Spencer's Radtacularly Awesome Escapades in China

final post

2008-08-12T02:43:00.000-07:00

hello everyone ive just arrived home and started to unpack all of my stuff, im afraid that there will be no final post of all of my photos from my final adventure, its just gonna take too long. so this is my farewell, ive had the most amazing time in china and im so glad i have this to look back on. and thanks to everyone who actually read it and made my time in writing it well spent. i hope you have enjoyed the adventure however vicariously.

failed first night in HK

2008-08-07T09:26:00.001-07:00

tried to find a club my friend recommended, found the building but couldnt find where the club was. tried to go to another area and the monsoon rain returned so i decided it wasnt meant to be tonight. plus its kinda wierd to be going out by myself to a bar/club. i need some friends.

anywho i think im gonna get an early start and just explore the city tomorrow and maybe have some better luck

see you all in a few days

fucking hong kong

2008-08-07T00:17:00.000-07:00

finally made it! i think im carrying well over my own body wieght but i made it and got my new visa all handled for my flights to beijing. so relieved to finally have that handled.

this place is overwhelming after being in the countryside for so long. gonna go enjoy it!

ill be home in 4 days woooo

due to my lack of time/ energy....

2008-07-31T04:13:00.000-07:00

... you will once again be getting an abridged version of my travels until i have the time to better explain them

lets see from where my last post left off some of the better moments have been:
-talking to a white guy from zimbawe about teaching music
-hiking in the stone forest
-meeting another spencer in kunming
-meeting matt and merrybelle in lijiang
-breakfast with pass and her family ( i met up with them for at least a little while)
-dinner at mama naxi's
-shots/drinks in lijiang
-flaming dr.pepper
-rocky mountain bear fucker
-prarie fire
-sexy tractor
-snickers kgb
-ice cream and beer after lunch with my 3 canadian friends for the day
-sneaking into the black dragon pool (forget paying 80 kuai!)
-epicness of tiger leaping gorge
-the "summer camp" group (a group that randomly assembled at the beginning of the tiger leaping gorge hike and stuck together through baishui tai, zhongdian, and all the way to deqin and back to lijiang with its remaining 3 members)
-matt from austin, tx
-merrybelle from north carolina
-joe and eric, brothers from santa barbara
-christian from germany
-jonathan from sweden
-getting to travel with these amazing people for almost a week
-banana pancakes at mama naxi's, there were bananas all over, sooooo good but too much for one man to eat
-making it all the way to the halfway house in the gorge
-drinking game with the spinning thing in the middle of the table at halfway house
-the videos of the aforementioned game
-my fortress of beer bottles
-drama at harmony guest house
-learning shaolin kungfu poses from christian
-cheap dali beers
-playing cut throat (my new favorite pool game)
-altitude making me a lightwieght
-seeing a glacier!
-epic poses with said glacier
-chinese people who need air cans to breathe above 6000 feet
-making our own hot spring
-pigs/cows living outside of hostel at the hot springs
-matt dominating the 3000 foot ascent listening to daft punk
-breathtaking views on the himalayas!
-ice shelf breaking with me and matt still on it (no harm occured)
-matt drunk off one beer due to the altitude chasing cows with a stick with his ass hanging out
-biking around er hai
-teaching kings cup to a bunch of frechies

pretty much to sum it up this last few weeks has been everything you need for a good time:
good people
good food
good conversation
and ad a little bit of amazing scenery

currently in dali waiting for a bus back to kunming to hop onto another bus to the yuanyang rice terraces, google it . im so stoked to go.

im so sorry to give you guys such an abridged version of my travels. there has been soooo much going on and so little time.

ill return on the 11th of august and cant wait to see everyone!

my travels so far

2008-07-16T23:46:00.000-07:00

so this is actually a post i had been working on as a draft but i never finished it so i thought id post it anyway, its almost 2 weeks old now but whatevs

my trip has been going quite well as so far. i am currently in a hostel in guilin awaiting my train to kunming for a few days and from there i dont know.

lets see where to start. i arrived in guilin on sunday morning and got lost when i got off at the wrong bus stop, i went one more and then i found it easily. i was too early to check in so i attempted to buy some breakfast and instead wound up with 10 bread sticks, stupid american. i spent my day just walking actually around the edges of the touristy scenic areas and found some interesting markets and made a few paintings during my wanderings. the night was uneventful and i just hit the hay for my early morning boat ride to yangshuo with some swedes i met in the lobby.

