoyed it. Needless to say, the Southbank Centre was packed with Japanese people excited to see Sakamoto-san.

Student Protests

  

Fleet St in London was closed to traffic earlier today and a huge number of police were on the streets for the student protests.

Hanging Decorations

Looking up at hanging decorations. Kyushu, Japan.

Docomo Mail

Why does Docomo block mails from .com addresses?! Also, why isn’t ‘Docomo’ actually ‘Dokomo’?!

Chopsticks

Choose your weapon!

Minimalist Room

A room which looks out onto a Zen garden. Kyushu, Japan.

Hands

For the better part of this year – and I don’t mean better in a good sense – I’ve had strange issues with my hands. Well, technically it started last year when I hurt my right hand playing tennis. I think it may have been one particularly bad shot which jarred my hand and led to the injury. Thinking about it now though, a badly framed shot shouldn’t really injure a strong and healthy hand.

A month’s rest was required until it had healed but then, some time in January/February, again during tennis, the same pain reoccurred. This time it came on gradually throughout a game i.e. there was no particular shot that caused it. Within half an hour it had become really sore.

After that, I played a little, perhaps once a week for a few weeks or so but the pain wouldn’t subside. By this point, typing and using a mouse was starting to really tire my hand out and aggravate the injury. Now, was I imagining things or did I feel a sensation in the exact same place on my left hand? As this sensation grew stronger and started to become uncomfortable, it dawned on me that tennis may not have been the root cause of the problem.

Continue reading Hands