Mark Moran - my official artist profile -alivenotdead.com

No Hangzhou — Hong Kong Instead

So, if you couldn’t guess from my Twitter Feed or Facebook or wherever else I have an online presence, I was not able to make it to Hangzhou for the wushu competition. A little bummed about that, but not much that can be done about it. Instead I’m heading back to Hong Kong for a business trip. In fact, I am at the Xi’an train station as I write this.

I picked up a 3G USB Wireless Modem at the DianZiGuangChang in Xi’an and signed up for a trial package to see how it works. The 3G stick includes a slot for my 8GB MicroSD card too, so it acts both as a modem and a memory stick (8GB MicroSD was 115 RMB or around $20 USD). The USB modem was 320 RMB and I signed up for 3 months of the lowest nation-wide access rate plan, which includes 60 hours of online 3G access each month up to downloads to 15GB. If this proves to be helpful there are plans that allow for unlimited use. I think the best deal was unlimited nation-wide use for 2800 RMB / year. That comes down to around 200-something RMB / month, which is only around 100 RMB more than I’m paying for this plan.

Anyway, the plan is 100 RMB / month but you have to get a 3 month block. So I paid 300 RMB for that. Around 735 RMB all together. Not too bad. I have 3 months of 3G wireless access for a little more than $100 USD.

The other reason I got this was because next month (assuming this works well) I’m planning on attending the Duilian competition being held in Tianjin. Yeah, it isn’t your normal wushu competition, but I feel bad about not attending this one so at least I can provide some interesting duilian footage from Tianjin. I hope to Tweet from the competition too and if that works well, then you can be sure that, come Nationals in the fall, I will be there with my laptop giving you the up-to-the-minute play-by-play. Will even try to post some pictures from the event too, if possible. And even video, you ask? Well, who knows? That is entirely possible.

I’ll keep this short. I have more stuff to blog that I’m a little behind on, but I’ll save that for when I am able to plug in my computer.

BTW, I’m putting together an FAQ here on wushuzilla so that all of the (constantly repeating) questions I get will be searchable through the website. You can ask a question here if you want it included: