Well, this kinda sucks. our trip isn't off to a speedy start. Flight delayed to 19:00 -- GAH! 5h delay. Apparently there's a typhoon or some other lame excuse :P. So, here we are, not anywhere.

Still, we've made the best of it and have found this corridor at the back of the Terminal and have demonstrated sets to each other as a way of 'getting to know you' sort of excercise (including a couple of Hung Gar sparring sets!). Lots of different styles we have on this trip! Besides our Northern Shaolin and Hung Gar, there's Kempo, Wing Chun, Tai Chi, Mantis style and maybe another two or three. Pretty diverse group.

We (being us from Lam Kwoon) managed to do BSL 6 (Tun Da) in 43 seconds! We'd been working on it in class and hadn't broken past 46--must be some other folk at the kwoon who are slowing us down };). Funny to do it on socks on carpet. Thunk: no stomps or slaps. Very muffled.

Well, I've become a buyer of swords for everyone, looking like at least 4 I need to buy. Should be fun to carry... whee.

Still 3h until our flight. Holding pattern. I just REALLY hope we catch up somewhat and don't miss any of our training times with the monks...

4h still to go and they're showing the excercise video. I remember th 24h bus ride accross Mexico (Mexico City to Cancun), but somehow this seems worse, and we're not even done yet. Probably has something to do with the Mercedes-Benz bus and the stops along the way. It's still sun outside, and will be so until about 2h before landing.

We'll arriv @ 22:30 Beijing time, do hotel for 4h or so, then hop day train to ZengZou. While the night train experience was something I really wanted to have, day will afford views. And we'll get a night train on the way back from Wudang (though it will be a super local 17h+).

So far, this 747 has been pretty uneventful and the toilets still work (long story). Not as bad as I remember it when I was 4 (the story), but I still really don't like it. Still a few to many people. 3-4-3. Still, sitting here on the 3 side (with Tiff and Evan) I can almost forget the middle 4. And we're 1 row in front of the exit alcove, so we have a good stretching spot.

It will get dark as we decend into Beijing...

Beijing, we are here! Plane made it in on time, 5h late. So we spent the night at a so-so hotel after a bus trip from the airport. Interesting ride--if it weren't for a few things, it would be hard to tell this trip is in China. Brand new airport, very modern, a highway system like all others, mostly VW, Audi, Citroen on the roads (one Buick at the airport) and big, bright billboards. In Chinese, of course. Its a land of condos and appartments, and mid-rise buildings abound. As does construction--I lost count of the number of sites with cranes, hording et al. Lots of people out even at 22:30+, either lounging around at home, roadside (sans shirt), biking somewhere or even still working no the construction sites. That was interesting. Buildings were an interesting mix too... mostly 70's-ish buildint gypes lifted from the west with a touch of USSR (especially in the mass housing/appt blocks). Lots of ugly affairs, really. Most with narry a hint of 'chinese', instead replaced by a thousands of ubiquitousness AC units plasterd by windows. The few that did incorporate China-ness were mostly newer and were mostly relegated to a pagoda-like roof atop a standard building with a hint of culture in the vertical lines of the facade. Only a few of the buildings were 'unique', I'd say. Lots of antennas, though.

Our trip to the hotel also took us through some lower-scaled areas, though only for a moment. Again, sort of 70's main-street look to them in terms of building style and building age-look (wear and tear). We also passed by the entrance to the Forbidden City (Chairman Mao presiding) and Tienaman Square. No tanks or students, but did see a bunch of police, standing motionless and at attention. Finally, the hotel is in a moderately run down (by our standards, at any rate) part of town it seemed...

Weather today will be hot and, well, humid. The humidity leaves all with a slick feeling after only a moment of movement.

Continuing where I left off...

Breakfast was good and tasty -- neat soup, corn dumplings, sweet things, and some green tea that had an interesting twist to it (ginseng?). good, and our only food until tonight, aie...

Train station was an interesting building and VERY busy. Good thing we didn't lose anyone. (Ok, its hard to write on the train) Multi-level, and tons of billboards, with web addresses and stuff for DVDs, CDs, etc.

The train has afforded us a view of more 'common' living conditions... or at least the ones by the tracks. Besides the mid-rises, lots of "Shanty Town" like buildings--well, they're all brick and built with metal roofs held down by more brick, very dense and close and chaotic with little courtyards. And garbage--one wonders before our 'disposable revolution' if garbage like this existsted. Urm. Anyway, light industry, lots of gardens/fields that pop up everywhere, dirt pits (industrial), Brick making and Brick Collecting (main building material save concrete), bikes and roads, markets of small stalls crammed with people, power plant, some empty buildings, more piles of brick, nursary walls w/ advertisements painted n them (even saw a crew of older women repainting one) individual market 'stalls', round portals, light industry, and large chinese signs.

Train is pretty neat if nothing unusual (random sheep on the road!). Electric, pretty quick, not to old, blue seats, weird dot-matrix sign with a pac-man eating nothing to reveal chinese characters. ODD.

