Yantai Family Business Hotel

... that when you are happy, you see everything in a good light, or notice only the positive things; and when you are unhappy, you can feel that fate is conspiring against you in everything. I began to move from the former state to the latter as I arrived in Qingdao. This was undoubtedly catalysed by the state of the hostel I checked into. A section of the carpet was so wet it squelched underfoot; the plaster on the neighbouring wall fell off in large chunks ...

... each other better, told stories, got a little punch drunk, and got to laugh and hang out with our professors. Christy, I'll let you discover for yourself the charms of Chinese train-travel but just say it's awesomely ghetto. As I mentioned before Beijing is HUGE. So many people, so much pollution, it's a crazy place. But it really didn't feel much different at all, except that it was a city. I could have gone to DC and it ...

Just recently I was visiting my best Chinese mate in the seaside city of Yantai. On this one day, while we were strolling through a mall, I heard this Chinese trance-dance song playing faintly off in the distance. I thought, "Oh man, that was my song! My friends and I used to jam to it at the many Chinese dance clubs we used to frequent". I never knew the name of that song, but I was about to ...

Ok folks, I've finally started writing a blog! Just getting to grips with this site, it seems pretty complicated so I'm not going to get down to any serious writing just yet. It's almost dinner time here, the weather's pretty nice today as it's just about the end of winter now and I'm just lazing around. Have been watching some random TV ...

... monthly grading on the 15th of the month as usual but on that morning the masters called a lineup. There was the first moment where everybody got to see how bad everybody else looked and sounded and the masters showed their love for everyone by announcing that the grading was to be moved to one week later. It was funny to see the looks of relief on some of the students faces, one in particular who had been waving his sword around in preparation for the grading like a man ...

... dropping it. Eventually you get higher and higher though while is cool though it still takes forever to get decent height rather than just higher. The main thing people associate sanda with is it's application, sparring. I sparred properly twice after about two months of being at the academy, once against a Dutch guy name Alex (It was pretty even, I think I got more hits but I did not do as well as I should have) and the second against a girl named ...

... to stay at the academy because he preferred monk life. Wang Shifu went to the shaolin academy with Wei Shifu, he was very well known for his great abilities in sanda, he's one lot's of medals and competitions (they all have but him especially for sanda). He trained his class hard, discipline, no smiling or jokes. He was a great personality though, he adopted Spot the young dog, gave really good speeches and gave annoying students what they deserved ...

... it. During the day, the city is covered in a haze of humidity that makes the dilapidated fishing boats on the ocean almost disappear. Yantai University and the city can be most easily compared to a Monet. From a distance, it is a beautiful seaside city with some of the oldest embassies and wineries in China, perched on the edge of beautiful green mountains that gracefully come to meet the Pacific ocean. The city has grown with the rest of China, rising from its ...

Got up on my day off today to see the Childrens day show. Today is national childrens day in China and for those of you that are short enough you can get into any Chinese monument half price. The show was really impressive, with costume changes every scene and well rehearsed dance moves. It was even better because as Helen had been helping her primary school kids rehearse she got a staring role singing at the end and backstage passes. At the beginning all the ...

... no imagination and give them a word like 'actor' and they come to you looking worried because they don't know how to draw it! Also some of the kids have hilariously bad drawing skills for example the kid asked to draw 'school' had everyone shouting 'alien'! Chinese whispers is fun, partially for the irony and partially because they really get into it. It gets all the kids involved which is nice, so no one can hide! In my ...