wushuzilla

Posts Tagged ‘food’

I am typing this from Narita Airport in Japan while we wait for our connecting flight to L.A. via Honolulu.  Since our Beijing time has come to an end I wanted to post up some photos and experiences that we had here in Beijing during the last 10 days.  Got to see a bunch of people, although not as many as I thought I might.  But overall it was a positive experience and a good chance to get some things on track before heading off to the U.S.  So, here are some photo highlights for your enjoyment:

Wang Fu Jing’s Night Food Market (7/16)

 

Ruhi in Wang Fu Jing (7/16)

 

I’m excited to be in Beijing! Taken in Wang Fu Jing (7/16)

  

This is the mother of a friend who studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU or “Bei Wai”).  She was staying in the same apartment as us while she was there, but after a few days she had to return home to Malaysia. (7/19)

And this is her daughter, who’s name I can say but can not write for the life of me.  Something like “Nythiya”?  “Nydyia?”  Anyway, she is in a degree program at Bei Wai, so naturally her Chinese is pretty good. (7/19)

This is our friend Brian, who is a teacher at Bei Wai.  We were staying at his apartment during our time in the capital city.  Next to him is a student who came over to practice a speech she was giving at the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium a day or two later.

 

Of course, no trip to Beijing is complete without visiting with some wushu folks.  Here we are with Hao Zhi Hua at the Blue Frog restaurant in San Li Tun’s Village Mall.  Cary was there too, but I didn’t include his photo because I was afraid his hair would attack me.

All the Wushu West folks will recognize Sunny, our intrepid tailor and all-around fashion police.  James was there to put in a big order for his friend’s wedding and I was there to get a jacket and shirt made, along with some clothes for a few folks in the U.S.  Yay for Ya Xiu!

And then there is Wu Di.  We met up with him, Osric Chau (another alivenotdead artist who you might remember as the young Tibetan monk in the film “2012”) and Stephen for some sushi and fun.  Wu Di shared a script idea with us and we gave him our feedback.  Then he was nice enough to drive us back home.  I was hoping to see him again before I left, but my schedule was crazy and I wasn’t able to see him again.

Wu Di

 

Osric Chau

Stephen

The next are a set of photos from “Pure Lotus”, a Buddhist Vegetarian restaurant located in the Chaoyang area near San Li Tun.  Great food and a very unique environment made it a great eating experience.  I ended up going twice, both times treated by someone else!

Buddhist statue made from wood.

This is their menu!  It is about 3 feet long and weighs close to 20 pounds.

Main entrance area of the restaurant.

A cup of tea

Word of wisdom

Some vegetarian hand rolls.  Very delicious.

And finally, one of the things I was doing here in Beijing was some work for Khalil Fong and his fan club.  Some of it was administrative, some of it was fan interaction and logistics, and some of it was photographic.  I got to attend his concert here in Beijing which was quite spectacular.  Soul Boy has some skillz.  I was able to hang out in the dressing room beforehand and also get some pictures from backstage, so I wanted to share a few of the ones I like the most here:

 

Some autographed concert cards for fans

Backstage with some band members before the show

Jun Kung on guitar!  Ray on Base!

 

I like his energy in this shot

Left: Taken from back stage, Right: sipping some water between songs

 

I like the light in this one.  No photoshopping required!

View of the audience from the 1st row.

While at the concert I ran in to an old friend from back home.  Marla!

At the concert were Dayyan and his wife Bei Bi, along with another friend Saba, who was the DP on one of Ruhi’s film projects a few years back.  Saba joined in at lunch the next day since he and Khalil are old friends and I snapped a picture of them comparing cameras at the table. 

Yes … we at at “Pure Lotus”.

 

And that more or less wraps up the main highlights of the trip.  We got some good stuff done and I had a nice time but now it is time for us to head off for our month-long trip to the U.S.  Keep your eyes peeled here as I blog our travels around the western hemisphere!

One more bonus pic, taking a queue from Emilio.

