Multi-Cultural Personality Disorder

It took two trips to Beijing, but I finally made it to The Great Wall. Yesterday I hiked 10 kilometers on one of the less developed stretches of The Great Wall of China, and it truly was great. It was a clear, sunny day, and we were so far from Beijing (about 3 hours) it was virtually a smog-free experience. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s over.

I made it through a month of Kung Fu training in China without any broken bones or major injuries. Every part of my body was screaming “Screw You” when I left the training center on Friday afternoon, so I’ve spent the past few days relaxing in Beijing. Relaxing, meaning I’ve been walking several hours a day instead of running, kicking, walking like a duck, and jumping like a frog. The freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want is priceless. Read the rest of this entry »

Entrance to the Shaolin Temple

The Shaolin Temple is only 9 kilometers from my Kung Fu school. It is said that Kung Fu began in the Shaolin Temple and that all other martial arts styles (Karate, Tae Kwon Do, etc.) developed from Kung Fu, so the Shaolin Temple could be considered the birthplace of all martial arts. This Thursday my roommate, Marta, and I spent the day there. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a long week. We loaded up two buses last Friday with all of our belongings and a ridiculous amount of swords and drove about an hour southwest to this new school which is much larger and much more modern. Read the rest of this entry »

Everything hurts. Everything. The first day I arrived at the Kung Fu training center, the two cheery German boys across the hall from me told me on day 4 of the first week, I’d want to die. Today is my fourth day and it’s actually much better than yesterday when I really did want to die.

Training begins at 6:00am. We train for an hour, eat breakfast, take a short break, and then train again from 9:00am – 11:40. After lunch and a long break we train from 4:00pm-6:40 pm. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we train for another hour from 7:50pm-8:50pm. Then it’s lights out at 9:30pm. This is my schedule for the next month. Everyday except Sunday.

The living conditions are… rustic… but we’re moving to a fancier school tomorrow. The school we are at now will be bulldozed to the ground by August 5th so a public road can be built. Presently half of the buildings are torn down, so there’s rubble and garbage everywhere. It really is a pretty extreme situation and definitely a challenge.

The training is difficult. Really. These people aren’t playing around. There are hundreds of Chinese students that stay and train for years and about 60 foreign students that stay and train anywhere from one week to one year. I am one of 5 or 6 girls. It’s only for a month, and I hear everything is great after the first week, which everyone agrees is a very painful week.

I’m now in Xi’an which, like Pingyao, is a city surrounded by an ancient wall. Xi’an was the capital of China thousands of years ago, but today it is famous for the Terra Cotta Warriors. The Terra Cotta Warriors were only recently discovered, in 1974, by a farmer digging a well. There were originally 8,000 warriors, each made by hand and unique (no warrior has the same face), which were buried with the emperor to protect him in the afterlife. Today this is one of the most popular tourist attractions in China. As with any tourist attraction in China, it was extremely crowded and commercialized, but amazing nonetheless. Read the rest of this entry »

At least in my opinion.

We left Beijing last night around 11:30pm, an hour and a half later than our scheduled departure time, on the way to Pingyao, a small traditional Chinese town several hundred kilometers south west of Beijing. We thought we had 2nd class sleeper bunks, but we didn’t. We had 3rd class hard seats. Third class is always a little chaotic as it’s often standing room only and jam packed and the train to Pingyao was no exception. I’ve done quite a bit of train travel, but I’ve never seen anything quite like the insanity of boarding a train in China. Read the rest of this entry »

Beijing was not a city that I liked immediately. It’s crowded. It’s polluted. It’s hot and humid. It seems everything is under construction in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics. To be fair, almost anything would have been a let down after the countryside of Mongolia, though. It took a day on a bike and a few more days wandering around the hutongs (alleys) to endear me to this city, but now I’m a Beijing fan. Read the rest of this entry »

We made it to Beijing. The past few days I’ve been about as energetic as this family. I was sick yesterday (a gift from Ben) and today was an exhausting day in tourist hell at The Forbidden City. It was pretty. It was impressive. It’s just that the big tourist attractions aren’t really my thing. I took the picture of this sleeping family at The Forbidden City. See. It really was exhauting. I’m not just complaining:-) I’ll send a few pictures later. For now I’m off to explore some more of Beijing!!

Yay for Mongolia!! Taken at a monastery with breathtaking views

My words and photos can not possibly communicate the beauty and magic of this place. I took so many pictures Read the rest of this entry »