Posts Tagged ‘beijing’

Before I blog, I wanted to share something that I saw today.  You may recall that I mentioned that the winter smog from the coal burning and polution gets pretty bad here in Xi’an.  But we also get a bit of fog from time to time.  And when you combine the two things together, like we had today, it turns in to a pea soup the likes of which I never saw in my 14 years in the Bay Area.

Here are a few comparative shots from the morning and the afternoon so that you can get an idea of what it looked like from our living room window:

And just so you don’t think it looks like this all the time, here is a picture from just a month or so ago:

See?  Blue skies!

Anyway, back to the blog …

Three main things happened today in the World of Mark.  Well, okay … more than three things.  But three things that I’m going to blog about.

First, was figuring out what to do about our visa renewal.

We spent most of the early hours of the day (i.e. before lunch) going to the visa office and trying to get an extension on our tourist visas.  As we are in the process of closing down Ruhi’s company (after which we will probably start up a new one in 2010) we are technically in China as tourists.  As a result, I either have to leave the country every 30 days (60 for Ruhi) or get an extension.

As you will recall, last month I left the country and went to Hong Kong, only to end up spending a week in Anhui with the flu.  This time we decided to get a 30 day extension instead.

That is, until we found out that the cost of a 30 day extension for U.S. Citizens is 940 RMB ($140 USD), which is also the price of a full one-year multiple entry visa.  But only for 30 days!  Well, for less than 940 RMB we can just take the train down to Guangdong and hop across the border, so why spend all that extra money?

So, on Friday Ruhi will be traveling to Beijing for some meetings.  To save some money I will be going directly to Guangdong from Xi’an.  Sorry to Wu Di, Jenn, Chris, et al. for not being able to make it over to the capital this time around.  But Ruhi will be there in my stead for 2 days.

On Wednesday I’m going to catch a train down to Guangzhou and then hop across the border.  Ruhi will have already been staying in Guangzhou for a couple days and on Friday afternoon we will catch a train back up and get home on Saturday morning.  This time around I opted for the faster train, as the slower one is obviously not an option.  Who wants to go all the way to Anhui anyway?

Here is a map of Ruhi’s journey.  As I said, my route is just a straight back and forth from Xi’an to Guangzhou.

The second thing that happened today was a revamping of our home.

Yue A-yi was here to clean today so we took the opportunity to swap our bedroom and the second room around.  After several hours we have set up the place so that we’re both working in our “spare” room with all the natural light, and our sleeping room is the darker, more comfortable one that gets much warmer.  Plus we moved some furniture around in the main room.  I love optomizing my living space.  According to Ruhi I get a twinkle in my eye when I am in that mode.

And the third thing is (hopefully) a change to my training routine.

I called Yuan Ming earlier in the day and asked him for Coach Zhang’s phone number.  He didn’t have it, so I had to relay the message through him.  I told him that (1) I would not be able to make it today and that (2) I wanted to switch my workouts from the afternoon at 3:00 to the morning at 9:00.  He said he would talk to Coach Zhang for me.

In the evening I gave him a call but it turned out that Coach Zhang wasn’t there today.  Tomorrow morning they also don’t have training because there is a meeting, so I will just go in the afternoon as usual.  Then, assuming Coach Zhang is there, I can ask him about switching to the morning session.

Why switch to mornings?  Well, for one, it will make me more productive with my work.  I will have a bigger chunk of time to get things done during the afternoon and evening.  Also, I think it is better, physically, to exercise during the earlier hours of the day as it sets up your body’s metabolism and function better for the rest of your waking hours.

Plus, I just feel better when I train in the morning vs. the afternoon.

So, that is what happened today.  Tomorrow it is back to the wushu grind stone.  Today they had strength training, so tomorrow, I”m not really sure what is happening.  I’m hoping it is wushu, but it might be running too.  I’ll just play it by ear and make sure I am prepared for any contingency.

Until tomorrow …. here is a bonus picture that I swiped from Wu Di’s camera in Binzhou.  Enjoy!