As I mentioned before, Ruhi and I decided to move to the XISU (Wai Yuan) campus since she is going to school there and I will be teaching there.  They set us up with a great Teacher apartment right on campus and so, since Ruhi was in Beijing for the month of July, it was on me to make sure we were able to have a smooth transition from our old apartment in Gao Xin to our new apartment on the Wai Yuan campus.

And for the most part everything went quite smoothly.  We were able to locate a new renter for our apartment in Gao Xin and thanks to Ruhi via telephone from Beijing and a Chinese friend or two in Xi’an, we arranged for movers to come and take care of everything and get it in to our new apartment in just a matter of a few hours.

I wanted to share a couple pictures of our moving process.  First here is a picture of most of our boxes all ready for the movers.  This was taken on July 5, but I’m proud to say that by the time the movers showed up on July 13, I was all packed up and ready for them well in advance of their arrival.  No last minute scrambling for me!

And here are some pictures from our new apartment at XISU.  Obviously there is some serious unpacking to be done when we return from our trip to the U.S. at the end of summer!

 

 

During the last few days in Gao Xin I also took it upon myself to frequent some of our favorite hang-outs and say goodbye to the folks in the area.  First up are some photos I took at the Shanxi Dumpling and Noodle restaurant that we would frequently visit.  I actually have some really great video footage from this place that I will hopefully be able to put up in the future, but for now here are just a few photos so you can get the idea.  The first two were taken in May and the rest were taken on July 13.

   

And finally here are some photos from our favorite Kao Ro place, run by Lao Sun from Shandong – a real stand-up guy who always treated us very nicely.  I tried to be a bit more artistic with these so I hope you enjoy them.

 

 

 

 

I’m actually writing this blog from Beijing, where I’ve been for the last few days and will be until the 26th of July.  I’ll post up some of the photos I’ve taken here once I head off the U.S., but first here is a teaser image:

As I might have mentioned before, Ruhi and I had been hanging out with some friends who run an English school in Gaoxin called 4Dream Education.  They’re super nice people and have a nice school with free wi-fi, so naturally I spent a decent amount of time there, hanging out and getting to know some of their students and employees.

Recently we’ve been saying our goodbyes to them, since we’re moving to the other side of town and will not be able to spend as much time there as we have been.  I wanted to share some photos of the fine folks at 4Dream – sort of a 4Dream retrospective, if you will.

First are a group of photos I’ve posted before, but they give you a good idea of the environment at their school.  These were taken in early May:

  

Next are some photos from one of their social activities.  They had a small theater room in which they would play a movie, and then there would be a related activity in English after the film in the main room.  It was lots of fun and I got to meet some nice folks.  (the first picture has some wushu folks in it!)

 

Next up are some photos from the last day hanging out at 4Dream before Ruhi left for Beijing for the month of July.  In fact, the picture of Ruhi here with one of the 4Dream students, was taken as she was on her way to the airport.

 

  

And next up are pictures from a dinner welcoming a new teacher to 4Dream, Michael or Mike who hails from Chicago (if I remember correctly).  Or maybe the east coast?  Hmm … I need to keep better track of these things. 

Anyway, Mr. Kim asked for suggestions about places to eat and naturally when you are hanging out with someone from Korea you ask them to take you to a Korean restaurant because they they undoubtedly know a good place to go. And he certainly did.  Here are a few pictures from dinner with the 4Dream staff and Mike.

  

  

Finally, this Saturday I was invited to play some badminton with them after they finished their work.  It turned out that the badminton would be played in the courts located at the sports center for Mr. Kim’s apartment, which also just happened to be located across the street from Ruhi’s friend Susan’s apartment.  Small world. 

Those years of playing badminton with Jet finally paid off because I was able to be on the winning teach for each game I played.  But after 3 or 4 matches I was drenched in sweat, so after a change of clothes we all went to a delicious Kao Ro BBQ place and partook of some delicious food.  Here are a few photos from dinner.