As we see more and more, it reveals the fabric of the landscape around Beijing. COAL -- big energy source here, I guess, seems to be lots around (w/ people hitching rides in open gondolas of coal). Random pits (cliff-like) carved out of dirt -- for building material? And once abandonned, seems to fill up with garbage (modern-day garbage) or are cultivated. More rural area we were travelling in, lots of fields, random villages, industy, gas stations and water towers (that look like guard towers, I swear).

We just stopped at a station in another city... again, rather shantyish near the tracks. With bricks (new appartment buildings all seem to be poured-in situ concrete, though). More coal, and cranes. People sqauatting in that chinese squat as they work @ the side of the track, behind house, in the field. Everyone looks occupied, busy. Of course, that's their livelyhood.

Our water is ROBUST! (brand name) :P And piles of coal. (Oh, I forgot to mention the toll booth last night -- very pagota-ish and colourful -- nice) I feel as though I should say more about the train station, but except for the crush of people and the almost 'modernism' about it, it was pretty straightforward.

I have yet to see any level crossings, which is interesting. They've built underpasses for them all...

I'll pause for now...

After more train and bus, here we are. Rest of train experience could be describes as X with coal/bricks/dirt. Seems every house/etc had one of these piled up beside or in front. How odd. Also hard to tell what's housing (when not an appartment building) and what's work. Especially when 'cottage industry' seems to abound, and when partially or fully abandoned buildings have been appropriated for another or supplementary use. On the bus it was pretty much non-stop village all the way. Scary driving too!

But house/building/house etc all the way. Watermelon vendors for a part, which was fun. Also saw (on the train) wet rice, finally (had seen mostly dry-growing rice before) and learned the secret of the many pits and cliff edges -- as expected, carved out for building material. But these pits are often appropriated, almost like all other land, for crops. The dry riverbeds are too... billboards abound for EVERYTHING, be it Public Service Announcement, morot, baby, toilet, food, you name it. but lots of abandoned buildings, how odd... right in the middle of town, a totally empty building (usually with some bricks re-claimed).

Near Dengfeng, we saw lots of 'carving' shops, doing tablets, statues, etc out of stone and concrete. A whole tonne of them, clustered down the road for a few kilometres...

Right now, there are Chinese commercials on TV (Its late and I'm tired... body still in jet lag mode, give me a break) and they're relatively and surprisingly sophisticated in graphics, pacing and SFX, if a bit weird to my eyes in terms of what they're selling and what's happening in them. Quite humourous. Also reminds me some adds have URLS--odd in a country where the 'net is controlled to a great extent and cybercafe's are shut down as bastions of bad (yet ranks in the top 10 for net use worldwide).

Jumping back to Dengfeng, we can see mountains (flat... flat... BOOM!) where we'll go tommorow to train. Yay!

Oh, and we saw a tonne of Ep 2 posters/ads along the way, very weird.

I'm way to tired now to continue...

Factoid: 44,000 KungFu students in Dengfeng, 63 schools. Largest school has 14,000 students. The school at which we will train (Henan Dengeng Shaolin Epo Wu Shu Zuhan Xtu Yuan) has 4000...

We are now half way through day 2 of our training. Didn't write last night as I was tired by the time I finished everything up after dinner. No surprises there...

Though, we're not really doing 8h of training each day as thought. Turns out the Wushu Guan is closed for repairs, so we're training at a local private school (one of the 63) with, I think, some monks from the temple (I will check on that). EarlyMorning workouts are just ourselves in a courtyard-garden at the back of the hotel... so I'd hsay we're doing about 1h in the early, then 2x 2h or so (bit more), so maybe 5.5ish hours each day. Still nt to bad. Yesterday we didn't do any conditioning, but we did some this morning. Not to hard, really--lots of running and many line drills.

Legs are kinda hurting, especially from the staff set yesterday. We had trouble with that one, the monk teaching wasn't the best @ first (too many motions and too quick for us to catch them) and then the 2 monks who were teaching started contradicting themselves, and then some of the moves changed... Hopefully the 2 sessions we have left will be enough to finish it. Oh yeah, we're here for _5_ days now... cool. Actually, the schedule for the trip is totally different now... :P

The hand set we completed this morning, and its real cool. Actually, all the sets are really cool.. it will be work but fun to examine the motions in detail and link them all.

I'm being abreviative here for the moment... lunch soon.

We went to the weapon shop yesterday, and what a mess that almost was. Took forever, and it was a regular store, ie, take off the wall-rack if you can find it. The way a bunch of the members descended on that place like vultures made it not fun. So here we are, many swrods in hand, and not knowing if you've seen all of them, as someone else may have snagged them. For me at least, it ended out relatively well in the end.

