China – Day 25-27: Beijing and Home

This blog entry is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I’m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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At last it is time for the last blog entry from this recent trip to China (and now hopefully I can get some actual work accomplished).

I should also mention that I went back and updated all of the previous entries with new photographs and videos that weren’t in the previous ones. Especially for the Shaolin Temple and Xi’an legs of our trip. So, be sure to visit narom.net or wushuwest.com to check those out (I don’t think they will port over to facebook or alivenotdead).

I’ll probably also post up some additional stuff on wushuzilla.com, if I have some time, and I’ve been slowly posting some wushu videos on my wushuzilla youtube channel too, so you can visit that if you are interested.

Saturday, June 25, 2009

Anyway, the last time I posted we were headed back from Xi’an to Beijing on the train. We woke up nice and early and got our things together before disembarking. However, I managed to snap a few nice photos of the surrounding countryside before we did (click a thumbnail to view).

james and patti on the train

pierre

just outside beijing

boy checks out the view

beijing platform

We were greeted by our local tour guide who would accompany us on the bus from the Train station to Shi Cha Hai. Kent had left us in Xi’an so this was officially the end of our tour.

When we arrived in Shi Cha Hai it was time to re-acclimate to the environment. For most of us, the next 2 days would be spent socializing and shopping.

I saw Shahaub and Wu Di pretty much right after arriving and as Wu Di was leaving to get a haircut, I decided to join him and get one as well (Thanks Wu Di for the haircut!). The salon was nice and after I was done, I got us something to eat and took a few pictures of him with tin foil in his hair:

wu di getting his hair done

Then it was back to the school where I got myself situated in the room I would be sharing with Pierre.

As I was unpacking I realized that I had left the charger for my laptop in Xi’an! I quickly made some calls and learned that the hotel had found it and that Ruhi would be able to pick it up for me. I just needed to get a new one in the meantime (it doesn’t hurt to have a backup cable anyway).

I first went to a couple local electronics stores, but they didn’t have anything that I needed, so I finally went to the Electronics store located on People’s Sports Stadium South Street. They had what I needed and I was able to bargain it down a little bit. Phew! problem solved.

In the evening Patti had arranged for everyone to go to Mistica Pizza for a group dinner. The food was pretty good but the entertainment was even better. The singer played guitar and had a song list so that you could request a song or even go up and sing it yourself. Wu Di, Shahaub and some of their friends showed up too and we were serenaded by Wu Di’s dulcet tones

wu di sings

at mistica pizza

I didn’t get a video of Wu Di singing, but I was able to get some of the guitar player singing a bit of James Blunt. Coincidentally, during most of the night Daniel Wu was on the TV as the special guest of a variety show where he was showing the hosts how to ride a skateboard and do various acting exercises. You can see a bit of it in the clip

It was getting late so I rode in a taxi with Jonah and Noah back to Shi Cha Hai. When I went back to my room I unpacked some stuff, worked on blogs, and then I hit the hay.

Sunday, June 26, 2009

After waking up I finished up a bit of blog work and cleaned up. I was going to be meeting up my old friend Marco Goodman, who had been living in China since 2004 or so. In fact, the last time I saw him was 2006 when he dropped by Shi Cha Hai for a quick class. He had been living in Liaoning but recently moved to Beijing where he was preparing to work on his MBA in China.

He came by the school and then we headed towards Ya Xiu. But the food at Ya Xiu didn’t seem to suit us so we ended up going to McDonald’s instead. It seems that food at Ya Xiu is bargainable, which seemed strange to us. I don’t mind bargaining for clothes or bags, but bargaining for a meal isn’t something I’m as used to.

Anyway, after that he went with me to get fitted for my suit. While there we ran in to James, Myles, Pierre, Ashley, Lauren, Susan, and Jennifer. Patti showed up a bit later as well. Marco and I went down to the luggage floor and ended up having a lengthy conversation with a few girls down there about the business of selling goods. We learned quite a bit about the mark-ups they put on items, but it was nothing compared to what I would learn later on.

After a while Marco had to leave so I went back up to hang out with the Wushu West folks. Since I wasn’t buying anything, I decided to further my education and learned some Anhui dialect from the local workers on the 3rd floor. It actually reminded me a lot of Shanghainese.

After a while I got sort of bored, so I decided to head back down to the bottom floor again. This is where things got interesting.

I ended up hanging out down there for a few hours talking with the 4 Anhui (and 1 Hangzhou) girls who were working near the escalator. I was there long enough that I actually ended up helping them with some of the sales.

I worked at the hat stall for a while learning the right phrases to call out to people as they walk by and ignore you.

I worked at the belt and wallet stall learning the mark-up mathematics on various items and how much they should be sold for. (Foreigners really get shafted here.)

In fact, I even managed to sell a card holder to some Chinese guy who thought I was the boss for the stand (since I didn’t have on the typical blue or pink worker shirt).

I could write a whole blog entry on what I learned from that experience, but I won’t bore you with the details. Sufficeth to say, it was very educational (and I have a new-found respect for how difficult that job can be).

After returning to Shi Cha Hai I grabbed some food in the cafeteria and then went to my room to pack. 20 minutes later I decided to head to the lobby to watch “So You Think You Can Dance” with Shahaub, Lauren, Ashley and Jennifer. We did that until my battery died around 3 AM. Then I caught some z’s.

Monday, June 27, 2009

It was time to leave! Boo! We all got up nice and early and headed to the lobby with all of our luggage. There were 8 of us heading back on the plane. Lauren, Tyler, Susan and Travis were continuing on to other parts of China, Patti was staying a few more weeks, and James would be coming the next day.

our l uggage

jonah and noah

lauren and ashley

reception desk

The ride to the airport was quick (that new expressway really helps) and soon enough we were all checked in to the flight and waiting at the gate to board our plane.

I slept pretty much the whole way (which is why I stayed up so late the night before) and when we arrived at SFO on Monday morning at 8:30 AM I was ready to go.

We picked up our luggage, made our way through customs (with the exception of Myles, whom they apparently thought was carrying drugs in his Panda hat) and greeted our various family members outside.

And thus ends this blog of the Wushu West trip to China, 2009. I hope you enjoyed all of it. Of course, if you are interested in taking wushu and are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, you are more than welcome to drop by Wushu Westand check it out for yourself.

kung fu panda?

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