As some of you know, about 10 days ago or so I put a call out for folks to help out my friend Jennifer who was going to Beijing University for a year to study.  The response was overwhelming and I can’t say enough to express my appreciation.

So I won’t.

Instead, I’m going to post up a message from Jennifer letting us know what is going on with her and sharing some of her experiences to date.  Enjoy!

I never know where to start with these kinds of things... but I guess
I should start with the most important thing:  THANK YOU!

The kindness of both friends and strangers that has been shown over
the past week has humbled me more than anything I've ever experienced.

After going through all of my struggles with red tape at school and
funding and such, I was really starting to feel discouraged about
whether or not this was the right thing.  When I finally thought
everything was ready to go, I realized I was faced with the financial
aid SNAFU, I didn't know how I would possibly be able to fulfill my
dream of studying in China.  I was completely discouraged, and felt
that maybe it wasn't the right thing to do.

Enter Mark. When I first read what he put up on his site, I cried.
Not because I thought I would get any money, but to have a friend
write something so nice about...  I mean, it's like you always have
these things that you hope your friends (and other people) think
about you, but to actually see them written down where other people
can see them... it's just stunning. That to me was one of the
greatest gifts anyone could have ever given me.

Then, much to my surprise, people started donating money.  Friends,
people I've met online only, and people I didn't even know donated
money.  It was the clearest evidence to me that this really was the
right thing to do.  That it really was meant to happen.  And now, just
over a week later, I'm here in China.  I'm completely jet-lagged
because I took a morning flight (which I'd never done before), but I'm
so happy.

It's interesting to me because although there are a number of cosmetic
changes to the city, the general feel of Beijing feels the same.  I
feel almost as if I never left, or if I did, it was only for a matter
of days rather than years.  I feel like I'm at home.  I landed in a
new terminal at the airport, took a new shuttle to customs and the
baggage claim, went through customs in a different place, but the
general hum and process was the same. I got to my hotel, checked in,
and went exploring to find something to eat.  I found a chain noodle
place that I had liked in the past, went in and ordered the same thing
I used to eat, and enjoyed my first meal in what is to be my home for
the next 11 months.

I spent yesterday meeting up with old friends and going to places I
have been in the past, reacclimating myself to the "new" Beijing.  It
is everything I had hoped for. I bought a cellphone and talked to the
salesperson, asked my questions, listened to their spiel and realized
that my Chinese was going to improve immensely this year.  I have no
choice but to speak Chinese. No other way to communicate.  I don't
have anybody to fall back on to help me explain what I'm looking for,
or what I've been told.  It's exactly what I need.  It's still
slightly unreal.  I can't believe I'm here.  I can't believe I've
actually made it.  It's been so long coming, and something I've hoped
for for such a long time. To have it finally be real, I can't thank
all of you enough.  When I get my financial aid, I'm planning to make
a donation to Giving Anonymously (www.givinganon.org) because I hope
to do for someone what all of you have done for me.

To those of you who donated money, and those who didn't but held me in
good thoughts:  Thank you.  You've made all of this possible.  I'll do
everything I can to make this the best, most fruitful trip possible.

~Jenn

This blog entry is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I’m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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At last it is time for the last blog entry from this recent trip to China (and now hopefully I can get some actual work accomplished).

I should also mention that I went back and updated all of the previous entries with new photographs and videos that weren’t in the previous ones. Especially for the Shaolin Temple and Xi’an legs of our trip. So, be sure to visit narom.net or wushuwest.com to check those out (I don’t think they will port over to facebook or alivenotdead).

I’ll probably also post up some additional stuff on wushuzilla.com, if I have some time, and I’ve been slowly posting some wushu videos on my wushuzilla youtube channel too, so you can visit that if you are interested.

Saturday, June 25, 2009

Anyway, the last time I posted we were headed back from Xi’an to Beijing on the train. We woke up nice and early and got our things together before disembarking. However, I managed to snap a few nice photos of the surrounding countryside before we did (click a thumbnail to view).

We were greeted by our local tour guide who would accompany us on the bus from the Train station to Shi Cha Hai. Kent had left us in Xi’an so this was officially the end of our tour.

