Jinan - Day 11 (11.23): Video Delivery and the Wang’s Arrival

Yesterday I saw a picture of my on my friend Mike’s blog from this past June in Beijing. I hadn’t trained in a year (for the most part) and when I saw the picture I couldn’t believe how BIG my face looked. Seriously FAT. So I found another picture of my from about 5 months ago and took a picture of my face last night and made a comparison of the two.
You can see it here. When I’m working out I don’t really see the change, but looking at it over time I guess it’s more apparent. At least it’s progress ….

Anyway, today I was fairly excited to give the VCDs to the athletes and Li De Hua so I spent the morning burning 20 copies of it, missed breakfast (partially because I wasn’t hungry at all) and went straight to the wushu guan. I’d like to say that during my last workout with the Shandong Team I really tore it up, and I must say that my spirit was very willing. I even had good energy level and wasn’t that tired. The main problem was my body. A sore back, tired muscles and an uncooperative physique lent to a somewhat unproductive workout. I did manage to make it through some of the basics and even worked a bit on my form, but it was fairly piecemeal.

The main exciting thing was giving the VCDs to the team members I trained with. Li De Hua handed it to them at the end of class and they wanted to know what was on it. So I took out my Treo 650 phone, where I had put a copy of the video on my memory card, and played it for them. They seemed to like it because a group of about 12 people were crowded around my little phone (it seems smaller with that many people trying to look at it) and watched it about 3 or 4 times all together. I’m glad they liked it and hopefully it’s something they can remember me by. Of course, I’ll upload it to my youtube (the narom account, not the jetli.com account) when I’m back in decent bandwidth territory.

Athletes huddled around my phone

I walked back out to the street, once again accompanied by some of the athletes. I told them I would come by the next morning to say goodbye but it was still sort of sad to see them off (post-training) for the last time. But that didn’t last too long since I was also anticipating the arrival of Jennfer and Wang Wei from the U.S.

I rushed back to the hotel and called Lu Laoshi to see where they were. He said they were in the car and it’d be about 30 minutes until they arrived so I took a shower, got dressed and waited for them. When they arrived it was hugs and smiles all around and then we sat down with Lu Laoshi for some lunch in the hotel restaurant.

After lunch Lu Laoshi left and the three of us decided to go run some errands in Jinan. So we went downtown to a department store to look at some clothes, but it was way overpriced. Then we made a run to the bank and then back to the hotel so that they could clean up before dinner.

We were picked up by Lu Laoshi and his family and taken to a nice hot pot restaurant just around the corner. It was Thanksgiving dinner, and we realized that I had actually spent last year’s Thanksgiving with Jennifer and Wang Wei in Jinan as well. It’s nice how things come full circle. After dinner it was back to the hotel and I spent an hour or two with Jennifer and Wang Wei in their room talking about all sorts of things.

Wang Wei getting ready for dinner

I was sort of struggling with some options in my life and they helped me think things through. Jennifer was especially helpful. It’s nice to have a friend that you know cares about you enough to be critical and tell you what they really think, but at the same time not criticize and make you feel bad for who you are. She had some valid points that gave me some food for thought.

I also had some options (which I mentioned) come up which I need to mull over as well. Whenever I hang out with Jennifer and Wang Wei I always get these strange situations and opportunities which present themselves to me. They’re like my opportunity charms or something.

Tomorrow I’m going to drop by the morning practice to say goodbye to the athletes, then do some shopping, and then it’s off to Heze! I might not have a chance to update tomorrow, but cross your fingers. With my wireless modem it might work out.

I put a bunch of pictures today.  Check them out in my Shandong 2006 Gallery