Jinan - Day 10 (11.22): Good Will Editing

I went to bed late last night but I still managed to wake up at 7:30, alarm or not. I got out of bed and got to work on a video editing project I needed to finish up by tomorrow. I decided to take the footage and photos I’ve snapped so far to make a VCD music video thingee for the athletes and Li De Hua. I don’t really have much footage or photos of the athletes Wei Xin’s group, so it will just be for the people I trained with directly.

After a fair amount of time doing that I eventually got ready for my afternoon training session. As I walked outside I realized that there was some sort of arctic chill in the air, much more so that usual. Before, I could only see my breath at night, but now I could see it in the middle of the afternoon. It looks like winter has finally arrived. Even the street looked somewhat deserted and some of the vendors had not set up at all.

When I got to the wushu guan it was super cold. There were some workmen replacing some of the broken windows, so they hadn’t turned on the heaters (I guess because it would have been money wasted?) all day. It was as cold inside as out, except we didn’t have the arctic blast going on.

This made the workout a bit of a challenge. I had my Wushu West warmup jacket and I wore that for most of the time because if you take it off, then the sweat on your shirt chills you to the bone. But if you keep it on, the sweat is just really uncomfortable. But I opted for warmth rather than comfort and dealt with it.

Again, my back was having issues, but I managed to make it through the class and push out a few sections. I also brought my video camera so I could get some more cameo footage to use in the music video I was making. I can’t believe I’m saying this, because I actually hate hot weather, but I really miss the summers here. They make wushu so much easier.

Fun activities like this would be much easier in the summer

I walked back up the hill with Chen Li (it turns out she’s not a coach’s assistant, she just happened to be put in charge that day. She is just one of the athletes like the other folks) Yuan Feng Ling and Dong Hai Juan.
Li Chun was running around as well. I bid them all farewell and as I was heading back to my hotel I considered going to the street food, but it was just too darn cold. I decided I would just get something in the hotel restaurant instead.

When I got back to my room I soaked in a hot bath for about 30 minutes and then went and got some dinner (Sweet and Sour Pork!). Then back to my room to finish up the video, which I managed to do around 10:00.  I’ll try to upload it to youtube when I get to Beijing or Shanghai.  For now, the connection is just way too slow.

I found out today that Jisue had a last minute business trip come up during the time I was going to be in Korea, so I’ve decided to postpone my Korea trip for January instead. I will fly out the same day Peter leaves to the U.S., January 4, and come back January 10. I’ll have to be sure and bring my long johns.

Speaking of Peter, he’s due to arrive on the 23rd of December. We’ve decided to pay an X-mas visit to Xiamen ( 2nd year in a row for me!) to escape the cold and rain of Shanghai. Just for a few days though and it’s back to Shanghai to hang out and pick up some taiji for Peter. Should be a good trip.

Tomorrow morning is my last training session here in Jinan. And right after that Jennifer and Wang Wei show up. As I type this they’re probably flying over the pacific ocean en route to Beijing. Just 13 hours until they arrive in Jinan. It’ll be nice to see some familiar faces again.