Posts Tagged ‘xi’an’

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.

As some of you have seen on Facebook or other places, our (and I say “our” in a broad Xi’an-wide sense of the word) cat Momo has passed away.  It seems it was due to kidney failure and it came quite quickly.  Over last month of her life she started to lose a lot of weight, wouldn’t eat or drink, and became rather weak.  After a couple visits to the vet she ended up passing away in our bathroom with Ruhi and I sitting by her side keeping her company.

(Pictured at Right: Momo back in the day in Shanghai before coming to Xi’an)

It was actually the first time I’ve been next to any living creature (bigger than a cockroach, that is) as it died and seeing an actual final gasp for breath from a creature you have grown attached to is probably not an image that I’ll be able to remove from my mind.  It was both sad – and at the same time somewhat life-affirming.

But I’m not here to depress you.  I’m here to celebrate the life of Momo.

Actually, I didn’t know Momo for very long – just about 7 months or so.  Originally she was Chana’s cat, brought over from Shanghai (and originally I think from Hong Kong?).  She has actually lived with almost all of Ruhi’s foreign Friends in Xi’an at one time or another and with each home more and more people got attached to her gentle nature.

In fact, I’ve had close to a dozen cats over my life, but I’ve never been around one with such a peaceful demeanor.  She was the most sociable and accommodating cat I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.

(Pictured at Left: An accommodating Momo endures an embarrassing outfit)

I’ve taken quite a few photos of Momo over the past half year or so, so I wanted to share a few of my favorites here.  Enjoy!

Click on an image to view a larger size.

February 4, 2010

April 2, 2010

April 22, 2010

May 15, 2010

We found Momo enjoying this bag one morning.

May 16, 2010

Momo would often sit next to our computers (or sometimes on them) while we were working.

May 20, 2010

More photos of Momo helping me with my work

May 27, 2010

Momo wasn’t the only one who liked to take cat naps.

June 22, 2010

The morning before she passed away.  We took her to the vets to get an IV treatment to replenish some fluids and nutrients.

But this is how I really will remember her:

May 10, 2010

Goodbye Momo!  You will be missed.

An online friend of mine is currently training at Zhao Chang Jun’s schools here in Xi’an.  I’ve been wanting to check this school out (or even find out where it is) for a while now and so when he invited me to check out a forms test (i.e. “mock-ompetition”) they were having I was eager to see what it was like.

Now anyone who knows anything about modern wushu’s “golden age” (i.e., the 70’s – 80’s), knows who Zhao Chang Jun is.  Multiple Chinese National titles as well as a slew of other credits to his name makes him one of the best known athletes of his generation.  (If you really don’t know who he is, go to youtube and type in his name.  And then slap yourself on the face for being such a n00b.)

I’ve also had the opportunity to train with him one time when he visited Wushu West back in 2005.  (Or was it 2004?  Wow … I’m getting old.)  Anyway, I could quickly tell that he was an excellent coach with high standards – he really knew his stuff.  Of course, that was also around the time that he moved to the U.S. from his native Xi’an and left his wushu school under the care of someone else (I think his “sister”, so says the rumor). 

I’ve heard relatively good things about the school since arriving in Xi’an.  Of course most of the local people are familiar with his name since he was a pretty predominant local celebrity back in the day, but it was hard to find out where his school was located.  And in any case I wasn’t in a huge hurry to check it out since I already had a place to train.  I had corresponded with one or two people who have trained there and they had decent things to say about the instruction there.  I have talked to some athletes about the school and they didn’t have anything disparaging to say about it either. 

But whether I’m checking out a new movie, restaurant or wushu school, I generally try to reserve my expectations until I’ve had a first-hand look. 

The school itself is located just past the south 3rd Ring Road in Xi’an a couple kilometers to the west of Chang An Road (Google Map Link).  Coincidentally it is about 5 km from where I’ll be living in September, so when I found out where it was located it appeared on my radar as a possible training location.  The local area itself is a bit isolated, but not terribly far from actual “civilization”.  When you arrive there are a few large signs on the main road letting you know that the school is just a half a click down a wide alley spotted with various ceramics and botanical supply shops.