 

 

 

 

And thus ends my Spring and Summer hanging out with the fine folks at 4Dream Education.  If you know anyone who wants to study English in Xi’an, I heartily recommend their school!  You can get more information at 4dreameducation.com.

This past spring I had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of students from the Xi’an International Studies University (XISU) who are majoring in “Teaching Chinese as a Second Language”.  There are 82 of them, split in to two classes of 41 each and are all freshmen, as in fresh off the train and in to school. 

There are some interesting things about the university system in China that I didn’t know before meeting these students.  For example, in China no one transfers from one school to another.  Once you start at a school, you have to stay there until you graduate.  Also, based on your entrance exam you qualify for only a specific set of majors.  So, if you really want to study French and you didn’t qualify for that department, then you have to pick some other major instead.  Needless to say, there are a fair number of students in these two particular classes that aren’t super thrilled to be stuck in a major that they have no interest in.

However, it is the system they are in, and they are all adjusted to that fact.  I suppose if you have no other options, you play with the hand you are dealt.

My role with these students was helping them with their Oral English.  But first I wanted to share some photos I took during a field trip they invited me on to check out the Terracotta Warriors, Xi’an most famous historical landmark.  They were kind enough to invite me along and so I brought my trusty digital SLR and snapped a bunch of pics.  If you are outside of China you can view them all on my website or my picasa gallery, but here is a selection of my favorites for those of you still inside the middle kingdom:

 

Oh, and in case you were wondering why the majority of the students in these pictures are female, it is because XISU’s student population is around 80% female.  So, for all you single guys out there, now you know where to apply for your exchange programs. (j/k)

One of the things I helped these students with was to provide some opportunities for Oral English practice outside of their classroom experience.  I would meet them outside of the school for some “Free Talk” time.  They would come in groups of 2, 3, 4 or even 5 and we would hang out and I would give them a chance to ask me any questions they might have about whatever topics interest them.

It was also a good opportunity for me to get a bit of practice helping students with their English prior to getting started with my new teaching job at XISU starting in the fall.  I was able to ask them what sort of English class was the most beneficial for them and what their particular desire was with relation to learning English.  It was very educational.  Here are some pictures of the students I met with out and about in Xi’an:

Prepare yourself for an overabundance of peace signs

 

 

(Not a student at XISU, but we met him on the XISU campus during a Free Talk session, so here he is.)

 

 

 

 

You can click on an image to view a larger version.

With some of the students we would go out to eat, so here are a few gratuitous food shots just to get you salivating!

 

And thus ends my XISU related photos from the spring.  I’m really looking forward to teaching in the fall and have already begun preparing ideas and materials for my syllabus and first classes.  It should be fun!

This is a bit of a catch-up entry to share some of what I have been up to in Xi’an.  Y’know … whenever I’m NOT in Hong Kong …

I’m going to post up a bunch of photos and provide some text so that you know what is going on.  Pretty much like the last few blogs too, I guess.

Ruhi has a pretty long commute to get to her school each morning.  One day I joined her so that I could head over to Shi Da Lu to do a bit of work.  She introduced me to an AMAZING Muslim restaurant that rocked my world.  Here she is waiting for the bus outside our building complex.

The restaurant was actually introduced to her by Jamie, who is in the next picture (left) with Roy (right).  Here they are hanging out at James and Adam’s place on Gao Xin No. 5 Road.  We had a couple movie night gatherings there, which were a lot of fun.  I haven’t been able to get back there though, due to my Hong Kong travels, but I hear they are still going strong. 

Rachel, from Beijing, and her parents visited Xi’an, so we went to a nice restaurant near Gao Xin Er Lu, just behind the Golden Eagle Center.  Her dad was nice enough to make us a super chocolatey creation.  Afterwards they came over to our house for some hanging out with MoMo, a bit of conversation, some amazing revelations that Rachel’s dad and Ruhi’s parents met each other in the 70’s, and a bit of Salsa dancing.  It was lots of fun!

