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Xi’an：Armies, Mountains and New Ink

September 18th, 2007

It has been nine days since I left the Kung Fu school and thankfully, the experience is quickly fading into a distant past. Every facet of life that was lacking during my time there has returned in full force.  Due to the hardships I recently endured, my sense of appreciation has also been greatly enhanced to enjoy it all the more!     Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in - Panorama, - Photography, - Reflection, - Transport & Travel, Asia, China | No Comments »

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Liberation

September 10th, 2007

Ah, freedom… I can taste it again! I am happily writing this on my way away from Songshan and the hellish Kung Fu training experience endured there.    Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in - Photography, - Reflection, - Transport & Travel, Asia, China, Chinese Kung Fu | 3 Comments »

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Pain and Suffering in the Mountains of Central China

September 3rd, 2007

I just finished reading “The Travels of Marco Polo”, which seemed intriguing enough as a choice of literature during my first stint in mainland China.  I was surprised to find that it reads very differently than expected.  Rather than offer a narrative of his experiences, or even personal insight, he merely presented a series of objective elements to log the attributes of various cities visited during his journey through the medieval Far East.  It was interesting enough, but constantly seemed as though something vital was missing.

Reading the afterword by Howard Mittlemark helped to clarify Polo’s potential motives as not simply being limited by medieval thinking and literature, but rather the product of a unique experience chronicling new territory.  He then proceeded to compare the style to modern travel writing by saying that now “no matter where you go, somebody has been there before, and the only thing left to chronicle is the infinite minute variations of the inner world.”

So what is going on in my ‘inner world’ right now?  Would you really like to hear about my current state of depression?  Do you really care, or are you a hoping to justify your comfort zone by thriving on the knowledge of my current tales of misfortune?  Either way, here it comes… currently, I am completely miserable.  For the first time since I set out on this adventure (and for a long time before that) I am far from happy to be where I am.  My positive outlook has taken a vacation and left me alone with a demon called pessimism.    Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in - Reflection, Asia, China, Chinese Kung Fu | 9 Comments »

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Learning Kung Fu in the Mountains of Central China

August 25th, 2007

“Welcome to Boot Camp!”

“You are basically paying them to imprison and torture you.”

“The first morning you wake up after training, every inch of your body will be sore.  The second day, it will be worse.  On the third day, you will be in so much pain you want to die.  On the fourth, you will wonder how it got worse.”

I heard all of these quotes from fellow students at the Song Shan Shaolin Temple Xiao Long Kung Fu Training Center, and after four days I can attest to their accuracy.    Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Asia, China, Chinese Kung Fu | 2 Comments »

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Pingyao’s fifteen-hundred years of history

August 23rd, 2007

After a hellish first experience with third class travel in a developing nation, I literally squeezed myself by force out of the overcrowded train car and into the dusty streets of Pingyao.  The first impression was of a more polluted but slightly smaller scale version of Beijing.  Clouds of dust kicked up by a constant rush of motor-carts, bicycles and motorcycles.  I heard this was an ancient walled Ming Dynasty City, but here I find myself in near third world urban sprawl?!?

Luckily the impression faded after passing through the city walls.  Inside is a straight up third world city still hanging onto an era long passed.  Old crumbling buildings covered in age-old dust wrapped around the random twists of cobblestone alleyways.  This is the type of place I’ve been waiting for since I started my travels.    Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in - Photography, - Transport & Travel, Asia, China | No Comments »

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10,000!

August 19th, 2007

In honor of my blog reaching over 10,000 unique visitors, I’ve decided to make my stats public… enjoy =P

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Posted in - Reflection | 1 Comment »

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The Yin and Yang of Beijing

August 18th, 2007

Would I ever want to live in Beijing?  Not even a possible consideration!  It is polluted, grimy, overcrowded and excessively hot.  After seven days here, my throat is sore and nose is stuffed from the smog.  Two showers a day would be barely sufficient to cleanse the filth from your skin, and fighting through the swarms of human traffic can be downright uncivilized at times.

Would I visit again?  Definitely!  Balancing all of the negative aspects is a city full of exotic culture, excitement at every corner, abundance of interesting excursions and endless supply of enticing cuisine.    Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in - Transport & Travel, - Transport: Train, Asia, China | 1 Comment »

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Character Development

August 13th, 2007

Five months deep into this adventure has taught me more than I could have learned in five years stagnating at home. I do know I am still far from an experienced traveler, but it is safe to say that I’m at least no longer wet behind the ears. It has been almost a month since I left the comforts of Gangneung, and I’ve found less and less time at a computers to update this blog.

So what has been keeping me so busy? Life… the way I want to live it. The weeks I’ve spent in Seoul kept me preoccupied with friends, playing music, taking photos and visiting the must see sights. I also took a twenty-five hour ferry into China and have been exploring Beijing for the last few days. Now I’m sitting in a quiet pavilion hidden in a secluded corner of Temple of Heaven Park and have pulled out my journal for the first time in weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in - Photography, - Reflection, - Transport & Travel, - Transport: Boat, Asia, China, South Korea | 1 Comment »

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Seoul Searching

July 28th, 2007

As I sit here, alone at a bar in Seoul called “Comfort Zone”, an overwhelming epiphany has passed.  It is the culmination of the uncertainty and doubt that have been clouding my travels during the last few weeks.

Your world is and always will be contained within your self.  This understanding cannot be realized during a mere vacation from the normality of daily life.  A change in surroundings only affects temporary disposition towards the outside.  It takes a disassociation from your comfort zone and extended immersion in the unknown before you can truly visualize the world you exist in.

This separation eventually leads way to a defining point of critical revelation.  The illusion of reality fades.   No longer limited by a false view of the world you can truly become free.  By understanding that perception of the world is in your hands to shape, the world literally becomes yours!

So, if you seek an adjustment in your life, the power is completely inside your self rather than your environment.  Any thoughts that the world is bringing you down can be erased by a change in demeanor.  You can enjoy every minute of your life… if you want to.

With this revelation, all my concern faded.  Although I partially understood it before, the concept has never been so apparent and awe-inspiring.  A smile wiped over my face.  I walked outside to the nearest table, sat down and engaged in hours of conversation with complete strangers. 

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Posted in - Reflection, Asia, South Korea | 3 Comments »

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Goodbye Gangneung

July 27th, 2007

The last two weeks in Gangneung have been like a vacation from traveling.  Hanging out with Melissa and her friends at the beaches and suburbs was reminiscent of a summer at home.  It has helped me to shake a bit of funk that has been building up during the last four months on the road.  I was getting a little disillusioned and burdened by time limits and dwindling finances, so it was great to live a stressless life with no real agenda for a change.  A lot of my time there was spent wasting time in internet cafes and playing with the kids at Melissa’s school, but I did get into a couple photo explorations during my last week in town.    Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in - Photography, - Transport & Travel, Asia, South Korea | 3 Comments »

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