China - Week 47 (7/23): Virus

Just in case anyone was wondering, I didn't forget to post up the rest of my entries from Beijing. I got a rather yucky computer virus when I came back to Shanghai so I spent the last few days reinstalling my system. Still have a bunch of apps left to install but after that I can get back to putting some things up.

Just for my own records, these are things I need to take care of in the next few weeks:

1. Visits from nebgnat and not4profit who will be staying with me for a week. neb i...Read more

Shanghai/Hong Kong - Travel Day (12/16): 27 hours

Friday night I ended up sleeping around 2:00 a.m. I was packing, getting ready for my trip to Hong Kong and cleaning up my home. It was earlier than I’ve been going to bed as of late, but it was still a bit on the late side since I had to wake up at 7:00 in the morning to catch my flight to Shenzhen.

I woke up, showered, finished up my packing (quite efficiently, if I do say so myself) and caught a cab to the airport. Unfortunately the flights to Shenzhen only go through Pudong Airport, which is th...Read more

Shanghai (12/15): Yang’s Festival of Nandu

First of all, I really need to start sleeping a regular schedule. In Shandong I had wushu every morning at 8:30 and breakfast was at 7:00, so I got used to waking up consistently at 6:30.

Well, here in Shanghai I have wushu every afternoon at 2:30. You can imagine what time I have been going to bed and waking up. I end up chatting with people online (stupid time zones) until almost 4:00 a.m. and then wake up around 11:00 a.m. It makes me feel so unproductive. I mean, I’m still awake and asleep for the s...Read more

Shanghai (12/14): Plan = Productive

Since starting up wushu again I have been slowly building up my endurance. I have yet to really do an entire full 2.5 hour class but I can usually make it pretty strong through the first hour or 90 minutes. Of course, during jumps I typically work on wall sits or stances, but generally I just go as long as I can, do as much as I can, and then stop when I’m too tired to continue.

But I was watching a show the other day and a trainer was saying that he teaches his clients that every time they go into the gym they n...Read more

Shanghai (12/12 - 12/13): 7 Days Without Wushu Makes One Weak.

In the longest absence from wushu since I started up again, I finally made it back to the wushu guan on Tuesday. If you’ve been keeping track that was a whole week since the last time I had done wushu. I realize that to most people who aren’t training regularly that doesn’t seem like such a long time, and during the past year it didn’t seem like all that long to me either (I had gone months and months without training, after all), but when you are in the midsts of developing yourself (again) an...Read more

Shanghai (12/7 - 12/11): A Return to Shanghai

Just some of the highlights of the past several days …

12/7: Dinner with Tam

Tam was in town for a few hours on Thursday evening so we met up and went to the steak-house / dim sum place around the corner for some grub and catching up. For those of you who don’t keep up with Tam’s non-existent blog, he has been working at a company in Hangzhou, Zhejiang for the past month or so and seems to be really enjoying it.

I also didn’t realize how close I was to Hangzhou (even thou...Read more

Beijing/Shanghai - Travel Day (12/6): Dropping, Shopping and Hopping

As soon as I woke up I packed up one of my suitcases and came to the realization that I would have to leave my nandao (which I barely used this whole trip) in Beijing. So I asked Wu Di if he could hold it for me and after updating my blog I headed out to Shi Cha Hai to drop it off. I also grabbed a small snack in the hotel shop and then caught a taxi for San Li Tuan’s Ya Xiu shopping complex.

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Beijing - Day 6 (12/5): The Last of Many

I overslept a bit so by the time I got to Shi Cha Hai I had just missed the National Team’s practice. But I managed to catch the end of the Beijing Team Practice. They were mostly doing detail work. Small movements over and over and over again, with the coaches working with them. The team has really scaled down a bit since the summer. Most of the people who were here then have left. Yang Bei Bei is in Wuhan, most of the girls aren’t there, all the older generation have, of course, left, but it seemed a little em...Read more

Beijing - Day 5 (12/4): Rest, Wushu and Wu Di

I’ve been dealing with this mild cold for the last few days. When I’m sick I generally have a harder time sleeping and tend to wake up more during the night and get up early even though I’m tired. So today I worked hard to sleep in as much as possible and managed to get a full 10 hours of sleep. I was pretty happy about that.

As soon as I woke up I got to work on Wu Di’s music video that I needed to finish up to give to him in the evening. I pretty much worked on it straight through the day, with a sm...Read more

Beijing - Day 4 (12/3): Goodbye Jennifer and Wang Wei

The final day of Jennifer and Wang’s Wei trip to China was finally upon us. I had arranged to meet up with them in the morning to make a final run at Silk Street (Xiu Shui). I took a shower, changed and got a quick breakfast at the buffet on the 2nd floor (meh .. nothing to write home about) and then caught a cab for their hotel.

By strange coincidence they were calling me at the exact moment I was passing the news stand down the street from their hotel from which they were calling me. I got ou...Read more