 

One of Ruhi’s classes in her Master’s Program at XISU (Xi’an International Studies University) is Tai Chi.  They are learning the Yang 24 form so I thought I would go and watch.  The guy teaching them went to Xi’an Physical Education University with Coach Yang, the Fanzi Champ from the 80’s.  Wait, is that her name?  I’m forgetting … yikes!

One of the things we’ve been doing here in Xi’an recently is helping out a bit with a new Language school that just started in Gao Xin.  it is called “4 Dream Education” and we’re just offering some suggestions and thoughts on their programs for teaching English.  Plus, they are super nice people and its a nice place to hang out.  They have a coffee shop in the school and pretty good internet speeds.   They just started so only a few students right now, but if you know anyone who wants to study English in Xi’an, I recommend this place.

The last picture are some flowers from their opening ceremony.  I didn’t attend since I was in Hong Kong, but it seems they had a good turn-out.

One of the nice things about our neighborhood is the village of shops and restaurants right next door.  Mostly inhabited by Construction workers and their families, it is basically a mini community of local Chinese living in a very local way.  Great cultural exposure, not to mention a great place to get some quality food.

I’ve mentioned and shown a couple pictures of the dumpling/noodle place that we have been frequenting a lot in the last month. 

But recently a new place opened up, run by a man from Shandong (Jinan) called Lao Sun.  Its mainly a seafood place, but they have a lot of dishes, some awesome kao ro (grilled meat – cooked by Xiao Fang), great grilled vegetables (including some really good eggplant which you can see in the last picture below) and are super friendly.  We ate there 4 nights in a row because it just really hits the spot.  Here are some photos.

Finally, on Saturday 4Dream had their first social event – a movie night.  Part of their program is to have free events for people to practice English and see their school.  Sort of a combination of culture lessons, media event and English corner.  This time they were playing the Pixar movie “Up” in their super nice multimedia presentation hall, after which they had some ice breakers and activities.  Oh, and they provided some free grub too.

I invited Yue Xiao Yu from the Shaanxi Wushu Team and she brought her two good friends who do Sanda.  Actually, the friend I’ve met before (she was in the video of them leaving for competition which I posted last month) got 9th at the recent Sanda competition, so she’s the 9th most bad-ass fighter in China (in her weight class, of course).  Not too shabby.

This picture is Grace, our Chinese tutor, helping Mao Mao with her English activity

This is Mao Mao again, this time with Flora, one of the people who work at 4Dream.

And here is Grace again, this time with a friend who recently returned from a few years in Australia.  Needless to say both of their English is very good.

2 Sanda Athletes waving goodbye.

Grace and her friend who’s name I forget

So, that event was this past Saturday.  Sunday, of course, was Mother’s Day.  We called our moms and spent most of the day working.

And that brings us up to date.  Tomorrow is my first day back to Wushu since … well, I can’t even remember when.  it’s been a loooooong time, and I’m pretty sure it will hurt like no one’s business.  But you gotta do what you gotta do. 

Everytime I would talk to Xiao Yu she would ask me when I was going to come back to train.  So, I guess the answer is “Tuesday”.  But, of course, I’m going to taper my re-introduction to wushu.  This week is Tuesday and Saturday training.  Next week I will add Thursdays.  And the following week I will add Mondays’.  So by the end of the month I should be acclimating at around 4 classes / week.  The first two weeks are the most important though, since it is when I need to be sure and gets plenty of rest to let my body repair and build after the workouts.

So, wish me luck with the wushu.  And hopefully I will have some wushu-related blogs finally back up on the Zilla this week!

I am currently sitting in my train just having passed through Zhengzhou station in Henan Province.  Come to think of it, this is the sixth time I’ve gone through this station in the past year.  I wonder if Liu Hai Bo is near here …

The shanty town I just passed reminds me of Haiti.  Although unlike Haiti there are high rise apartment buildings just beyond them. Lots of construction in Zhengzhou.  More than most cities I’ve visited in China.  I guess that Shaolin money is doing its job.