The gate wasn’t manned when I walked in, so I just started to explore a bit to see if I could find out where I was supposed to go.  There are four main buildings – one is classrooms and offices, one is dorms, there is a weight training and sanda training building and a wushu hall.  There is also a new building but it was small and I wasn’t sure what it was for.

From the looks of things, they also rent out or share some of their school space with an automotive mechanics college.  Of course, every building has pictures of ZCJ with various famous folks or on the podium accepting trophies and medals.  But if I had to use one word to describe the general condition of the buildings and grounds I would probably go with either “dilapidated” or “run-down”.  I could tell that it was probably quite the nice little school back during its inception, but it was clear those days were somewhere in the past – or more optimistically, somewhere far in the future. 

I really am hesitant to say too many negative things, because these are only my observations based on about an hour hanging out there and seeing things at a glance.  Undoubtedly there are many very positive aspects to training and living there.  But since my experiences are limited I can only go with what I know. 

And personally I think that whether or not the soccer field is overgrown with plants, or the wushu carpet is a thin strip of rug on top of a hard wood floor, or the dorms have working showers is irrelevant if the training is of a high standard and the level of instruction is top-notch.  Those other things can be overlooked if you are really improving and developing as an athlete.  This isn’t a country club, after all, it is a Chinese wushu school.  You aren’t supposed to be wrapped in luxury while you are getting your butt kicked in the wushu guan. (*cough* Shi Cha Hai *cough*)   (Although … I will admit that it is nice to have a high thread count on the sheets when you are recovering from a workout.)

So the real proof is in the proverbial wushu pudding.  I was anxious to see how their wushu looked.

And here is the thing … the school isn’t strictly a wushu school, so much as a boarding school that has a rather predominant wushu program and theme.  The people who live and train there are kids who pay to go to school and, if they are so inclined, learn wushu.  In fact, it isn’t a requirement that they train, but most of them do since it is available (and probably their parents have sent them there for that purpose). 

With my experiences in other cities I recognized that there was quite a difference between athletes at a professional sports school such as Shi Cha Hai or the Shaanxi Sports Training Center and those who are at wushu training facilities without a professional emphasis.  I assume that most of the kids who show any promise are whisked away to the local professional training centers rather quick, leaving the remaining students a random collection of sub-standard ability and unrealized motivation.

The group I observed were the older kids – probably around 12 – 17 – and it was their traditional forms (fanxi, ditang, shuang dao, etc.) day for testing.

I will try to be honest and pragmatic about this.  The level of fundamentals were not all that high.  Stances and basic techniques were lacking.  It seemed that a lot of emphasis had been put on nandu training rather than basics training, and this was confirmed when I spoke with my friend out their training regimen.  In fact I have to be honest in saying that the foreign student from the U.S. had better fundamental technique than the kids who lived at the school – which is really a credit to his coaches back home since they clearly instilled in him a high standard for wushu.

And while his “tricks” might not have been as interesting as the local kids, I would say that the jumps he did do looked better because they were built on a stronger foundation; straighter legs on his butterfly, more “pop” with his explosive power, etc. 

Again, I don’t want to say that they local kids were bad. They weren’t.  Actually, some of them were fairly decent and showed some promise.  But after training with the Shaanxi Team for the past 9 months (granted, in a very inconsistent manner) my standards for what I will view as an “acceptable” level of wushu has grown considerably (Woe be to those at Wushu West when I come back there and help out at the beginning of August! You have been warned) and so I was watching this with a different eye than I might have a year ago.

I also heard that ZCJ will be bringing a group of his students from the U.S. to train at the school later in the summer.  I’m pretty sure that when he is there the level of instruction as well as the focus of attention on basics, will improve dramatically.  Heck, the whole facility might even get a face lift prior to their visit. 

I feel compelled again to emphasize the fact that this was a very quick snap-shot of what the school looked like at this particular hour on this particular day.  Take my views with a super big grain of salt and, as always, you should judge these things for yourself.  What looks good to one might look bad to another, and vice versa.  I’m a strong proponent of the independent investigation of truth – so be sure to do your research before you make your final decision!

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More photos are here

I took videos, but I’m not sure if I want to post them.  Post a comment if you want to see them.