got up early in the morning and hoped on this little janky motor boat barely big enough for the five of us to fit. we had a nice cruise down the river with some amazing scenery. we parted ways once in yangshuo and i went to find my first hostel in yangshuo as the one i wanted was booked up for the first night. i was met at the boat station by the owner whose distinguishing mark was the half a finger missing on his right hand, just as the website had stated. i got settled in and grabbed a bike and headed for the countryside. i made my way first toward the famous moon hill which like a mountain with a half moon shape cut out appropriately. it made a nice hike up to the top minus the old ladies following you up to the top trying to sell water. they will follow you all the way to top just so you might buy on bottle of water. so as mean as it sounds im a total asshole to them in hope that they will save their energy and not follow me cause i wont buy water from them almost entirely on principle. so i got the top with out my shadow only to have another one attach to me and then i had to get her to leave me alone and then she tried to guilt trip me and then finally gave up. finally i had a peaceful view of yangshuo with no, "hallo, you buy water!" "just buy one, you buy later". i continued my bike adventures and got quite muddly going through the "bike path" that wasnt marked at all and consisted of riding through random village streets. meetup with two guys from chicago and an english couple who were equally lost and we eventually found our way back via a super muddy road. oh and on the way i took a quick swim with a water buffalo which was rather refreshing. i made it back in time for the family style dinner and had a great talk with a father from Belgium on topics ranging from politics to hip hop. wandered around the city to quell my boredom for the evening and ran into a nice guy who ran a rock climbing gym and offered to take me out climbing in a few days.

so here is where my life got a littel complicated as i had to transfer to a little known hostel on the outskirts of town. i hitched a moto taxi and got half only to realize he was trying to rip me off. i got off and stuffed a 20 in his pocket and walked the rest of the way which wasnt actually that far. arrived at my new hostel, the giggling tree, a wonderful converted barnyard run by a very pleasant dutch family. i dropped my stuff and made my way to the "real water cave". this adventure actually wound up being quite fun for two reasons, swimming underground in a cave and no crazy multicolor lights like in every other chinese cave. i actually just kind of hung back and made the tour myself. there was a really cool mudbath pond that was a first time for me. and at the end there was a huge underground waterfall that you could stand under, just like in those herbal essence commercials =). i spent the remainder of my afternoon relaxing on the terrace overlooking the farming valley and amazing hills.

for my last day in yangshou i made arrangements with the friend i met the evening prior to go out rock climbing. i got up bright and early and cycled into town to met up. we grabbed some gear and a ton of bananas and headed for wine bottle hill. i hadnt climbed in about a year so i was pretty out of shape, i still managed to make it up a 5.9 and about halfway on a 5.10. after a few climbs i was tired and we headed back. the owner of the gym offered me some free noodles at his restraunt which were quite delicious, a really nice and genuine guy. i could really see myself staying in yangshuo for a few weeks and just climbing and hanging out. maybe someday, at the moment i have the travel bug and i need to be moving on. just after that the most random moment of my travels so far occured, i spotted on the side of the road the couple who we were marooned with in guangzhou airport and once again ran into on a private beach in sanya. it still amazes me how small the world is even here in china .i crashed for sometime back at hostel and waited for the midday heat to die down. around 4 the light was such a beautiful shade of yellow that i couldnt resist one more bike ride around the valley. on my way home i ran into my belgian friend once again for the second random encounter of the day.

craziness

2008-07-13T03:42:00.001-07:00

so the last week or so has been so hectic hence the lack of posts, so im going to try and spell this whole situation out so it makes sense

things you need to know:
- lost my wallet (debit card and bank of china card)
-supposed to go to yunnan with pass and her family
-expecting a wire of money and a new debit card before i left for sanya
- i owe 1000 for my dorm

so i got back from sanya at midnight on tuesday night. i woke up the following morning with the hope of my fed ex package arriving with my new debit card so i could pay for my dorm. 9 hours later and 6 calls to the idiots at fedex my package arrives after the third attempt to deliver it. i got to every atm i can find to try and pull out money but i get locked out at 350 instead of the usual 700. so now im up shit creak cause i owe mike 400 for the sanya trip and then 1000 for the dorm. so now my luck banks on the money coming via wire to come in the morning, so i can leave for yunnan the following day.