Anyway, after a week in Hong Kong filled with meetings, meetings, work and some stress, I’m finally on my way home.  And boy do I need a trip home.  I will have to soak it all up though because I’m coming back to Hong Kong on the 26th for 3 more days.  What happened to my wushu training?  I haven’t been to wushu in a month or so if seems.  “Out of shape” does not even begin to describe things.

Some highlights …

Where i bought my new cell phone: HTC Touch Pro 2

On the bus

 

MBDF

 

Hold on!

 

 

 

Jack

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All photos courtesy of my new cell phone!

Doing a bit of catching up with this entry.  I have a backlog of photos to share so here we go with that …

On December 28, while Chana and Teresa were still in town, a friend invited us all out to KTV inside the city wall.  So we headed over to Li Jia Cun (李家村) to get our song on.  It was pretty fun and after a few hours we all headed back home.  Here are a few photos:

That was lots of fun.

A few days later was my birthday.  After a morning wushu class I went home and washed up for a nice brunch with Ruhi at the Shangrila Hotel.  It was delicious and I got a wonderful card and gift — tickets to the visiting Fame 2010 Live broadway show that is coming to Xi’an!  The show is on 1/9, which is also the 4 month-iversary of our wedding.  Pretty neat.

Here are some pictures from the brunch:

When we got back home we took a couple of pictures too.  Here is one in celebration of the upcoming and poorly named “Karate Kid”.

In the evening we met up with Charisse and Theresa at the Da Yang Tan (Big Wild Goose Pagoda).  It was my first time there and boy is it hmm .. well, “big”, I guess.  And a little commercial looking, I suppose.  Quite the tourist attraction.

Then we walked to Chang An Lu and caught a taxi to Gaoxin where we partook of Ro Jia Mo and some B&R Ice Cream:

Then a few days later we found ourselves at the Xi’an Sports University checking out information about classes with our friend, Yue Xiao Yu.  She was kind enough to provide us with some introductions with one of the teachers there.  We commemorated the occasion with a few photos at the front gate:

Then it was off to meet up with Ruhi’s friend Stephen, a doctor in Xi’an who I got to meet for the first time.  Very nice guy and was very helpful answering some medical questions for us.  Here he is:

And finally we went to Ruhi’s friend’s home where she and her son treated us to some Shaanxi home cooking. It was quite delicious and I learned how to make Suan La Bai Cai!  Pretty neat.  Her name is Martha and here are some photos:

It was quite delicious.  Actually, that was yesterday (Wednesday, January 6) after wushu class.  Today (Thursday) we had an early morning appointment at the medical center so we grabbed some breakfast in the village on our way back home.  Some Chinese donuts!  Delicious!

And, with the exception of my birthday party video footage, that pretty much brings us up to date.

I did go to the Xi’an International University today, a private university located a mile or so from my home.  I was asking about Chinese language programs for the spring term but I’ll fill you guys in on all of that once I figure out exactly what I will be doing.

Tomorrow morning is wushu. My knee has been really acting up the last 2 days so I’m going to see what happens in the morning.  If I don’t feel up to it, I might just go and work on the side on some choreography stuff.  Hopefully I’ll be okay.  Although, it also means I have to wake up in 6 hours so I better go now.

Until later …

I will say right now that I didn’t take any pictures or videos today during practice, so if you are just here for that, you can go now.

The reason I didn’t get any media is because I was busy getting my butt kicked with some serious strength training and conditioning.  It was basically a repeat of Tuesday, but unlike Tuesday, this time around I actually participated in as many of the exercises as I could.

In fact, at the beginning of class I was feeling pretty good.  Probably because of the day of rest on Thursday.  I was raring to go.  We did our usual joint warm-up and running around (it is slowly starting to get a little easier) and then we did our stretching.  After that it was time to go in to the weight room.

Again we did work with the big bar and weights.  20kg to start (not including the bar, which i think is another 10kg or so).  I asked for a bit more clarification from Yuan Ming about how the exercise is done.  They focus not on the squat itself, or even on the rise from the squat, but mainly on the pop-up at the top where you’re supposed to use your quads and calves in unison to give you a slight explosive “push” upwards.  Similar to plyometrics, I guess.