When we arrived in Shi Cha Hai it was time to re-acclimate to the environment. For most of us, the next 2 days would be spent socializing and shopping.

I saw Shahaub and Wu Di pretty much right after arriving and as Wu Di was leaving to get a haircut, I decided to join him and get one as well (Thanks Wu Di for the haircut!). The salon was nice and after I was done, I got us something to eat and took a few pictures of him with tin foil in his hair:

Then it was back to the school where I got myself situated in the room I would be sharing with Pierre.

As I was unpacking I realized that I had left the charger for my laptop in Xi’an! I quickly made some calls and learned that the hotel had found it and that Ruhi would be able to pick it up for me. I just needed to get a new one in the meantime (it doesn’t hurt to have a backup cable anyway).

I first went to a couple local electronics stores, but they didn’t have anything that I needed, so I finally went to the Electronics store located on People’s Sports Stadium South Street. They had what I needed and I was able to bargain it down a little bit. Phew! problem solved.

In the evening Patti had arranged for everyone to go to Mistica Pizza for a group dinner. The food was pretty good but the entertainment was even better. The singer played guitar and had a song list so that you could request a song or even go up and sing it yourself. Wu Di, Shahaub and some of their friends showed up too and we were serenaded by Wu Di’s dulcet tones

I didn’t get a video of Wu Di singing, but I was able to get some of the guitar player singing a bit of James Blunt. Coincidentally, during most of the night Daniel Wu was on the TV as the special guest of a variety show where he was showing the hosts how to ride a skateboard and do various acting exercises. You can see a bit of it in the clip

It was getting late so I rode in a taxi with Jonah and Noah back to Shi Cha Hai. When I went back to my room I unpacked some stuff, worked on blogs, and then I hit the hay.

Sunday, June 26, 2009

After waking up I finished up a bit of blog work and cleaned up. I was going to be meeting up my old friend Marco Goodman, who had been living in China since 2004 or so. In fact, the last time I saw him was 2006 when he dropped by Shi Cha Hai for a quick class. He had been living in Liaoning but recently moved to Beijing where he was preparing to work on his MBA in China.

He came by the school and then we headed towards Ya Xiu. But the food at Ya Xiu didn’t seem to suit us so we ended up going to McDonald’s instead. It seems that food at Ya Xiu is bargainable, which seemed strange to us. I don’t mind bargaining for clothes or bags, but bargaining for a meal isn’t something I’m as used to.

Anyway, after that he went with me to get fitted for my suit. While there we ran in to James, Myles, Pierre, Ashley, Lauren, Susan, and Jennifer. Patti showed up a bit later as well. Marco and I went down to the luggage floor and ended up having a lengthy conversation with a few girls down there about the business of selling goods. We learned quite a bit about the mark-ups they put on items, but it was nothing compared to what I would learn later on.

After a while Marco had to leave so I went back up to hang out with the Wushu West folks. Since I wasn’t buying anything, I decided to further my education and learned some Anhui dialect from the local workers on the 3rd floor. It actually reminded me a lot of Shanghainese.

After a while I got sort of bored, so I decided to head back down to the bottom floor again. This is where things got interesting.

I ended up hanging out down there for a few hours talking with the 4 Anhui (and 1 Hangzhou) girls who were working near the escalator. I was there long enough that I actually ended up helping them with some of the sales.

I worked at the hat stall for a while learning the right phrases to call out to people as they walk by and ignore you.

I worked at the belt and wallet stall learning the mark-up mathematics on various items and how much they should be sold for. (Foreigners really get shafted here.)

In fact, I even managed to sell a card holder to some Chinese guy who thought I was the boss for the stand (since I didn’t have on the typical blue or pink worker shirt).

I could write a whole blog entry on what I learned from that experience, but I won’t bore you with the details. Sufficeth to say, it was very educational (and I have a new-found respect for how difficult that job can be).

After returning to Shi Cha Hai I grabbed some food in the cafeteria and then went to my room to pack. 20 minutes later I decided to head to the lobby to watch “So You Think You Can Dance” with Shahaub, Lauren, Ashley and Jennifer. We did that until my battery died around 3 AM. Then I caught some z’s.