On June 19 I attended the wedding of Jamie and Wendy.  They are friends that I met through Ruhi who both live here in Xi’an.  They asked if I would be able to take photos of their wedding – nothing “official”, per se, but Jamie liked the photos I took at the Family Reunion and Orientation in Hong Kong so he asked if I wouldn’t mind snapping a few pictures during their special day.

It was my first time taking photos during a wedding so I wanted to try and do my best at it.  I figured it would be a great learning experience.  And I was right.  I learned a few things about areas that I need to work on, the limitations of my equipment and the need to take control of a photo-taking situation to get the best photographs.  Wedding photography is not for the feint of heart and I have newfound respect for those that do this for a living.  You have to be both aggressive and gracious, assertive and giving.  It is an interesting balance.

Over the course of the wedding and subsequent reception lunch, I ended up taking around 2,075 photographs.  My method is to take several photos of each pose or situation, knowing that at least one or two of them will probably not work out and this “shotgun” method tends to give me good results. 

Out of the 2075 photos, I first did a round eliminating all of the photos that didn’t turn out at all.  That brought me down to around 600 photos that turned out.  From those I picked the photos that captured the feeling of each moment the best.  That brought me down to 275.  From there I worked on cropping and color correcting the photos and eliminated a few more giving me a final count at 261 finished pictures.  I burned those to a couple DVDRs and will be meeting Jamie this week to hand them off. 

From the 261 photos I picked 75 that I personally liked for my own portfolio album.  You can see them on my picasa album (unless you are in China) here:

I wanted to share my top 9 photos with you, along with the reason I like these particular photos the best.

This is Wendy before she changed in to her wedding dress.  For some reason, while she was moving I managed to keep part of her face in focus.  I really like this effect – it is actually something I might try to achieve in Photoshop, but as luck would have it I didn’t need to here.  It feels like it is keeping her spirit in focus but also displays the quick pace and hectic nature of one’s wedding day.

These are freshmen students at the Xi’an Music Conservatory University.  I really like the looks of concentration and relaxation on their faces, indicative of high-level artistry.  They were actually quite good.  In particular I like the position of her fingers over the strings – almost like a cat stealthily walking through the tall grass.

This was probably one of the only times I snapped Jamie’s dad smiling.  It isn’t that he wasn’t happy, but just that he doesn’t crack a big grin all that often (based on this one time I saw him).  I like this photo because it has some genuine joy coming out of Jamie, Umesh and Jamie’s dad.  Jamie’s parents both live in YanLing, just a few hours west of Xi’an, where they both teach English at the university there.

This is a picture of Wendy, her father, and her daughter (from a previous marriage).  They were waiting a little ways down the path for the wedding to start so they could make their way down the aisle.  I like this photo because, even though it is her wedding, that doesn’t mean she is exempt from taking the occasional phone call, but more than that I like it because her daughter decided to do a little impromptu dancing, which I thought was very cute.

Thanks to my long lens I was able to zoom in on their hands during the ring exchange.  Something about this feels very symbolic to me – well, of course it does.  They’re exchanging wedding rings.  But still, I like the composition on this shot, so I included it here.  As they say, “if you like it, then you better put a ring on it”.

For the most part Wendy’s dad has on a big smile and was quite cherry.  But for this one moment I was able to capture him as his eyes were watering seeing his daughter finding happiness.  Nothing brings tearful joy to a parent’s face than to see their children find true happiness.

Amazingly I was able to capture the bouquet being thrown by the bride to “all the single ladies”.  I was surprised this photo turned out so I wanted to include it as the only wedding “action shot” in the group.

The new family together!  This is a nice photo because both Jamie and Wendy are looking at the camera, but the real reason I like this one is Wendy’s daughter’s expression – almost a mixture of happiness and mischievousness. 

  

And finally I like this photo.  Jamie’s flowers kept falling out of his lapel so they had a fun time trying to get it back in, eventually just sticking it in his shirt pocket.  While they were doing this everyone and their uncle whipped out their pictures to snap the "moment” between the new couple and I was lucky enough to get this shot showing the enjoyment and laughter on their faces.