We did 4 sets of those, each time increasing the weight by 10kg or so until we had gone up to around 50kg.  I could handle the weight okay, but some of those kids were having a rough time of it, given the fact that they coudn’t weight more than 50kg themselves.  After each set you were supposed to go sprint out of the room to get your legs moving.

Then they brought the weight down to around 15 kg and we did calf hops with the bar on our shoulders.  20 hops, 4 sets.  By the end of this I could start to feel it in my quads.

Then it was time for conditioning.   Coach Zhang devided us in to two groups: big (“da”) and small (“xiao”).  I was in the “big” group, but mainly because the small group goes first and sometimes I don’t know what the exercise is until I see people doing it.

First up was a 3 hop exercise.  You hop up 3 times, the first time with high knees, the second time with feet behind you and the third time with legs out to the sides.  You do 10 of those, so basically 30 hopes.  3 sets.

After that was incline pushups and a down-and-back wheelbarrow run.  3 sets.  I didn’t have a partner for this so I did incline pushups on the stretching bar by the window.

Then they did 3 sets of 20 lunge jumps.  I can’t do those so I did lunge walks along the carpet, 3 sets of 16 each.

After that we did 3 rounds of frog leaps down and back on the carpet. Or maybe it was 4.  Hard to remember.

After the frog leaps we did core work.  V-ups were done on the coach’s count up to 10 and then 5 quick ones followed by holding your legs and torso off the ground for 15 seconds.  Then turn over and do 30 fish flops followed by holding that position for 15 seconds.  4 rounds of all this.

Then they did some around-the-carpet single leg runs.  My knees wouldn’t let me do this one so I did calf-raises instead.  30 each leg.  3 sets for both them and I.

Then it was time for sprints.  We would walk down the length of 2 carpets and then sprint as fast as we could back.  My quads were pretty worn out by this point so slowing down from the sprint at the end of the room I almost fell, not realizing that my legs had weakened.

After 6 sprints we were told to stretch and relax.  And that was class.  It was a good workout and I’m glad I have the weekend to recover because it will really help.

One nice thing was that during the class Yue Xiao Yu came up to ask me a few questions about English.  Its nice that they feel comfortable enough with me to ask me questions.  I’m going to see if I can’t start up a little once-a-week English conversation practice for her and some of the other athletes that have expressed an interest in learning English.  Unfortunately they are trying to learn on their own, which I know is not easy.  So I figure I should let them take advantage of the opportunity presented by having a native English speaker training with them for the next year or ten.

This weekend should be a good one.  I’m meeting my Chinese tutor(s) tomorrow (Saturday) and doing my Chinese study over at the Village Cafe.  Then Sunday will be spent doing some work and getting things in order and organized at home.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.  It came and went with narry a notice here at the Moran’s Xi’an household.  It was just a year ago that I was in Idhao celebrating the holiday wth my mom and Reid.  Here are some nice pictures of that in honor of the holiday.

Since I didn’t have to go training today, I thought I would post up a few pictures from the past few days of non-wushu-related life in Xi’an.

Making Noodles (10/25)

First though, I realized that I forgot to post up a bit of footage and photos from waaaay back on the 25th of October after Ruhi and I had visited Garnett and Umesh at the Xi’an Translation University (西安翻译大学). When we got back home we dropped by the local market village and got some noodles at one of our favorite little restaurants. This time around, since I had my video and still camera I thought I would capture some of the magic.

We ordered mian piao, a noodle dish made with flat noodles. Here you can see some photos of them being made and put in to the cooking water.

And here is a video of our noodle dish being made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV4hWLrgrj8

Are you hungry yet?

Winter Smog (11/24)

Anyway, moving back to the present, one thing that Xi’an has which is unique from the other cities I’ve lived in around China, is the winter pollution.  It is a combination of the high number of coal being burned in the winter for heat, as well as the fact that we are in a valley surrounded by mountains.  As a result there are some days when the winds are blowing the wrong way and you can barely see a block away from you, sometimes even less.  Here are some photos I took the other day in front of our apartment complex.