thursday morning pass and i go to the bank of china at 9:30 right when it opens to find a 30 person line. ugghghghgh. so we wait for almost an hour to be helped to find out that the wire has not come yet. fuck. so now i scram frantically for some kind of idea of what to do about the money so i can leave at 12:30 with pass. after a little while i pretty much give up and have to tell pass ill have to come the following day. so i see her off to the bus station and say goodbye. after that i go to the place to buy tickets and ask about a train to yunnan only to find it is booked completely for the next 7 days. fuck. so it is then i decided to just go on my own and go the reverse of my initial plan. so i decide to go to guilin and maybe meetup with pass later in the month if possible. so things are looking up now, i was kinda hoping to travel alone for awhile.

so friday morning i go and wait at the bank for 2 hours! to get my number called finally and the money has arrived!!! i get my money and mikes money and i pay for my dorm and get everything inline. though i find out that the train to guilin only has seats and no sleepers. fuck. i just say whatever and buy the ticket, i just wanted to get out of guangzhou and start traveling.
and from then on it went pretty smoothe

im currently at my hostel in guilin and heading to yangshuo tomorrow via river boat. today i just kinda chilled about and made a painting or two. i also tried something new, instead of going into the tourist areas i just walked around the outskirts for awhile which turned out rather interesting. i found a really cool backstreet mart and accidently bought ten of these bread things when i only meant to ask if it costed 10 yuan. stupid americans. all of the chinese had to stop and get ridiculously close and look over my shoulder as i painted which got a little old but thats nothing new. im sure im pretty random, a white kid chinese painting. seriously what am i thinking.

anywho im gonna go grab some grub

keep posted

<3 田予川

weekend in paradise

2008-07-09T02:37:00.000-07:00

our weekend was off to a slow start as out hour long flight became delayed for an unknown amount of time. we got put up in a shitty hotel 30 minutes away which was ok. our view out the window was the rusty air conditioner on the roof and the my personal favorite bad translation as of late, "wham poo" in the bathroom.

4 hours later we got going and this guys hat made my day!

tsing tao and bbq it doesnt get much better

calamari, stingray(yeah stingray), and eggplant soo goood.
gotta love the village style, just trying to fit in with the chinese

one of the best moments of the weekend not documented between this photo and that one. sneaking onto the local 5 star resorts' private beaches. perfect white sand and crystal clear blue water.

oh and we went scuba diving for about half an hour two, which was really awesome. so weird to get used to breathing underwater, but it was awesome to see the coral and all the fish. gotta love china, no need for certification.

chilling on the beach after scuba diving, attempted to surf but failed. im a shitty californian
mike going to conquer the 2 foot waves
2 months without direct sunlight means i got owned by the sanya sun
our friends at the hostel; elyse from minnesota (which i had no idea where it even was, but now it seems like a cool place), Filipa a teacher from NY originally from the Carribean, Jessy the wonderfully helpful intern and mike and I.
the restraunt across the street had a legit western menu! steak, burritos, sandwiches, quesadillas, everything and it was all spot on and amazing!
just look at that burger, sooooo legit

view of sanya from deer hill
more of those relationship thingies
my awesome getup, all of this awesomeness for 30 rmb, taken by my friend rico (see below)
ridiculously amazing hand made ice cream, 100% fruit, take that jamba!
This is Rico, a police officer from Changqing who i met on deer hill. we started talking and he offered to take me to lunch, gotta love the chinese hospitality.
the magician behind the amazing ice cream, such a cute old lady.

just another great moment from the weekend, our rommates came in while we were out and found my pink phone charging and immediately though they had a couple living with them and were like, "oh shit". later when they saw us they just assumed i was gay, i love the reactions my phone gets.

ive been sitting around all day waiting for my replacement visa to arrive so i can have some money, ive been here since 9 am and its now 6pm and no sign of the package. gah i this is getting ridiculous.

i was supposed to leave for yunnan tomorrow but i think i am going to have to cancel it to deal with this stupid money situation.

gahhhhhhhh

sometimes scary kids says it best

2008-07-08T18:42:00.000-07:00

"I’m losing what’s left of my dignity
But ill fight till the end for her heart
Ill never give up for what’s possibly
For better for worse this love must be cursed"

today is going to be too long, i have way too much to do

finally made it to sanya

2008-07-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

after a 4 hour delay at the airpor with our 1 hours flight to sanya we made it. me and mike jus got back from getting some bbq and walking along the beach in front of all the hotels. checked out the bars/clubs but they were all pretty lame.