As for the quality, well, it isn't the Long Quan forge (that one us up a mountain, accessible only by donkeys (NOT KIDDING I AM!) meaning... they bring DOWN the weapon on donkeys too. wow) but the quality isn't all that bad, actually, I'd say pretty good. Price is excellent too, that's for sure. }:) 3 straight swords (one for me, engraved (Snow Cat), one for Rev, engraved (Tiger Crane), one for Phyx, unengraved), 1 broad sword (for me, engraved (Oliver), thing is HEAVY), 1 pair double daggers, 1 fan (for vicki), 1 weapon bag. I'm REALLY looking forward to the straight sword set now... (rest of 8, spear, 5 to go before that).

And now lunch.

And now I don't know what to say and have to get ready :P More later.

Still only one full conditioning so far -- rest have been short warmups (stretches, running, stretches, class).

Quick points:

-Cars here are horn powered. Actually, the driving here is kinda scary -- but somehow it all works out. Mass variety of vehicles, and the lanes on the road and street signs and traffic lights are all just suggestions. 3" is considered acceptible clearance. Vroom!

-Its always so hazy here -- often you can look at the sun in the morning w/o sunglasses. Don't know how much is caused by humidity and the dust from Mongolia and how much is caused by all that coal and bad diesel -- I'd guess 75/25 or so.

-Our group (a few in particular) has purchased enough weapns to arm a small country.

So we finished the staff or spear today (depending which weapon you were learning, of course). Nice set. Once the workout began I was less sore, but I still wasn't up to 100%. We (staff) ended up training in the demo hall the school has -- a fake temple front. Practiced on carpet which is actually quite neat and made the staff strike sound deep. What was funny was that at the end, as we were about to do the set for one last time, a group of tourists came in and ended up watching us (a bunch of white and black people doing Kung Fu :P) They applauded...

I think I have both sets down pretty decently. Just linking and finess now, and working out the applications. This afternoon, we are to do Eight Section Brocade, a soft Qi Gong set. Apparently very stretchy and a great warm-up.

We've made several runs to the local 'grocery store' for water and misc stuff. I think we provide them with much amusement each time.

Oh, the dudes teaching us are not monks, just students in monks robes. And they've switched robe colours a few times :P

Some folk are beginning to tire of the food, and today at breakfast some 'western' style food (especially fried eggs) were attacked with abandon. Myself, I'm still enjoying all the cuisine. I do have to wonder, though, what these folk were thinking if they're tiring of the food already...

Had an amusing incident to watch today. As we were awaiting the return of some of our group (who went to the bank), an army unit in training marches by on the other side of the street. They stop further down, and two of them run back, WITH TARGETS and set them up on the side of the road. ??!!?!! No shooting was heard, so I guess they were just aimimg at them (or using pellet rifles or something weird like that). Kinda tense there for a moment.

I know there's much more I wanted to write, but haven't and now can't remember what I wanted to write. :P I am foolish for not brining a stapler to put things into this book too...

-Saw the Grandmaster of the school today, one of the top 10 KF masters in China. 70 years old (but not looking as good as Si Gung Chew Wei is). He reviewed our sets and made some corrections (and even had Evan do the set on his own (!)), then showed us some Chi Na. And, like a true champ, during our demonstration of the staff set I miss-spun the staff, smacked my foot, and sent the staff escaping from my grip flying sideways to the left away from me. A quick retrieval of about 6' put me back in the game at the next move, but, aiya! Trying to finish nonchelantly after that... Once the grandmaster had left we did some sanda boxing/sparring stuff. that I had difficulty with, as we were doing roundhouse kicks (which I haven't done many of nor can I make my hips work that way) and my general sparring not-used-to-it-ness. 3h workout this afternoon -- I imagine conditioning will be _nasty_.

-The only reason I can move today is I spent 150 yuan (very well spent!) last night on a 2h+ massage, full body. A bunch of us went, 10 to one place, 10 to another. Our group got a foot soak then foot massage, then a full body (including much acupressure, which was neat -- you could feel her figurte out the mid point, measure out from there, find the spot, PRESS). The other group sounded like they had a grand old time with snighing, back walks and all sorts of jazz. Helped a lot, that's for sure }:)

-Our current instructure is the devil, I swear. He has this very wicked grin... though he's certainly good and can do aerials very, very impressively. I didn't know anyone could do tornado kicks that HIGH.

-All in all, I am actually glad we aren't doing 8h of training per day... I'm not sure if my body could take it. Well, I am pretty sure it could, since its only a couple of more hours, but not pushing it on this trip might not be a bad thing. Gotta work on those low bow stances for next time!

-We learned 8 Section Brocade today, very interesting 'light' 'soft' Qi Gong. Could be a good to-do before class.

-We (a few of us) have also 'adopted' that local store; I think they expect us there now. :P

-Most of the students @ the school seem to be 8-13, I'd guess...

-Practicing at the kwoon on carpet is kinda interesting. Very different feel to it, and I think I like it. Stomps and slaps go 'thunk' in a muffled but satisfyingly deep way. Whenever you need to put a limb down it is a bit softer, and foot grip seems to be about the same. And for the rolls and flips and stuff we're doing in Sanda, it's appreciated. :P Only problem is the amount of red fuzz it leaves on you... looked like we'd all developed huge rashes or injuries!

