Jinan - Day 9 (11.21): Back Pains, Rest and Visitors

The two times a day training was probably a bit premature as I woke up this morning incredibly tired and sore. I made it through most of the warm up and stretching just fine but my back was hurting a bit so I went down to the medical clinic to get some work done on it. I got a good 20 - 30 minutes of massage work done to my back which helped enormously (much more than the massage from the night before, and this one was free!) but the doctor said not to do anymore training afterwards so I went back up to the wushu guan and took some pictures and videos. I spent a good amount of time taking video of the athletes so they could review their nandu and forms.

I also told Li De Hua that I was going to switch back to once a day. Twice a day was just a bit more than my body could deal with. I really only did it once, and that was enough for me. I know my limits. Once I’m in better shape I might be able to swing it, but for now it’s better to be healthy and happy than hardcore and suffering. The doctor also told me to drop by each day after class to get more work done so at least I know I’ll have some daily relief after a hard session of wushu.

The medical clinic in the wushu guan building

After class I walked out to the main gate with Ding Hai Juan and Yuan Feng Ling. I then grabbed some rice and meat, which I ate back in my room. Since I had the afternoon class off I decided to relax a bit and watch some TV, but the exhaustion got to me and I crashed from 2:00 to 4:30, and even when I woke up I was still a little groggy.

I did some putzing around on the computer but eventually decided to go out for a while and get something to eat so I walked down the food street. This time I went all the way down where it starts to run into the base of a near-by mini-mountain with a small temple pagoda thing on top. One of these days I’d like to hike up to the top, but it will probably not be this trip.

I grabbed some chicken and also picked up one of those metal bowls you see people using to eat lunch all the time. I was getting tired of eating my food out of plastic bags. After eating I relaxed some more but then around 8:30 I got a knock on my door. To my surprise it was Ding Hai Juan and Yuan Feng Ling! They had come over to pay me a visit. We spent an hour or two chatting about this and that and I learned a lot of things I didn’t know before about them and wushu stuff. Here is a quick list:

1. Yuan Feng Ling is from Heze, and Ding Hai Juan is from a small town about an hour and a half from here not far from Heze. They gave me bus schedule information, travel times between different locations in Shandong and all sorts of interesting tid bits. They even suggested I take my trip to Korea by taking a boat from Qing Dao, but at this time of year that doesn’t sound like such an exciting prospect.

2. I finally got the names of several of the coaches and athletes (with which I will try to update my gallery). I also found out that the female coach who got married last year, Feng Jing Kui, is now very pregnant. In fact, she’s the random pregnant woman that has been dropping by the wushu guan a few times since I’ve been here but she looks soooo different than she did last year that I didn’t recognize her at all. By the looks of things, she’s due to give birth about 5 minutes ago.

3. I got the QQ information and exchanged numbers for SMS with both of them. Hopefully we can keep in touch. Unfortunately this means I have to install QQ again. I don’t suppose anyone knows a trillian type of program that includes QQ? No? I figured as much. I downloaded the English 2005 version (http://im.qq.com/qq/mo.shtml?/download/qqe.shtml) so I guess that will have to do. I’ll just have to turn off all those freaking bells and whistles it comes with.

Ding Hai Juan and Yuan Feng Ling paying me a visit

There was a lot of other stuff we talked about too, but it was nice just having them there. I felt bad because my room was a little messier than usual and my hair and clothes were still all messed up from taking the nap in the afternoon. But, meh … they live with athletes. I’m sure they’ve seen worse.

I walked them down to the lobby and said goodbye to them. They had also told me that there was no morning class tomorrow and that training would be at 2:30 in the afternoon instead. It was a good thing they told me that or else I would have been really screwed waking up at 6:30 and going to the wushu guan with no one there. Now I can sleep in and take care of personal errands instead and then go to the afternoon class as well.

I’ve been stressing a little bit about the suit I wanted to get here too. I was going to have a suit tailored for me to wear to Wang Fei’s wedding (and because I’ve always wanted a tailor-made suit) but I’ve not had the time to do it yet and the wedding is just a few days away now. I realize I can probably still get it done in time, but I’m still stressing about it. I’ll have to figure something out soon …

I can’t believe that Jennifer and Wang Wei will be here in just 36 hours or so. My time in Jinan has really just sped on by. It’s been great though and I’m definitely going to make another trip up here soon. I’ve made some good friends and it’s so affordable that I’d be silly not to. Plus, the training is really first rate. I’m already looking forward to my next visit (and cursing the limitations of the space-time continuum which doesn’t allow me to instantaneously slip to my preferred moments in life and experience the good stuff without waiting for it to happen).