I also put together a time-lapse video of all 2075 photos.  They are on a 1/10th of a second rotation, giving a total time of around 3 and a half minutes.  I put some music to it as well, which I think gives it a nice effect.  Check it out here – the entire wedding in 3 1/2 minutes!  …

Youku Version:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTg2NjYyOTk2.html

Youtube Version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwpeTeQvS8U

Oh, and here is a runner-up photo that almost made the top 9:

Ruhi and Lei looking towards the future!

Been doing a lot of work these last few days.  Here is a view from my table at Village Coffee in Xi’an.

 

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!

This latest excursion to Hong Kong was originally supposed to be a quick 3 day business trip.  But due to circumstances it ended up lasting over a week and included a few interesting experiences.

This time around I opted for air travel, since I was a bit more pressed for time and train travel does take a bit of time.  Here are some photos of my early-morning flight from Xi’an to Guangzhou, as well as my bus trip to the Guangzhou East Train Station and the train trip from there to the Shenzhen border.  I actually took the train to Lo Wu, but since I was going to Jack’s it was much easier to take the Shenzhen subway to Lok Ma Chau (Futian) and cross there.  Then I could just catch a $10HKD bus straight to his front door.

Here are some pictures of that trip (By the way, all photos were taken courtesy of my new cell phone.  I didn’t bring any other camera with me to test if it was a good solution for trip blog photo taking – seems to have done the job decently … ):

I arrived the day before Jack was leaving for the U.S. to attend a friend’s wedding so we went out to grab a bite to eat at “China Land”, a restaurant close to his home.

But the fun was short-lived since I had a lot of work to do at the North Point office where I would be stationed for most of my occupational duties.  While working there I thought it would be a good chance to experiment on different ways to make the commute from Tin Shui Wai to North Point.  The fastest ended up being the 969 bus to Sheung Shui (although it goes all the way to Causeway Bay) and then the MTR to Quarry Bay station.  Less than 90 minutes (for around $28HKD).

But by far the most pleasant way was to take the 269 bus to Hung Hom ferry pier and take the ferry across from there to North Point and walk a few blocks to the office, however it took the longest at just around 2 hours (for $25HKD).  The 269 bus is nice too because it also goes through TST, which is pretty convenient.

I took pictures of my various travel methods which you can check out here:

A few highlights from my trip were checking out a showing of Kick Ass with Khalil, Davina and Yuklan, spending the night in an office in TST while setting up a computer network (which I ended up having to re-do a few days later – ugh!), Checking out a super late showing of Iron Man 2 in Mongkok on my last night in Hong Kong, catching coffee with Ryan at Starbucks, eating dinner at a really fancy restaurant located in a clothing store, going computer equipment shopping in Wan Chai, and getting some great expense tracking software for my HTC Touch Pro 2.

Here are a few highlight photos from the rest of my time in Hong Kong:

On my way back through Shenzhen I got my wallet picked from my pocket at the Futian Border crossing.  That would have sucked way worse if I actually had anything vital in there.  Just an ATM card for one of my Hong Kong banks and about $60HKD.  All of my vital stuff I keep in my travel belt wallet that goes securely under my shirt and pants waist.  So aside from some inconvenience it didn’t create any super horrible situations and I was able to make it to my subway / train / taxi / plane / bus back to Xi’an, where I arrived home, safe and sound, just an hour or two before Cindo de Mayo.

This will be my last trip to Hong Kong until at least sometime in June.  It will be nice to spend a bit longer at home, since I’m up to my neck in a backlog of work and tasks that need completing.

Some big news and information about my future plans on the horizon too, but it is still premature to talk about that, so for now you can just keep your eyes peeled for the post in the coming weeks.

Its been a while since I provided an update on my life in Xi’an.  There have been a whole lot of photos taken from the various activities that have happened since the beginning of the year.  As I recall the last time I blogged about the happenings in the Walled City was waaaay back around my birthday.  So here are some of the highlights since that time. (You can click on a thumbnail to view the full image).

January

January was a cold month.  I spent most of the time focusing on my wushu.  In fact, it would be one of the last time I really got a good amount of training in this year (so far!).  This was also the month Charisse was staying with us prior to our February trip to Hong Kong for the Family Reunion and Vision that Inspires Conference.  We had a visit from Mejdi and his son (he’s been in China for a loooong time), I got to visit the Sports University, get my health card and a bunch of other stuff.  We also went on a day-trip to YanLing to visit some Friends.  Here are some highlight photos for you to check out:

February

We were gone 3 out of the 4 weeks of this month.  Hong Kong was calling so we headed down.  I posted a ton of photos from this on my Facebook and Picasa albums, so you can check those out.  Click here for my favorites.