-Again, I've forgotten what I want to write. Time to go get ready for 3h of PAIN. };)

QUOTE: I don't enjoy pain as much as I used to - Lori

So, our last breakfast at the hotel, and the Lizard Wine finally makes its appearance! No, alas I didn't try any... though the chinese wine we did have earlier was 42% alcohol. That was during a most interesting dinner with a tasty meat not normally served over here but often joked about asian cuisine...

Driving through mountainous region on a mildly windy road (I know it will become moreso later), though we've already narrowly missed one accident, on a straight road no less. Bus swereved and didn't tip. It was most... interesting. Nothing like hearing gasps, looking up, and seeing a truck barreling down at you, very big in the windshield. If it weren't for the closed lane (freshly paved) next to us that the driver swereved very fast-reflex like, I may not be writing this right now.

-All these strange square level changes -- cliff-edged, and all planted. Makes for an interesting and odd landscape.

-So yesterday we went to the one and only Shao Lin temple. Pilgramage complete. };) Only... Temple didn't feel... templeish. The courtyards were publich and just full of tourists. Now, of course there are probably other courtyards where the public isn't allowed, but, for that reason, I didn't see them. :P Temple buildings were nice, if a bit, well, hard to say. The temple has been burned and re-built often enough that they have a certain 'modernity' to them that doesn't evoke the history of the site. It certainly opened my eyes to how different Chinese Buddhism is compared to the Therevadan tradition that I am more familiar with. The temple grounds were mainly a series of courtyards (some empty, some with stele, most with incence burners) separated by one-room buildings down the middle (and occasionally on the sides) which could be described as small shrines, with statue(s) inside representing the celestial Buddha's. Did get to see the famous training hall with the depressions in the stone floor from years of practice (not that they practice there anymore), the famous murals depicing scenes of temple Gong Fu training, and the famous courtyard with the many statues at the perimeter in stances or caught mid-set or mid-combat. Many pictures! Of course, in that courtyard they have a stage for demonstrations... and to think, that the temple 'cleaned up' by relegating 95% of the vendors outside -- the commercialism must have been horrid before! (also, the government has decreed all KF schools in Dengfeng/Temple area must be on this one stretch of main road (about 2-5km from the temple proper)). Apparently, those who didn't go up to see Damo's cave (see below) got to see monks and some rituals as the public began to leave around 17:00 and the monks emerged to reclaim their temple space. That would have been nice to see...

-Did the climb up to Damo's cave and the (recently made) statue atop the mountain behind the Temple. Lots of stairs! :P And trail... wasn't too bad (but see below). Lit some incence and meditated briefly in Damo's cave, and admired the landscape from upon high. (visited his cave on the way down -- it was past the time they usually keep the cave open, but they were nice and re-opened it for us) It felt really... satisfying and... peaceful (not the right words, but words are escaping me right now to describe) to kneel and stay for a while in Damo's cave.

-Before we did all that, we went to the Pagoda Forest, where monks are entombed after being cremated. Many monument-sized pagodas for the 'important' monks (ones with many deciples, as they were the ones who got them built after his death) and 3 'communal' one for all the 'everyday' monks.

-Going further back in time to the morning, we had our last 3h training session. The 3h session yesterday wasn't really bad at all, we didn't do any 'full' conditioning, just the light warmup, with some added rolls, and falls to get us ready for the sparring. Though learning how to fall is not really something that can be done in 15 mins :P All the falls during the takedowns (And that's what we were doing -- roundhouse blocks into various takedowns) were pretty rough landings for me. So that was painful, but in a different way. This morning, and the whole day, was fun, though, as I was sick to the stomach all day. I ended up not doing class this morning, as the tumbling was making my stomach feel REAL bad, so I just sat it out and took piccies. }:( Though it did lead to one amusing incident: our smiling devil monk saw me sitting off to the side and gave me a quizzical look. I pantomimed upset stomach. He gave a 'ewww' look, then tried to pantomime me something in return. Giving up, he walked over to Sifu and had him translate -- do a handstand against the wall }:) Supposed to 'shake' up the stomach, or let things flow over each other and help alleviate/cure the upsetness. It sorta helped...

-The rest of the day was similarly enjoyable due to the stomach ache. Almost lost it while at the Pagoda Forest (just went back to the bus) but I did make it up the mountain despite not having eaten much during the day and the pain. I'm not sure what set off the stomach, as it felt and went through most of the phases (except the getting better part) of a type of ache I often get. Fortunetaly it is gone by today...

QUOTE: You know, maybe falling properly and without pain is easier if you do the move full speed, it would help make the body go into proper alightment. Ok, maybe not. - Joe

So now we are on our way to Loyang. Two last notes from Dengfeng -- one is that the city comes alive at night with shops/markets/etc, I'm guessing when everyone is done with their 'day jobs'. The other is again that the city seems to be built from necessity, jurry rigged and built utilitarian like...