tomorrow's mission: sneak onto the private beaches of the hotels a lanyao bay!

should be an amazing day tomorrow, its summer and im in paradise!

schools out for summer...schools out forever

2008-07-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

so yeah just officially finished my studies here at guangzhou today. doesnt seem like it all, its summer time though! i still have no money, but im going to sanya tomorrow with mike. its pretty much the hawaii of china so im stoked to go chill on the beach.

im pretty much all packed up in my room, its all going in two suitcases which is kinda gnarly.

this week has been really amazing actually minus the wallet incident. ocean's bday on wednesday, our going away party last night, and then we went on a boat ride on the pearl river tonight. it was a great way to spend our last week in guangzhou.

lots of photos to share but i really have no time as i havent packed for sanya and i have to leave at 9 tomorrow and i havent slept much in the last few days.

4 weeks-ish and im back in america!

expect a big party for my/divahhh's/tyler's coming home

rinse and repeat

2008-06-30T21:03:00.000-07:00

i wake up and look out my window to see the sun shining on a beautiful partly cloudy day and within an hour or two it returns to monsoon-esque weather with really heavy rain falling sideways

so over it

venting

2008-06-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

wow fuck my phone service, whenever i finally get through to someone who might be able to help me with the shitty situation im in my phone runs out of money. apparently calling hongkong is long distance. i tried to call the american express office but they didnt speak english and hung up on me... awesome. then i got transfered to the hongkong hotline with someone who was telling me that there are no places to buy travelers checks in guangzhou, but i can buy them in Lhasa the capitol of tibet. its the biggest city in the fucking country! gahhhhhh. now i cant call anyone so i have to go and dish out more money that i dont have to try and figure this stupid shit out with some outsourced person in India trying to read chinese cities to me.

*edit- apparently there is no office in guangzhou, wow. the closest one is in shenzhen, i guess the gaungzhou branch doesn't exist anymore(fuck you american express website), so im abandoning this idea and ive got a much better one.

woke up today and the sun was shining and the day was looking up, hopefully all is not lost

ending the weekend on a good note

2008-06-29T08:22:00.000-07:00

icees still make everything better

this weekend is over, for once im stoked for monday

wow fuck this rain

2008-06-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

just as i was getting setup to make a painting in the village is starts to downpour of nowhere, i make the trek back to my dorm soaking wet cause i lost my umbrella the other day though it wouldnt have helped in this rain. i just got back and rinsed off and now the power just went out, this is best weekend ever........

so over this weekend

2008-06-28T06:58:00.000-07:00

-two failed nights of trying to get out of the university town

-eating bbq by myself while surrounded by groups of friends

-lost my wallet on the bus

-i have about 30 us dollars to my name

-i owe 1000 dollars for dorm rent within the next week

-tried to make a painting, looks like a 4th grader painted it

-still raining, with no end in sight

-its only saturday night

god help me if it is still gloomy and raining tomorrow, i might just sit in bed and sleep, so over this weather.

my afternoon

2008-06-27T07:46:00.000-07:00

the best lunch ever, two plates of sou si kai and some bo lo bi (pineapple beer, actually just soda but they call it beer)no rain so i decided to go sketch, this is my setup
ghetto palette on a plastic bag
no one drives in the university town
yeah im embellished the background a lot.....but my teacher would just do the same when i showed it to him
went skating again finally. it was so nice not to have any rain for one day. im gonna go hit up some bbq in the village. another quiet friday night. after spending my last two friday nights in shanghai and beijing guangzhou is rather underwhelming.

and it came to bite me in the ass

2008-06-26T08:36:00.000-07:00

this photo deserves its own post. if anyone ever talked to me before i came to china you probably heard me complain about how i learned how to say "i have two tickets to the beijing opera" before i learned to say "i want food" . i always said that i would never need the first phrase and how useless it was. well low and behold here i am with two beijing opera tickets in my hand, damn you stupid chinese language lesson plan you were right. caitlyn has already said "i told you so" and im sure one from my parents wont be far behind.

