Simple Pleasures

It's pretty hot in Taipei, and I figured I better get a new aikido gi (uniform; 道服). The cotton gi that I've been wearing is good for Japan in the winter, not Taipei in the summer.

I do a search* on the web for stores in Taipei that sell aikido gis, and on Thursday after class, I go with my friend Taka, a karate expert from Japan, to a shop near CKS Memorial. They have a low quality polyester gi at a relatively high price. I look around the store, and I realize that it's because they specialize in Chinese martial arts. I decide not to get it, and am disappointed--I have class on Friday night, and don't want to practice in my old, heavy cotton gi.

However, after some more research, I find out about another shop in Ximending (西門丁). On Friday, I go with my friend Chi. The owners happily welcome us, and after I tell them what I need, he pulls out a beautiful gi. It's thin and made of cotton, and not too expensive. I can't tell you how happy that I waited to get this gi, and that I'll have a gi for practice tonight.

I walk out of the store with my friend, beaming. I kick up my feet like they do in commercials in the States, expressing my utter joy and my new purchase.

Perhaps I'm happy because I love aikido and being comfortable while practicing. A simple pleasure. And perhaps because, once in a while, despite what Mick Jagger says, you sometimes do get what you want, even if it is as simple as a comfortable new gi.

*By the way, I just downloaded some cool software on the web so that I can more easily read Chinese websites. If you don't understand a character (let's just say, ahem, there are some I don't), you just put your mouse over it, and boom, the definition pops up. It's an add-0n to Mozilla Firefox, in case you are interested, and you can get it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3349.)