Ok, I'm frustrated and Peeved. Everyone, no, many, no, a few? Anyway, some have been complaining (some constantly, some more than others) about the food (_what_ were they expecting??) so tonight it is imposed by 'popular vote' to allow us an opportunity for a 'western' style dinner at our hotel. A fiasco ensues. I am traveling with a bunch of amaracans, obvioiusly, and ones who don't know how to tell time to boot. At any rate, the hotel wasn't able to accomodate 32 western orders, so it didn't go very well. Eh bien.

Rest of the day was excellent. Bought some scrolls for a half decent price, and bought some nice tea as well (Buddha's Tea, The Emperor's Concubine's Tea -- we bought Sex and God tea :P) for also an ok price. Three stops today: The White Horse Temple (first Buddhist temple in China, where the first scriptures were brought), Longshan Grottos (with thousands and thousands of carved Buddha images in thousands of natural and enlarged grottos -- the largest being 17+m tall, and the smallest being 2 _cm_ tall, and thousands of 2cm tall ones on a wall, and General Guan/Kwan's temple, our martial 'saint'. Lifted and held the Guan Do they have there, I hope someone got a pic! }:) Temples were similar affairs to that at Shaolin, though the White Horse temple had an extra forecourt with a pond and some bridges, and the buildings seemed older. The grottos were quite interesting (and are a World Heritage Site). And Guan's temple was more of a memorial (there are 3, one where he died, one where his body is and one where his head is) with an oddish mound at the back and a slot for coins with a bell (to bring luck/fortune).

Again I feel how different Chen Buddhism is from Therevedan... seem so... almost anti-buddhist in some ways, its odd. Some of the concepts... its a merging of Chinese customs and Buddhism (though it was a Mahayana monk that travelled and started Chen, so it's not surprising it evolved that way).

Time for bed...

Yesterday was a day of travel. On the bus 3h early in the morning, 3h later on a train bound for a town near Wudang. This time, we rode in a hard sleeper, a car with open compartments with 6 (3 high) hard-ish bunks each. 11h ride, but with no A/C, it was 38~C and 95% or so relative humidity. And to cap it off we went through a coal-producing region, which slowly turned our soaked bodies somewhat greyish (not noticably, but if you wiped off you noticed it). It was humid enough that even chilled water was 'steaming'! Needless to say, many of us travelled sans-shirts. (Actually, shirtless is popular enough among the locals, and even more so is a habit of the guys to pull their shirts up off their abdomens and hold them near their chest -- kinda odd). It was hot and opressing, but after a couple of hours I got used to it. Not comfortable, but certainly bearable, even enough to catch a nap. Drank a tonne of water, though :P

Neat ride despite the heat, with those old-school farms, the train changing directions a bunch of times (it was a local, so we were hitting a lot of places along the way), trying to fit all our luggage (OK, that wasn't so neat) and a strange lunch in the dining car. Then after the mad dash off the train with a bucket (read luggage) brigade to the door and a through-the-open-windows-luggage-ejection (OK, that wasn't much fun either -- we had to do it quickly, as the train was stopping briefly to move onto the next place. But all the folk on the train helped us to move everything off) we boarded a bus for a shortish ride up a hill, up more hills, taking corners WAY to fast, then up the 180 steps up to the hotel. A good dinner, small chair evening on the main patio, then to sleep.

This morning: B E A U T I F U L

Many pictures here to be taken. Our hotel: 1000+ years old, and old palace and temple. It was built during the Ming dynasty, and contains some fanciful architecture including a famous room now entitled "One column, twelve beams" which means exactly what it says. One off-centre column holding up 12 beams to support the roof. The surrounding landscape is lush and mountainous. For the rooms, the outside walls were kept and only the insides were renovated changed. Painted in red with deep green roofs, with carved stone for the paving and the railings (and the stone contains little flecks of metal from where they were quarried). Beautiful.

We began learning Wudang Tai Chi. Not Chen, Yang, Wu, Wu or Sun, this is much closer to the original Tai Chi, for Wudang is where it was created by those following the Daoist teachings. Learining Tai Chi in an idylic mountain house of 1000 years in age -- it sounds so perfect as to be cliche. But it rocks.

Quote: Actually, it's a special average hotel -- From the Hotel Brochure.

Organic would be a good word to describe this historical palace/temple cum hotel. The complex as a whole is very organic -- unlike the temples we've visited so far there is no overriding hierarchy or order, it is simply an interconnected collection of buildings, passageways and plazas/courtyards that hug the side of the mountain (and thus are on many different levels). In some veign, it is much more evocative than the various temples we've visited so far, since the rest are not only pretty rigid, but also had 'modernity' in their (re)construction, not to mention their 'touristicness'. And curves exist here...

Nice artwork on the walls too, and the food is good (despite the region's remoteness they have good variety and some inventiveness and solid foundations). And its quiet... and each room here is listed by a name rather than a room number, very neat. Our room's name? Congealed Fragrance. (It's the only weird name, but quite apt after our train ride).

The skies are clearing... we've seen some blue today.