Monday, June 27, 2009

It was time to leave! Boo! We all got up nice and early and headed to the lobby with all of our luggage. There were 8 of us heading back on the plane. Lauren, Tyler, Susan and Travis were continuing on to other parts of China, Patti was staying a few more weeks, and James would be coming the next day.

The ride to the airport was quick (that new expressway really helps) and soon enough we were all checked in to the flight and waiting at the gate to board our plane.

I slept pretty much the whole way (which is why I stayed up so late the night before) and when we arrived at SFO on Monday morning at 8:30 AM I was ready to go.

We picked up our luggage, made our way through customs (with the exception of Myles, whom they apparently thought was carrying drugs in his Panda hat) and greeted our various family members outside.

And thus ends this blog of the Wushu West trip to China, 2009. I hope you enjoyed all of it. Of course, if you are interested in taking wushu and are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, you are more than welcome to drop by Wushu West and check it out for yourself.

This blog entry is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I’m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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EDIT: 7/28: Added photos from wushu practice

To be honest, it feels like a long time ago that we were in Beijing, even though it was technically only 3 days. I’m going to do a very quick summary of the last couple days. Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of Sunday and Monday, so you will have to do with this hastily-written entry. I really have so much stuff from the trip to Zhengzhou (Shaolin Temple) and Xi’an that I want to get to that as quickly as possible.

Sunday

It was our day off. As such, a lot of us had various things we wanted to accomplish before leaving Beijing on Tuesday. A lot of that involved going to Ya Xiu. For myself, I first had a nice lunch over at Patti’s home with a few of her family and some of the Wushu folks who were able to make it. It was a quick bite and after watching some strange sports on CCTV5, Ruhi and I headed to Ya Xiu.

The main task at hand was to figure out our wedding clothes. Coincidentally we also ended up running into Lauren, Ashley, Susan, James, Myles, Jennifer, Wu Di, Pierre and Shahaub there.

After shopping 6 of us headed back to the Singaporean restaurant from Friday night and we all had some great food. It was amazing to watch Wu Di when he’s hungry. A few of us almost lost some fingers. Then it was a taxi ride back to Shi Cha Hai and an evening relaxing and preparing for our last full day of workout.

Monday

Originally we had been told that the morning workout was at 8:00. So naturally we were all up nice and early. But then it turned out it was switched to 10:00, so we had to wait a couple hours. Poor Tyler actually went to the wushu guan. But we finally got situated and then worked out downstairs in the lower wushu hall. For myself, I was creating a Tiger form, so I made the first two sections of that. So far, so good. After class we also had a group meeting about our upcoming departure from Beijing.

After workout we didn’t have a ton of time to do things before our afternoon class. I went across the street with Ruhi to grab some bing from the restaurant I ate at back in 2004 or 2005 with Patti and her brother. It was still there and still delicious.

Afternoon practice was in the upstairs wushu hall. It was pretty empty as we were the only ones in the whole room. I spent some time figuring out my form and teaching Travis a few moves from my nanquan (Southern Fist) form. Ruhi had gone by that time, as she had a dinner appointment and was flying back to Xi’an on Tuesday morning.

Most of us spent the rest of the evening packing and preparing for our trip. Pierre and I also received a visit from Wu Di and Shahaub, along with Jennifer. After a while it was time for bed. zzzzzzzz.

This blog entry is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I’m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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Yay! Saturday was finally here! That meant just one training in the morning and the afternoon and evening to relax.

Well, maybe not relax, since we were planning on heading out to check out the Bird’s Nest Stadium and the Water Cube, both major sites for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The morning training went well. (We might have to stick with Sharks and Minnows for the rest of our trip though.) Liu Qing Hua’s group wasn’t there so I didn’t get to learn the second section of Xie Zhen Hao’s nanquan form (I believe they were doing strength training in the gym), but I hope to get the rest of it by the time I leave.

Ruhi showed up around lunch. We couldn’t make it downstairs on time, but we went to the really good bing restaurant across the street (18 Di’An Men Xi Da Jie, in case you want to go) and got some food there. Delicious! Much better than the Instant Noodles I was originally proposing. Sometimes it pays to listen to your better half. (Most times, actually).

