Super 8 Hotel Yantai Hai Yuan

... are able to ascribe to it". Most of the Western-style buildings are ex-consulates contained within a park. The signs are extremely repetitive and predicatably (and understandably) anti-Imperialist. The major detraction from the park was the Richard Clayderman blasting out on the speakers: so you see that music imperialism is fine! The buildings now house museums. There was even a museum about locks, which with delicious irony, was locked up when I tried ...

... Yantai, a port city on the northern coast of the Shandong Peninsula that started life first as a small fishing village and then as a defense outpost where wolf dung fires were lit on the headland during the Ming Dynasty to warn fishing fleets of approaching pirates. Its life ended in the late 19th century when the Qing government was defeated during the opium wars and the city was handed over to the British ...

... Astonishingly beautiful, on this pretty damn big lake. There's a giant Buddhist temple complex on top of this hill in the otherwise flat Beijing. On one side you can look out over the impeccable geometry of the temple complex on to the lake. From the rock garden/ meditation labyrinth on the other side you can/ should be able to see the entire city. I definitely want to spend a day or two there painting when I get back.

... out. Turns out the song was playing real loud on some Chinese guy's cell phone, he was trance-dancing right there in middle of the mall! I said, "Say man, what's the name of that sweet song?" That boy didn't even stop dancing, he just said,"Bing He Shi Dai". Needless to say, now I jam to it on my iPod. For the best China travel information and tips on the Internet check out: www.askreddragon.com

... learning a bit of Chinese, snacking and drinking tea - taking it easy until training starts again tomorrow! Our group has a week until we're to be tested on the first proper fist form that we've been taught so I imagine this week will be a tough one. That's about all there is to report but will hopefully start updating sometime this week

... punches well, not much else. The different kicks and steps are also annoying to get into but as with punches they can be figured out and used. We trained regular sanda 2/3 times a week, takedowns once and sparring once (somebody always got hurt in sparring though, one guy in my class accidentally bit the head of the other guy during wrestling leaving him in need of a stitch, to be fair that was not actually part of the sparring but it is worth ...

All the masters in the academy trained in the Shaolin temple roughly from when they were 10 till 20. Every single one of them has their own style, amazing ability and approach to teaching what they know. There is no real way to summarise them as a whole because of how different they all are so I think it's worth giving little profiles of each. I was lucky enough to have Du Shifu as my main Shaolin master. He's the oldest shaolin master at around 28 (no ...

This week (Oct 1-7) is the "golden week" in China and includes their National Day on October 1st and the Moon Festival on October 5th. That means all the schools get the week off and most people who can take the week off work do as well. Cities empty out and roads fill with families and students going on vacation or trying to get home. Needless to say, that makes traveling a bit difficult, but seeing as I have the same vacation as the rest of China, I joined the clamoring ...

... crazy old men asking the guys their permission to dance with me despite my emphatic head shaking and loud no's! I was sick for two days a couple of weeks ago - was horrible. Thanks to those of you who kept me company on MSN at 3 in the morning. I was given 30 pills in one day and force fed porridge - but it worked! Getting fed up with the food, think that's what made me ill - I'm craving Western food big time. Plus I'm still terrible with a pair of chopsticks - I miss my knife and ...

... Needless to say all the animals were unhappy, and I could have my fingers taken off my lions, tigers, ostriches and vultures to boot. A real Chinese experience... Yesterday was a 'sick day'. Yes I managed to contract food poisoning again from some dodgy fried dumplings that since they tasted like sick, I should really have realised that that would be the outcome! Anyway I had to leave my afternoon class and remove the ...