Ian Benedict

I made mention of the video in my last post, so here it is. If you’re not sure what this is all about, check out my last post regarding the Armageddon wings. Much thanks to Vadim Sverdlov for taping it and doing a good job editing it.

Warning: The following video contains profanity, as well as scenes of epic burning in the mouth.

Quite a contrast on today’s menu. This past week I’ve had the luxury of trying out a couple of fairly exotic (in their own rights) dishes.

First up are the Japanese pancakes called Okonomiyaki. Basically, they are pancakes with batter made with cabbage, flour and a variety of other ingredients, as well as different condiments on top of them. For example, I had one with beef, onions and some other vegetables all topped off with sauce and a bit of mayonnaise on it. It ended up leaving me pretty full after and cost me around $6, so the value is fairly good. I’d say if you’re looking for an alternative to regular fast food, give okonomiyaki a chance.

Next up is the Armageddon wings. Simply put, they are the hottest wings served at All Star’s Wings and Ribs and they are absolutely no joke. In fact, you are forced to sign a waiver before you even attempt to eat them. On the more scientific side of things, the “hotness” of the wings is supposedly rated at around 1 million Scoville units, which is right up there with the world’s hottest pepper. So there was a challenge involving eating these wings: eat 10 of them within 30 minutes with water as your only drink, and you get your picture up on the wall as well as a t-shirt. There were a few more intricate rules to make sure people don’t cheat, but I’m not going to list all of them. The three of us (Jean, Zohar and yours truly) decided to take on the challenge.

While the wings were being brought out, you could definitely smell them from a distance. Having a good look at them when they arrived, they were a really dark brown colour and seemed to have spices caked on them. The first bite was probably the worst, I coughed a little with the amount of spice on the outside of the wing. Finishing the first wing, I then started on the second one fairly quickly. This is where I made the big mistake: having a sip of water. To the uninitiated, drinking water while doing a challenge like this is an absolute no-no because it only gives you instant relief but intensifies the heat after. After finishing the third wing, my mouth and lips were on fire and I wasn’t sure if I could keep going. From this point onward, I can’t remember much except that I just kept willing myself to stuff my face with wings until I eventually couldn’t stop drinking water and had to give up. The final tally was as follows: Zohar had 1, Jean had 4, and I had 6 for a combined total of 11 wings. This challenge finally came to an end…. or so I thought. Submerging my burning lips in water constantly for about ten minutes had pretty much no effect. As well the… err… “after-effects” certainly interrupt my night’s sleep. Let’s just say Kendo practice the next morning was really interesting.

So did I learn anything from the ordeal? Undoubtedly. Next time, I’ll just take the semi-hot wings and enjoy them with the others, thank you very much.

PS. There is a video of the whole thing, which I will post if I can find a way to.

Yes, I’ve migrated to WordPress from Drupal. As a result, some of the content on my previous blog won’t make it to this new one (although I do have it backed up). If you are interested in any previous posts, I might mine through the database and find a way to post it back up here.

The long and excruciating semester continues. However, I have managed to take some of my free time and dedicate it to a new interest which I’ve always wanted to pursue, Kendo.

First off, let me go into a little bit into Kendo. Kendo is a Japanese martial art. It is a fencing art, where each kendoka (Kendo practitioner) wields a shinai (bamboo sword) and attempts to strike the opposing kendoka in one of four target areas. These targets include the men (head), do (body), kote (hands) and tsuki (throat). They also wear the bogu (protective armour). Here is an image of what a standard kendoka looks like with the bogu and shinai, as well as the target areas which are marked off. This fencing style isn’t exactly the way samurai wield katanas in battle, rather it is a derived “sport” form from the actual technique known as Kenjutsu (much like how the sport of fencing was derived from older fencing techniques).

So how do Kendo competitions work? In a shiai (competition), the first kendoka to reach two ippon (points) is considered the winner. An ippon is awarded by not only a valid cut to one of the target areas, but also by a kendoka’s display of intention and control during the cut.

I’ve signed up to my university’s Kendo club for the semester to try it out and see if it’s something I’d like to pursue. So far I am enjoying the training and the drills. I even went so far as to buy a practice shinai of my own after the second class because I was so enamoured with it.

Well, other than Kendo, I’ve been up to pretty much nothing else but studying and strength training. I’m considering getting back into tennis, but that will have to wait for now. I’ll leave you now with a nice video that pretty much sums up Kendo.