39~C today with a high humidity. Chance of sweat showers later on. Hide in the shade.

Actually, it's quite amazing. Certainly Tai Chi isn't as aerobically nor energy demanding as what we were doing at Shaolin. But from the sun and high heat, just standing there in pose as the master looks us over, you can feel and observe the sweat appear, form distinct dropplets on your skin, bead together, run together, then drip off an appendage in a huge GLOP onto the stones. It's disturbing...

Tai Chi is rather difficult. Basic movements are straight forwart, but the body and energy linkage takes much longer. Movement and energy from the hip. All relaxed, circles and circular, hollow armpit, shoulders down, flow and linkage. The energy is very different from our Bei Shao Lin forms. I have a feeling I'll be working on it for a long time. On a sad note, I don't feel the Qi in my hands as much as I feel I should by the end... though all of me is so damn hot already...

Everything here is so picturesque -- buildings and landscape.

The master demonstrated a Tai Chi sword form, very interesting. Wudang sword sets are famous...

Quote: Hands separated by nature - Tiger, our tour guide (saying to keep your hands relaxed during the set and to let your fingers separate themselves through regular hand position/relaxation)

Just about 18h now on the train, though quite the shade more comfortable here in a 'soft'-sleeper. (4 bunks per door-ed compartment--similar to the ubiquitous european trains). Though with all the complaining still eminating from many on the trip you'd think we're either in a penal colony or some alien world with no concept of what humans are. Shame.

We finished our small chunk of Wudang Tai Chi, which probably amounts to 1/4 of the whole set. Tai Chi sets are notoriously long (and long to learn and grasp too). Very neat, though we were a bit rushed near the end to try to cram more in, so I'm not sure how well I will remember the last parts. The master also demonstrated part of the Cannon Fist set (another Wudang Tai Chi set) which was indeed very explosive, fast, and with power. And I do mean power, wow. Tai Chi isn't just a bunch of old folks in a park, that's for sure! It will be fun to watch again on video. Both that and the sword set look like they'd be fun to explore. But the basic Tai Chi first I have to work with...

To cap off our visit to the region, we saw two places, a palace/shrine called The Purple Palace, then onto the temple atop Mount Wudang itself. That one was reached by a particularly amusing cable-car/gondola ride, one that was more than a bit dodgy looking despite being supposedly relatively new. Of course there were more steps, which was fine with me, and it was very, very pretty (being atop a mountain and all). Oh, and though this is _the_ temple atop Wudang, what they filmed in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is not this. (Done somewhere else, though the legend of a prince who cultivated himself and later jumped off the mountain and was carried away is a true legend) Again, the temple was quite organic and grew around the mountain, and had some neat structures and spots. And certainly the gondolas have brought more visitors compared to the previous 4h or so hike (that one can still do).

The mountains themselves are different from those I've seen elsewhere, being very tower-like and narroish peaks and tall. The lower bits are pretty standard, mind you.

Apparently one in our group got some strange looks from some of the daoist 'students' as he wore one of his shaolin temple t-shirts. Interesting. I'm not sure what sort, if any, of animosity exists between daoism, buddhism and confusionism, but it bears some investigation. I do know that one of the main Daoist dudes delcared many years ago those three (D, B and C) as 'acceptible' practices (and branded the rest as cults) as those three are focused and predicated on self-improvement.

The Chinese seem to have a cacaphony of gods (probably different amongst different orders and regions too) along with their importance on ancestors and lineage. Again, something that would be interesting to investigate more.

So... sleeper and sleep on a train was all I had hoped it would be. I must definitively take a ride on the Canadian sometime... hopefully soon.

-I can say cheaper but I can't say no -- Lori (on buying things)

-Went to the Hard Rock Cafe (lame, I admit), did Tai Chi moves as dancing in synch with Lori, too funny.

-12 pictures in 5 minutes - the crush of the onlookers

-or the crush, tactics, hard sell, gauntlet of vendors

-Dividing by 0 with a tour guide (ie, asking a question not understood or not wanting to be answered) = Beijing Duck

-Making Lori Bark (hehe)

-Schmeterling (Butterfly in German)

-We're having _WAY_ to much western food -- even the chinese dinner at the hotel was amaracan chines food. Of course, many in the group are 'happy' for it.

-On a better note, the Peking Duck tonight was quite good. Though I had been hoping (and in some ways expecting) more duck on this trip, boo.

-And dammit, even in China I can't escape the light green VW Bugs (not that they're necessarily a bad colour, but they're EVERYWHERE in the SF Bay area).

-The (great) Wall less traveled leads to really pushy vendors.

-T-Shirt Idea: I got ripped off on the Great Wall of China.

-Domain Idea: GodSexandTea.com (from our purchase of Concubine and Buddha tea)

-Quote: The Inuit Brain Annerism

-Another good picture of me looking stupid.

-The wall was neat and fun. Many different sections of wall (That are still intact, at any rate) are open to tourists. About 5 or so different spots outside Beijing.