In the afternoon Ruhi had a meeting to attend (reviewing a rough edit on a TV pilot she co-directed in Sichuan) so I went to my room and slept like a log for 4 hours. I think a big group of folks also went to Ya Xiu for some shopping.

In the evening I grabbed dinner with Ruhi and some folks downstairs:

After dinner we all met in the lobby to head to the Bird’s Nest. We were accompanied by the group from Hong Kong. Patti was nice enough to introduce me to one of my wushu idols. I don’t have a ton of them, but this woman is certainly on the list. She is leading the group (along with a couple other men) from Ma On Shan, where the Hong Kong Wushu Team trains. This group is their junior athletes, so folks like HK Collin are not among them.

I’ll give 20 points to whomever can tell me her name:

Anyway, I took a TON of photos. Of those I picked 109 that were good. Of those, these are the ones I’m including on my blog. Go check my website’s gallery if you want to see the rest (narom.net).

After the journey back to Shi Cha Hai, most of us just settled in for the night, anticipating a Sunday off from wushu training and 2 more days until we embark for The Shaolin Temple and Xi’an!

This blog entry is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I’m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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Edit (7/28): Added video of athletes conditioning and swapped out others with youtube versions

Once again I have skipped a couple days in my blogging. Originally I thought Lauren was going to be writing a blog for me. Why did I think that? Probably by the way she asked me multiple times during Wednesday morning’s class “Can I write the blog for today? Pleeeeeease???” and I told her yes (naturally .. I would love it if they would write some blogs in here. Makes my life easier, right?)

Jump forward a day or so:

“Hey Lauren, don’t forget to write that blog for me” I reminded her.

“Do I have to?” she asked.

After a pause: “You asked me to. Multiple times. and I said yes. Multple times.” I replied.

“But I didn’t think you would say yes.” she said.

After considering the illogic of that statement I replied with “Why would you think that?”

To which she replied “Because you always say ‘no’.”

So, besides the fact that she had asked multple times and I had said yes multple times, she didn’t think she actually had to write the blog because she assumed I would say “no”? Well, I think what really happened is she realized that writing a blog requires writing a blog, so she decided it wasn’t how she wanted to spend her hard-earned personal time.

That being the case, you are still stuck with my personal rendition of this trip. Until someone else decides to chip in with some content, I’m left holding the ball (so to speak).

Thursday

Actually, Thursday I was anticipating Ruhi’s arrival to Beijing. (We’re engaged, in case you didn’t know, which is entirely possible since there are lots of people I didn’t tell and who don’t check my facebook status — consider this your notice )

She was flying in around 5AM and would make her way to Shi Cha Hai after dropping her things off at Grace’s house. She finally made it around noon-ish and we went downstairs to grab some food, running in to Patti and Cary in the process.

We went to go watch the afternoon training as well, since she had never seen professional wushu up close and personal. She also got to meet Shahaub and Wu Di. I also got to help Wu Di and Myles with some conditioning.

After class we went down to eat because we had requested 2 dishes from the manager. Unforunately they seem to had forgotten, so we just ate what was there (which was perfectly fine, of course) and spent time with some Wushu West folks.

After dinner she was tired, but we got sucked in to watching “Kiss of the Dragon” on Pierre’s laptop and then I took her to Dongzhimen Station and came back and fell asleep. zzzzzz.

Friday

The morning practice was good. It was the first time my calves weren’t hurting. It might have been because Ruhi brought me some requested supplements (vitamins, mostly), but I wasn’t complaining. The class wasn’t unusual in any way. Everyone is slowly improving and it is starting to show.

It is a little hard to see since we see each other do wushu everyday, but it is a little noticeable. When we get back to the U.S. everyone will have to let us know if we have gotten any stronger/faster/more flexible/better. But from my own estimation, I’m seeing some good growth in Tyler, Noah and Myles. Ashley is working really hard and improving too. And I even see Lauren overcoming some of her arm issues. Jonah is relaxing his shoulders and Jennifer is building up her endurance. Pierre is also getting some good corrections from Liu Hong.