finally the photos are up

2008-06-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

these are some of the choice photos from our trip up north in china. they are all out of order cause they were shot on 3 different cameras, so just read the captions n stuff. enjoy!

and so our journey begins, 18 hours to huangshan, luckily we got bottom bunks
good morning huangshan!
these guys have to carry these gnarly loads up tons of stairs all day. craziest calves ever!

climbing to my roost
perfect spot to attempt to sketch hah

finding our way on top of lotus peak
gotta stretch out!
moganshan art district....meh
on my mission at tianamen square
kicking it with Yu Ji

epic much?
stair to lotus summit, the tallest in huangshan

our buddies at the hotel
climbing up the western stairs, we walked down to the lowest part of the canyon and back up the other side....so many stairs
no sunrise =(

quintessential huangshan
gnarly crosswalk on nanjing road
bund photo #74563450834527852348752 ever taken

yay tourism trap!
awesome dumpling thingys for 3 yuan around the corner from our hostel
speaks for itself

PuDong district
suzhou canals
fishing suzhou style
the real suzhou
canals at night just before our delightful encounter with Ross and Bob

crouching tiger hidden dragon
1000! year old pagoda, china's leaning tower of pisa
this photo is vertically lined up, this thing is leaning like crazy

oh mike and his naps
tre bombs, not A-bombs
hutong district where our hostel was located, cool street

oh the pollution in beijing, you cant even see a mile away
this old dude was so stoked
shredding the gnar

this looked so unsanitary yet so awesome at the same time
all the tours stopping to get a photo of the stadium, this is as close as you can get
the photo op
summer palace
our far to short yet exhilarating section of our boat ride to the summer palace

factory 798 photo gallery, so many amazing photos.
and old weapons factory from the culture revolution turned modern art district

nike's exhibit: 100 victories over drag
chair made of rice!
the last original culture revolution propaganda painting in 798
mike and his ufo toy as we killed time in Tunxi
asian girls at the central academy
these are the kids who bombarded us with question at the huangshan railway station, the one on the right was the ring leader
and then one of them got the bright idea to ask us for autographs and every kid in the station wanted one
our rockstar moment. definetly made both of our days
dillon and oswald the scavenged mannequin

rob and the now dressed oswald ready to party
tsing tao, the official drink of backpacker in hostels all over china

ghetto ride in a motorized trike through back alley and construction sites from the hostel to the suzhou railway station
stereo setup while waiting for our train in shanghai
ughhhh

kungfu tea!
oswald strikes again in beijing with his owner tiago
everyone was dressed in suits and at least a button up shirt and what was mike wearing

whats on my mind

2008-06-24T05:41:00.000-07:00

so just like last time i went away it is tough for me to get back into school. im trying to paint like crazy to over compensate for my absence and im just making shitty stuff which is no good. ive only got two weeks left so im trying to make lots of work. i still feel pressure for some reason to come back with this big body of work that i made here, though there is no requirement of me to. and i have to figure out how to get my stuff back, i need to ship stuff and figure out what to send and not. i need to get pick up stuff i have promised people tomorrow and stock up on painting supplies to bring home. then i have to get a flight home, figure out where i will be going when i get out school, and where to put all of my stuff. sorry this is kinda of rambling on, but just thinking out loud. my brain is kinda scattered at the moment. im caught in between traveling and school. its just like my life for the past 3 years, never really staying in one place all that long even if it just switching between westlake and long beach. i realizes i havent stayed in one place while in china for any longer than 6 weeks at a time and as short as two days and one night. i enjoy being on the move and i look forward to being on the move for 5 weeks this summer. its just tough to go from school to traveling, my brain gets torn. i think i have been under the influence of too many itinerant stories; into the wild, even cow girls get the blues by Tom Robbins, the motorcycle dairies, and pretty any person who i have met a hostel. all of these make me crave an adventure which i hope to quench somehow this summer. i dont really know exactly what i am looking for or where i really intend to go, i want to just go and be able to figure out my way as i go.

ok i think that is everything for the most part. thanks for listening hah.

im working on getting the photos up soon, one more thing on my list

im gonna go get some cantonese bqq and some pineapple soda

sunshine!