-Double decker train spotted

-Forbidden City and Tianamen Square: not overwealming or wow as I thought it would be. Kinda odd. Not sure why, specifically. Maybe it was that it was a b-line straight through the Forbidden City sort of schedule (2h or so) that forced a pretty linear route up the middle and thus it belied its overall scale (999.5 rooms in total). The buildings, courtyards, etc were all pretty 'standard', and it was packed with tourists. Nice, but not oomph'y. Then again, after Shaolin and Wudang... who knows. Not much to report on the Forbidden City.

-I need to learn to bargain better, learn to haggle better. My negotiation skills have always been pretty poor, and my haggling is just as bad, I guess I don't feel I am in any position to try to get better or something. Even though I know that it is a way of life here, it's expected, it's desired, and they won't lose money on a sale at any rate.

-My chinese zodiac is an ox. Here's its character: click

Quote: He's such a good little party official in training... - Lori

-Our hotel was next to a large park, one of the larger parks in the City. As a guest of the hotel, we had free entry to the park (though finding the way back to the hotel through the rather inconspicuous gate door through the hotel's wall was a huge challenge and had me running frantically so I didn't miss the bus, aie). Yep, it's a park that costs $$--why? It's a pretty disney-fied park in terms of a constructed 'theme' park of an idylic chinese landscape/park/thingee, like gardens of old. Kinda disturbing in some ways, to see a 'fakeish' chinese garden in China.

-There is so much construction happening in Beijing, new appartments and office towers being built, co-existing (though not necessarily peacefully) with old low-scale and soviet-style run-down appartment blocks. And more building is on its way with the olympics heading into Beijing. With that and just plain ol' commercial interests (and government's desire to build more large appartment blocks for the masses--again think soviet-style blocks) large sections of the older city blocks are being bought up, consolodated and then razed for the new construction. And the $$ given for the land isn't necessarily enough to purchase one of these new fancy or government appartments, and actually may be just a shade over what is needed to buy a car (which are outrageously expensive). Almost disturbing was the number of billboards for these large new condo projects, and when I say large, I mean 6+ towers of 30+ floors each. Full blocks of the stuff. Adverts showing the necessary drawing and the necessary happy people or powerful business people who will live there -- often times with one, more or all westerners as those people. Hmmm.

-China truly does not feel nor read like a Communist country on the surface. Private enterprise in the form of stores, taxi service, restaurants, vendors, etc all seems to be pretty rampant, and while it's hard to tell from observation how the farms are run our tour guide seemed to indicate that pay is now based on production (so even if the salary is paid by the state, the farmer keeps 20% of their crop and their remaining pay is based on how much they grew that year). Larger industry, ownership of land, and, of course, political power is not something that is easily visible to a traveller, so the overall impact of a communistic (and socialistic) society isn't readily seen today in China. Similar as if one went to the Scandinavian countries--their socialistic nature may not be immediatly visible despite it's benifits. All of which is interesting.

-Interesting and VERY funny is how we were a tourist attraction wherever we went. There aren't too many westerner's that travel around China I'm guessing, or at least not enough that the novelty of us has worn off. The number of times members of our party (Lori (for her hair) and Soloman (for his lack thereof) most often) were stopped by the chinese tourists and asked if they (the tourists) could have their picture taken with them (us westerners) was nothing short of insane. Even funnier was the military troops in training in Dengfeng, marching down the road, two abreast, fully in step -- then as our bus drives by they all turn, ranks dissintegrate, and they wave to us like mad. Or the people in trains on the opposite track, saying 'Hello' to us as we pulled out of the station (I think everyone in China knows the word hello, and numbers (For commerce)). It was weird to have so much attention lavished on us (every time we went to a train station a huge crowd would form a circle around us) when we were the visitors to their country and should be watching them...

-Went to the 'Silk Row' market today, which is basically a couple of alley-ways packed all the way down with vendor stalls (many of them selling the same stuff, it's kinda odd how that works--of course, since none of them have prices set and you bargain, I guess that's how it goes). I ended up not finding the Zoids nor DVDs I was looking for (BOO! Though there were DVD pirate vendors on the street (I didn't check any of them out) and worse, apparently a block or to further up there was a department store that actually had some anime DVDs and maybe toys -- ggrrrrrr! Not that I truly expected to find either one of those in Beijing -- Hong Kong or Shanghai maybe, but to hear that I might have been so close to them and yet so far away... sigh. Would've been a nice bonus) but did get a nice North Face (or knockoff--if so, it's a good one) backpack and seem to have pulled some better bargaining skills out of the air, getting it for 165 Yuan, 44% of the person's opening bid (I prolly could've done better) and keeping with my "Don't spend over 20 bucks for a backpack" routine, which has now netted me two good backpacks and one really lousy one. In some ways, it'll actually be weird NOT to bargain when I return home... need to go to Chinatown to keep in practice...