During the morning training I walked over to Xie Zhen Hao (Shanghai nanquan guy) and asked him if he could teach me his form. He said yes! I would start learning it in the afternoon. Cooooool.

Ruhi came over in the afternoon again. We decided to go run an errand to change some of her (our?) money and then grab some lunch. We went to the same small place I took Myles and got the Tang Su Li Ji (sweet and sour pork — the real version, not the stuff you get in the U.S.) and Suan La Bai Cai (hot and sour cabbage — which wasn’t quite hot or soury enough). After eating we walked around Di’An Men Market for a bit and then walked back to the school for the afternoon practice.

I took a lot of photos and after class Xie Zhen Hao taught me his first section. It was probably one of the most complex nanquan forms I’ve ever learned. Whoever made this form was on some sort of nanquan crack. But it is cool to learn new techniques and movements, so I’m not complaining. If I can finish learning the whole thing I’m going to teach it to the Wushu West nanquan folks. Gotta get a video too …

But here is a quick video I took of the professionals doing some conditioning:

We also took a TON of photos during class. Here are some to enjoy …

And a few videos of Ashley’s wushu, per her request:

After class I went out for a dinner with Ruhi’s friend, Josie, and some of her friends. It was a nice restaurant which was 1/2 Sweenson’s (A Bay Area ice-cream and burger place) and 1/2 Singaporean food. It was actually very good. Awesome ice cream deserts and located close to Ya Xiu, so I think I will need to take some of the Wushu West foks.

After eating our fill it was time to head back by way of Dongzhimen station where we said goodbye. Then I came back and crashed hard again.

Saturday will be a half-wushu day with just the morning class. In the evening we are all going to chek out the Bird’s Nest stadium! Photos are definitely on the menu.

This blog entry is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I’m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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Edit (7/28): Swapped videos with youtube versions

Earlier in the day Lauren asked if she could write up a blog entry for class, mainly because she was running around taking funny pictures of everyone at the end of training. But that was fine with me, since it means I don’t have to write a blog about our training during the day.

However, I am going to write about our trip to get Beijing Roast Duck in the evening. Sifu Patti had arranged a bus to take us to the restaurant so we all met up in the Lobby at 6:00 PM. One sad note was that Loren and Ryan were taking off for a language/culture camp thing, so we wouldn’t be seeing them anymore. But I grabbed a quick video of Ryan saying goodbye:

A bunch of us piled in the van and headed out to the restaurant. I also caught a quick video of us on our way:

When we got to the restaurant, we were lucky to have 2 tables waiting for us, thanks to Patti’s brother, neice (JingJing) and sister-in-law. The food was delicious, but I’m going to let my pictures do the talking for me. As usual, click on an image to see the picture:

And as a special double bonus, here are two videos. First is James and second is Jennifer.

This blog entry is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I’m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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Edit (7/28): Swapped video with youtube version

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last 2 days.  Not that much have happened to warrant a single entry for each day, but now two days have passed.  And since I’m waiting for the guest blog entries on the F0rbidd3n City and The Gr3at Wa11 (Pierre and Ashley?  Hellooooo?) I’ll fill some time by sharing what we’ve been up to the last two days.

Monday morning was practice.  9:00 AM in the Wushu Hall.  Actually all practices this week are at 9:00 and 3:30 in the upstairs wushu hall, so at least it is consistent.   Everyone was working hard, and down on the far carpet was Liu Qing Hua’s group.  Since it was just the two of us, we got to be on the blue carpet.  Yay!  For myself, I primarily focused on the first section of my nangun (Southern Staff) form.  I’m working on making a new one this week so each day I’m creating a new section.

After class was lunch and then I spent some time in the afternoon working in my room.  The afternoon class came and went as well, and I spent that time working on more nangun.

I’m not sure what everyone did in the evening, but I spent the whole time working on my computer, so this is why I didn’t end up writing much in the blog.

Tuesday was another morning training (of course). Unfortunately Myles hurt his ankle so had to sit out the rest of the day.  Jennifer said she tweaked her ankle as well.  Hopefully they’ll both be back in full form soon.