2008-06-24T00:34:00.000-07:00

its hot as hell outside but its never felt better. it amazing how good sunshine can feel even when its 97 and super high humidity outside. everyone is walking around with umbrellas and im just soaking it up. soo goood. makes me feel like im home just a little... soon enough

facebook still hates me so the photos are gonna have to wait a little.

week and a half of school left then 4 weeks of wandering through china!

list of awesomeness

2008-06-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

so i just got back from our trip up north for a week and a half. instead of really boring and detailed post i have compiled a list of awesome moments from the trip in a roughly chronological order.

-playing 13 a card game mike taught me
-climbing lotus peak when i was closed
-climbing huangshan while talking about black holes with an astronomer
-our random english circle outside the hotel on top of huangshan
-mike playing with his ufo toy for 2 hours at kfc
-hong cha
-bargaining for everything
-messing up our room reservation and actually getter a better room with really cool roomates
-trying to sell my umbrella to all the people trying to sell me watches, bags, dvds, etc on the streets
-not sleeping in shanghai
-8 yuan double sized tsing taos
-kings cup at the shanghai hostel
-jon and dillon dancing
-history of sex exhibit
-bob and ross in suzhou, two australian journalists who we had drinks with. they had stories for days and could imitate any english dialect you could imagine.
-ghetto moto trike to the train station
-owning mike at 13
-skating at tianamen square
-skating the streets of shanghai
-Gu Zhongguan exhibit at 798
-peking duck
-dumplings on every corner in beijing
-beijing opera
-drinks and bbq with random people on the street near the hostel
-my new wolf shirt
-learning british slang
-musical chairs at magpies
-oswald the partying mannequin
-signing autographs for all of the kids at the huangshan railway station
-chilling and watching family guy in suzhou
-seeing a 1000 year old pagoda that was leaning worse than piza
-attempting to sketch
-traveling instead of being in school
-everyone at the shanghai hostel

goals accomplished
-skate tianamen square
-factory 798
-party in shanghai
-hike western stairs of huangshan
-eat peking duck

goals missed
-tex mex that no longer existed (biggest let down of the trip)
-skating shanghai skatepark (stupid rain)

me got to meet people from

-England
-Scotland
-Sweden
-Switzerland
-New Zealand
-Brazil
-Australia
-Canada
-Utah (go america!)
-France

all in all an amazing trip and as you can see we saw and did quite a lot in just a week and a half

and finally hours spent on a train during the last week and a half: 79

im tired

shanghai!

2008-06-18T09:05:00.001-07:00

we arrived in shanghai and luckily our hostel was only a short 3 stops away on the metro. we got to the hostel to find that i had messed up and only booked one bed instead of two, but it turned out to be a happy mistake as we were put in a room with less beds than originally reserved. we got settled in a went for a walk to the bund to see the skyline everyone has seen a million times. we walked up took a photo and ran away from the ridiculous crowds. we then began mission tex mex! we got a map and found the place where it was supposed to be. it then became apparent that my book was 3 years old and the all you can eat tex mex that had been filling our dreams for weeks was no longer in business. we were heartbroken to say the least! we settled for some beef sandwiches at a sports bar nearby. defeated we returned to the hostel. mike took a nap and i went out to roam the streets on my skateboard, which turned out to be one of my favorite experience as so far in my travels. i had never been able to skate around a true downtown like that, weaving through traffic and people, ollieing every man hole i passed.

later that night we grabbed some beers and food at the bar in the hostel. we started to group up for our first night out in shanghai, we played some kings cup with two canadian guys a little before we went. on a recomendation from the austrian students in guangzhou we checked out a club called g plus, the rest of the group went to some bar they were unsure about on the bund, which they later found out wasnt what they expected at all and wound up meeting up with me and mike. the club was really fun, lots of electronic break beat stuff. bubbles, foam, and confetti for all of the epic songs. we all danced until 4am when the club closed though by that time we had thinned out to a group of 4. first night down

we went back to get what sleep we could. mike and i arose around 1030 or so and set out to check out the local art colony much like the brewery. it was so-so there was nothing that really wowed us. we hoped on the subway and went over to the huge radio tower thingy to find out that it was ridiculously overpriced to go up in so we went to the nearby H&M and shopped instead =). on the way home we stopped at the history of sex culture in the tourism tunnel across the river. there were a ton of really ridiculous sex objects from thousands of year ago until the current day. i cant even imagine where they found all of this shit. they had a bunch of wonderfully intricate vases and then in the center there are two people having sex in a field. the also had a wooden scuplture of a man wrapped in chains with a distrubingly large penis. mike bough these funny ceramic fruits that had people having sex on the inside, apparently they were used in the old days to teach newly weds about sex and positions.