It wouldn’t be so bad, but you can really smell a sooty flavor in the air and it makes me feel like eating BBQ all the time.   It also makes running around the track at the Sports Center quite interesting.  But I suppose it is one of the reasons that Xi’an is a good place to visit in the spring, summer and fall.

Although, one nice thing about Xi’an in the winter is that it doesn’t get super cold.  Well, at least it hasn’t this year.  Unlike Beijing that is under a carpet of snow, or Shanghai with its super frigid winds right off the ocean, Xi’an is a bit farther inland so we don’t get super freezing. (Crossing my fingers)

Restaurant Eating (11/25)

On Wednesday night we got a little hungry so we went to one of the other restaurants in the outdoor market next to our building.  This one has yang ro chua’r, which is the main reason we go there.  We originally wanted to go to another restaurant but they were closed so we ate at this one.  Here are a couple pictures.  I would have taken some of the food, but it was gone before you knew it!

Meeting James at the Village (11/26)

And tonight we went over to Shi Da Lu’s Village Cafe to do a little work, get something to eat and meet up with James, a Friend of Ruhi’s who lives in Xi’an.  Actually he will be moving close to our home in another week or two so we will practically be neighbors!  Here are a few photos of us hanging out at the cafe.

And thats about it for this time around.  Tomorrow it is back to the wushu guan and some more training.  Its been great having a day to heal up and I hope my body took good advantage of it.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you in the U.S. and Happy Day of the Covenant for those who know what that is.

Site Updates (11/26)

By the way, I changed out the header of my website (and the website looks pretty different these days if you haven’t visited it in a while), wushuzilla.com.  There is a pretty good chance that, if you are reading this, you may not have visited in a while. I actually have my blog replicating to 4 different websites, so you may not even know I have the site at all.

I also have a few ideas for the site that I will try to implement in the semi-near future.  But we’ll see what happens.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please feel free to use my new contact form on my website too.  I’m happy to hear whatever you might have to say.

On Thursday night Ruhi and I had trekked over to Shi Da Lu to meet up with Jamie for dinner at the Village Cafe.  While there Adam, a long-time resident of Xi’an now living in Shanghai, happened to call Ruhi and let her know that he was in town.  So we all made plans to meet up the next night and have dinner.

So Friday evening, after wushu class, I came home, cleaned up and then Ruhi and I took a cab over to the south gate to meet up with Adam and another friend, Jia Run.  (It turned out Jamie couldn’t make it.)  The four of us met up at the South Gate of the Xi’an City wall, just across from where I stayed with Wushu West only 4 months before.  My how time flies!

We went to eat at a restaurant that had been an old haunt of theirs back in the day.  It turned out to be pretty delicious as we ordered some Gong Pao Ji (Kung Pao Chicken), some Suan La Bai Cai (Hot and Sour Cabbage), a bit of soup and plenty of tea, and got down to some serious conversatin’.

After getting our fill of food, we all headed back to the South Gate area where Jia Run caught the good old 600 bus to her home.  Then Adam, Ruhi and I went to the hostel where another friend of theirs was staying.  Adam was in town doing some work for a Scottish company called Pure Media, a group that works with poor and underpriveledged groups and provides training and education in the arts.  (Adam is actually a very good musician (guitar) who was even featured in Xi’an television for being the first foreigner to ever learn and perform Shaanxi style Chinese Opera.)  Unfortunately the guy we went to see wasn’t there, but we did manage to make our own little street party, which was pretty fun..

After that we hung out a little longer pulling a “parking lot wushu” (sans wushu) until it got late enough for Ruhi and I to catch a cab back home and rest.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures.  Here is a video of us enjoying ourselves, just for your entertainment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyyQCbrhSTY

And for you folks in the mainland:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTMzODUyMjA4.html