A few other highlights was getting to meet Kevin Spacey and having a waaaaay-in-the-distance-hard-to-see walk-on extra role in the film that Dayyan was making with Kevin and Daniel Wu (and Gong Beibi, of course).  Can’t wait to see if I’m actually visible or not.

February is also when Ayyam-i-ha, the annual Baha’i holiday, is held.  We had a nice little get together in our home to celebrate (nothing too big – just a few friends) which just happened to coincide with the Lantern Festival which brought a great fireworks display directly outside our window.

Also on the schedule was the celebratory dinner for the end of Carmel Consulting, the company that Ruhi was general manager of.  It only took half a year to close the company.  Welcome to China!

Some photos from February:

March

March was the Fast, which is the 19 day period from March 2 – 20 when Baha’i’s do not eat from sunrise to sunset.  Not too many photos from March due to my constant hunger (hahaha) but I did manage to get a few here and there.  I did take a quick 2 day trip to Hong Kong though around the 26th, but there isn’t too much to write about that.  Ruhi started school in March so she was pretty busy with her studies.

March in general was a low-media month for me and I didn’t really take that many photos. Actually a lot of my media was video, which is a pain to edit, so no pictures to share. Maybe next time.

April

Well, April is still going on, but it has already been pretty chock-full of stuff.  My friend Lisa paid a quick visit to Xi’an and I took her to my favorite noodle/dumpling place near our home.  I got to practice the arts with some calligraphy and sculpting, and I spent a week in Hong Kong (and am going for another trip on Monday!).  I didn’t make it to the Wushu competition in Hangzhou, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last one.  Since Xiao Yu qualified for the next round I have a feeling I’ll still be able to shout and scream for my friends and training mates in the coming months.

Here are some photos from this month so far:

As I mentioned before, I have a trip to Hong Kong planned for this week.  Actually, I’m sitting at the World Famous “Flying Pan” restaurant in mid-levels as I write this.  But first let me start at the beginning …

Leaving Xi’an

Inspired by my last trip to Hong Kong where I did a poor job of packing, I made sure that this time around I was the epitome of efficiency.  Everything I needed for a 6 day train trip to the South of China was in one small bag strapped across my back.  More on that later, but first a little bit about the trip from Xi’an.

I had booked a train ticket (soft sleeper upper bunk) leaving Monday, March 22 at 17:06 from Xi’an train station.  Normally I would have caught a bus from home to there (1 RMB on the #14 or #40 bus) but I was running a little late so I opted for the taxi (23 RMB).  I made it to the train on time and settled in to a nice bunk along with my 3 other cabin-mates.  During the whole trip I took video footage from various locations so instead of giving you the play-by-play, but unfortunately the video from Xi’an to Hunan didn’t turn out okay.  But I was able to get some video of a good chunk of my trip, so here is the video for you to enjoy:

As you can see, I finally made it to Hong Kong and as I mentioned before I am sitting at the “Flying Pan”, I had a sandwich and I’m doing a bit of work while waiting for Pat to come home. 

Packing Light

But before I sign off I just had to show you my packing video.  This shows what I packed on this trip and how I keep my travel quick and light. 

To be honest, I think I could have packed even less (I don’t really need the book, since I have the audio book too, but I did end up looking at it a lot) and I really should have brought a different pair of shoes (can’t beat my waterproof merrill’s) but packing is a constantly evolving art and each time I learn something new.  Hopefully you find this interesting:

I pack differently for different types of trips.  This summer when I go back to the U.S. for 2 months I will most likely pack a bit differently.  And naturally at that time I’ll be sure to share all the details with anyone who is curious (i.e. you?).

Tomorrow I have meetings all day and I have some on Thursday too.  Thursday night I might cross to Shenzhen and stay there overnight so that I am not rushing too much to catch my train in GZ by 11:00 a.m.  But we’ll see how things progress and I’ll keep you all in the loop.

- Mark
Hong Kong, 1:47 AM