getting a little tired we once again returned to the hostel and got some of the amazing dumplings from around the corner and proceed to rest up for our second night. i passed out for a few hours and mike went out to shop some more. later we meetup wtih some fellow americans!, the fist i have encountered in my hostel travels and played some more kings cup, with my bad luck i pulled the last king. we got moved around about 4 times until we ended up outside due to the noise where even then we got stopped. by this time its was almost eleven and we got a tip from a local friend of one of our roommates about a bar that was pretty fun called windows.

we all piled into taxi and started our convoy to the bar. to change things up this was a hip hop bar but they played some really fun songs. i havent heard will smith's get jiggy with it in forever, and somehow i still knew all the words, wow im a loser. once again we danced until 4am and then regrouped at the local mcdonalds for some han bao bao (hamburgers). by the time we got back it was already getting light out. we had a really cool conversation with a guy who had been pretty much everywhere in the world in the last 6 months, i was so jealous. got back and crashed until 10 or so, packed and said goodbye to everyone and set out for suzhou.

we got to the metro station to realize that we didnt have the directions to our next hostel, i booked it back on my skateboard and had to deal with the shitty internet as it took 5 minutes to load my email, grrrrrr.

so pretty much we had good night out on the town just as we planned in shanghai, meet some really awesome people, and just plain had a good time.

on the road update

2008-06-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

made it to huangshan and hiked all day yesterday, went up to the highest peak and down to the bottom of the western canyon and back up again. pretty good day of hiking, our calves are dead. there are possible more stairs in china then there are people...really!

we wound up having quite fun little group of westerners talking in front of the hostel, a good night to end a good day, minus the really bad chinese karoke in the background

we got up at around 4am this morning to trek to the east side of the mtn to hopefully catch the sunrise, even by then it was packed. though it was too hazy to even get a little golden light. we went back to the hostel and packed up

Mike and I swung by beginning to believe peak on our way down the mtn to catch a glimpse of the wondering misty morning, though about 5 minutes later it began to rain and we had to abandon our hopes of hiking down the mtn and we just took the cable car.

we are not hanging out in a youth hostel in tunxi waiting for our 9:45 train departure, i seemed to have overestimated how much time we would need today. so i think we will cruise over to the old street and see if we can kill some time there. woo go spencer and his planning skillz

shanghai tomorrow!! so stoked. im going to try and find out how to get to the skatepark there. apparently its the largest in china, hopefully i can get to it or lugging my skateboard around the mountain will have been a waste.

keep posted for more stories

off to the train station

2008-06-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

the gnarliest lightning and thunder ive ever experienced keep me up last night, so im running on about 2.5 hours of sleep at the moment and im about to head out for the train station to go to huangshan.

keep posted for photos and adventures and such

im really getting sick of this weather

2008-06-08T20:42:00.000-07:00

i woke up today and looked out my window to see a very nice sunny, probably one of the nicest since ive been here in guangzhou. i go to get dressed and in the 10 minutes it turns into a complete downpour and now its wet and overcast again.

i got excited that it might be a nice sunny day. i guess just another rainy day

i cant wait for the blue skies everyday in california

i hope you are all enjoying it back home, i miss all you guys.

and a happy bday shout out to dan! and tyler on tuesday!

im really sad i am missing everyones 21st birthday parties.

i trying to figure out which day i am going to plan to fly out on, im thinking the first week of august. that should give me enough time to see yunnan, guilin, and hongkong and make it home for the last month of summer and my 21st.

i just love it when...

2008-06-05T10:26:00.000-07:00

..i get a call at 10:45 telling me i have 4 paintings due the next day at 10am for the class that ended 2 weeks ago and in which your friend told you their wasnt any homework due

i just love being alone in a studio for 3 hours until 1:30am being eaten alive by mosquitos making crappy copy of qi bai shi.

tonight has been awesomeeee.......

sorry guys

2008-06-05T05:20:00.000-07:00

lately any time i try and upload photos it doesnt wanna work no matter what site, maybe the chinese government is after me. hah

anywho some recent adventures

last weekend me and mike got taken to the local amusement park and safari park. the amusement park was ok, they had some good coasters. they also had a really good rip off of the waterworld show from universal, it was pretty much exactly the same. oh china how well you can copy things.