-We got rain, and boy, it rained HARD! Almost shorted out the car of our tour guide who was driving a few of us out to dinner (see below). VW too, though probably driven quite roughly. Scary Chinese traffic in the rain, yikes! (Though one thing about the driving -- yeah, it's all over the place, but they are all driving reasonable speeds (for the most part--save the crazy bus driver we had in Wudangshan and the twisty roads there) so they can adjust down if they need to, along with honking to clear paths, going around, etc.

-Since the hotel was only serving amaracanized Chinese food anyway, decided to go for something that could be interesting and fun, so we went to a Pizza Buffet. Yes, Pizza in China. Wanted to see what it was like :P And actually, it wasn't bad at all. Some interesting ingredient combos, like shrimp, peas and corn, but nothing outrageous like in japan with squid ink and mayo. Plus they had a hot mango drink, which was good. And at only 39 yuan, a good deal.

-After dinner we hit a Carrefour, which is (amusingly) a French department store chain, setting up a Target-like chinese department store. Nifty, really }:> Snagged a bunch of Tea, a ubiquitous tea-brewing vessel/cup/sportbottle/thing (very neat and everywhere), some chopsticks, a weird T-shirt (Lori bought some with truly inspired chinglish on them), and a few other things (and Lori got some inspired cute items :P). We ended up wandering around until closing time and they were all watching us leave... then we had fun of trying to flag some cabs, then some of the cabs got lost on the way to the hotel. :P Still, we all arrived save and w/o being ripped off. }:)

-Of all of what I thought I would hear in China, horrible US Muzak is not one of them... oy.

We shall arrive at SFO about 30 minutes before we left Beijing, despite the 1h layouver in Shanghi. Such is the power of flight and the international date line.

In the end, not surprisingly, this travel log was not as extrensive or all-encompassing as I'd envisioned it when I left. Maybe next time I need to bring small er and always present pages to ensure I write it all down... at least in point form.

At any rate, the first part of the trip seemed long... it felt as though we'd been training there forever (interesting on it's own, I guess it wasn't hard for us to fit into the training there). The second half went by fast enough, with Wudang feeling mostly normal-time and the time in Beijing (where the accomodations and food felt more like Chinatown) flew by at an impressive clip.

This trip, without a doubt, ROCKED. Seems like an empty simplistic way to describe it, but it was excellent in so many ways, and was an experience and enriching in so many ways as well. Martially, spiritually and learning about the society, the land and the people.

Bei Shao Lin training for 5 days in Dengfeng, even w/o the full conditioning, has helped me gain a better understanding of the style as well as shown some (wushu sparring) applications, along with showing what a modern wushu school is like. Training at the temple's wushu guan would have been even neater probably, and offered true gruelling conditioning. Maybe next year (or next time), after the renovation, we'll experience that.

The temple itself was a bit of a letdown, with so many tourists/visitors, so commercialized, not much monks. Ditto at the White Horse temple, a bit of a shame. But they weren't dead nor uninteresting places by any stretch. Seeing Damo's cave was very fulfilling. The hike to the top of the hill didn't carry much oomph as I've done similar hikes. Despite their less impactful effect, I did learn much about the esscence of Chen Buddhism and the architectonics of the temples.

Tai Chi atop Wudang was to pretty for words. The Tai Chi itself was very interesting (if not easily graspable for me right away) and the setting was so idylic as to be clichee (in a good way). I will have to work wit the little of the form I know until I am better feeling the energy. A bit the same with 8 section brocade.

The temple atop Wudang shares a bit of the comments of Shaolin -- too may visitors to make it feel too spiritual. I think they would have done better w/o the cable cars :P though it certanly would have taken us longer to reach the top. The architecture and setting were beautiful, and I have started to learn more about Daoism.

In many ways, our hotel/museum/temple we stayed at in Wudang was the most architecturally impactful building for me on this trip.

Despite the not meetin of Sun Jian Yun in Beijing, perhaps the 'no training' days were welcome, though the days were still packed. Cancun at the end of my Mexico trip was well enjoyed as rest -- Beijing was a bit like that. Almost too much shopping of the wrong kind, though, and not enough for me to find what I wanted, even for the non-obscure stuff.

Lastly I can say I have come away with a much better awareness of China today--its people, its landscapes, its society and economy, its fabric, some of its problems and its changes and rapid change. Not all are/is what I expected, nor do I think I have the whole picture (to be sure). But I do wish to learn even more.

And I thoroughly enjoyed the train rides (being someone who likes trains) even in the 39~C weather.

As a group, we didn't kill each other nor do I think anyone ended up truly 'hating' anyone else. There were annoyances to be sure, of differing degrees and of different lengths of time, but in the end they are dissapointing for those people, not detracting from the tour for the rest. And sometimes it provided fodder for mirth.

So, yes, this trip was worth it 148%. While I'm still undecided as to if I will go next year, I may just do so, depending on where we'll say and go. And as time goes on, I'll probably be looking forward to going again more and more... especially if we stay at the Wushu Guan next year (even better, longer training).

Now all that is left is to thank Sifu personally. And here too: Thank you Sifu Lam for organizing such an excellent trip!

Oliver Bollmann, July 2002