After the morning practice I spent 20 minutes or so working on my nangun form after everyone left.  However, Liu Qi and Zhang Ye Xin were still there so I talked to them for a while and had them record a video so they could greet everyone in America.

In the afternoon I went to the airport with Lauren to pick up her mom, Susan and younger brother, Travis.  Once again we were blessed by the airport gods and they came out of the terminal just as we walked up to the door.

We got back to Shi Cha Hai just in time to go watch most of the training.  Lauren quickly changed and I spent some time either talking with Susan and Travis, helping Wu Di with some conditioning, or working on my nangun.  It was Tiger’s last time teaching us, as he would be leaving the next day for a competition in ZhengZhou, Henan.  Actually, we will see him there since he will still be in town when we go to check out the Shaolin Temple.  We grabbed a group photo for posterity.

After class I was asked to go to a Japanese restaurant with Wu Di, who had also invited Shahaub, Patti, Cary and Jennifer.  It happened to be the same restaurant I ate at last November, also with Wu Di.  We had a good amount of food and naturally I took some photos:

After that Patti and Cary went back to Shi Cha Hai, and the rest of us walked down the street to digest our food.  We also grabbed a quick cone at McDonald’s before catching a cab back to the school.

Tomorrow we have two different coaches training us.  I’ll be sure to snap a few photos and post them up.

Edit (7/28): Swapped video with youtube embed

This blog doesn’t really have to do that much with the Wushu West summer trip so I’m going to just post it on narom.net. The school all went to the Great Wall on Sunday. I slept in and spent the morning cleaning up my stuff and chatting with folks back home. But the time I was done Pierre had gotten back from the Wall and I decided to go do some shopping.

I went to the Di’An Men Market, which is sort of like Ya Xiu, but for things you actually need.  I got some hangers, hooks and various necessities.  I also grabbed a quick bite at KFC for lunch.  When I got back home and had taken a shower, Shahaub came over.

Originally we were going to go out to sushi with Wu Di, but they had gone there the night before (originally my plan too, but I had to go to Hutong Pizza instead) so they weren’t really up for it.  But never ones to take an opportunity for granted, they posed for some photos.

We decided to go walk down the street and get some food.  We ended up at a hot pot place around the corner.  The food was good and we enjoyed spending time with each other.  Here are some photos:

After hot pot we walked down the street towards the Hou Hai bars.  As you may recall (all 1 of you) I spent my 36th birthday in Hou Hai at a bar owned by a friend of Wu Di. You can see a youtube video of it here.

Since then the friend has seriously expanded the size of his club.  We chilled out in some nice cushy couches enjoying some soda water and cappucino.  We also took a LOT of photos.  Here are some of the best ones:

After that Wu Di had arranged to meet up with Peggy and Chris.  However, my stomach and the hot pot had other plans so I rushed back ahead of them to the hotel to pay a visit with Mother Nature (yay for adapting back to China food).  When I was going through the lobby I saw Liu Qi and some other athletes playing cards so I said I would come back down and visit with them, which I did.

They were playing a variation on Big 2.  Shahaub, Wu Di, Peggy and Chris soon joined in the lobby hang-out and of course I took some more photos, and even a video:

After that Wu Di, Shahaub and I decided to go hang out in Jennifer’s room to talk about script stuff, so I went up there.  We ended up ordering some Lamb Stick delivery while learning interesting things about each other’s lives.  Here are some photos.

By the end of that I was pretty tired so I headed to bed and tried to get a good night’s sleep for the next day’s practice at 9:00 AM.

This blog entry is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I’m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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Edit (7/28): Added James’ photographs from the Great Wall

Sunday was our day off and so most of the students went to the Great Wall to see one of the biggest wonders of the world (or at least one of the longest).  I didn’t go with them, but I have enlisted Lauren/Ashley to write up a blog about their trip.  Until that is ready, here are some photos that Jennifer took of their journey.  Many more photos and information to follow, but you’ll have to wait until it has been forwarded to me:

Edit: James has provided photos for me as well, which are located after Jennifer’s