Taki Taki

High life | 13 November 2010

Taki lives the High Life

This is a good time to be in the Bagel. Walking briskly under changing autumn skies amid colours that still carry their summer clothes is an inspiring experience. Heaven knows I need it. Early morning means judo training — hangover or not — and on foggy days I walk through the park as if in a trance longing to reach the dojo before I’m enveloped by the yellow mist. After training, it’s as if a heavy load had been lifted from my shoulders. Literally. The heavy-duty training I’m putting in now will pay dividends next year. That’s how it goes, judo-wise, karate-wise, tennis-wise, sport-wise. It’s like nature: one has to plant in order to reap, unlike fellow Greeks, who reaped long before thinking of planting.

I hear the Big Olive is a sad place these days. Shops have closed throughout the capital and people are losing their life savings. Those responsible are swanning around in their Mercedeses, instead of being locked up. But back to nature.

Big Bagel parks are amazing. They are well hidden among the cement and glass jungle, but there’s woodland galore within hiking distance of the Empire State Building. Hiking trails encompassing ponds, hills and valleys, speckled at this time of year with maple leaves and brush, crisscross these woodlands. North of Manhattan, in the Bronx, one can see deer, pheasants, falcons and even snakes, not to be confused with the drug dealers and criminals of that infamous borough. My favourites are the hawks I see on my way to torture in the dojo, circling up above, red-tailed and ever vigilant. Yep, there is nothing like an autumn palette of dazzling yellows and vibrant reds to prepare one to be squashed by an Uzbeki gorilla, Alisher, ‘like Sheraton’, as he tells other squashed suckers.

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