the safari park was legit! they had like 8 tigers! 8! and pandas and koalas. koalas have some gnarly claws too, i never knew that. all in all it was a fun day. and the best part was that it was freeeee.

on tuesday i was walking back from dinner with my skating friends and all of sudden it started raining harder than it ever had in the last two weeks. we darted for the nearby parking structure. we got stranded for about an hour learning each others stupid tricks. somehow one of my friends found a bundle of trash bags and we all made makeshift ponchos. we donned our ridiculous costumes and made the trek back to the bus stop. these photos are amazing once i can get them uploaded. i havent laughed that hard in a long long time. a good night

me and mike have just put the finishing touches on our trip up north. next wednesday
we will leave for huangshan, shanghai, suzhou, and finally beijing. i know that this iam going to the same places as last time but there is still so much to see that i was unable to the previous time. it should be a really good time, hiking, sketching, partying. i cant wait.

look forward to lots of good photos!

wow...just wow

2008-05-29T23:47:00.000-07:00

i cant believe what sharon stone said. so ignorant. "they are mean to my friend so they got what they deserved". she sounds like a pissed off 8 year old. i dont think shes gonna be friends with the dali lama anymore, name dropping the dali lama to try and sound compassionate....so stupid.

sunday's adventure

2008-05-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

i checked out a sichuan earthquake benefit show at Guang Da.

i finally got to climb the rock wall there
backy is soooo metal
made it to the top, oh the burning muscles from rock climbing how ive missed you
this dog just chilled with his tongue out as they played hacky sack
bored waiting for the show i decided to document as many man purses, murses if you will, as i could
#1
#2
no purse just rock
#3
2 for one man purses (#4,5)
#6
#7 and by far the best purse/tough guy combo
the homies
#8
boredom leads to cliche photo effects

the first good band, some punk group with a girl singer, they put on a good show something no other band had.
hes trying wayyyyy tooo hard

the last band was more like a jam session, which was really cool and unexpected in china. the guy came out dressed like Johnny Depp from fear and loathing in las vegas. he was all over the place arching his back and such, really cool show.

and the fun electric bike ride home.

as far as my life goes its just been raining everyday but only for about 20 minutes a day but when it rains it really rains so it kinda scares you to go out after that in case it starts again, so ive been watching a bunch of movies. tonight and this weekend should bring some more interesting adventures so stay posted.

the forecast for guangzhou

2008-05-24T20:55:00.001-07:00

no rain so partly cloudy, just lightening....just lightening. and its totally lying about being sunny now, its pouring and there is actually lightening and gnarly thunder.

May point and shoot dump

2008-05-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

i just cleared out my point and shoot. it doenst get used as often so there are a bunch of photos from the last month or so.

my overpacked backpack for sketching trip

on the subway left to right; A Gah, Dai Lo, A Kah, Deng Xin

approaching Tai Hen
twinsies, i love this kid
oh bijiu (chinese rice wine)
drank drank drunk

i love the guy to my left
this i little girl was playing peekaboo with me in the train station
trains in china
this looks exactly like my friend jenna, asian doppelganger
mmm dim sum
carla in china!
hipster carla?
good morning huangshan, crashing in the lobby until the receptionist came out.

old......new
my favorite thing in china, it tastes like pizza its amazing

probably one of saddest things ive seen

Laura and Michelle at a cafe/bar with me and carla in beijing
last night in beijing!
mike and his two twins
this guy looke douchy

mmm cantonese cuisine. the plate in front is pineapple beef with green and red peppers, soooo goood

my friends grandma who didnt stop staring at me for the while 3 hours i was at the house, except for maybe this photo.clubbing for mikes bday, ohhh the kanye glasses
Happy birthday mike!!

ahahhahahahhahahhahaa long beach poster children

2008-05-22T23:31:00.001-07:00

two classes down

2008-05-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

I just finished my bird and flower class, no final or anything which is kinda weird but whatevs. I start a color landscape painting class on monday with mike. im not sure if its city landscape painting or more tradition mountain and water (shan shui).

I also just got a call from the international students department to tell me they found out that I went to the countryside to go painting with my class. apparently the department told them for some reason. I thought I was in the clear, but it popped up again. I think I might have lost some of Edwards trust. Though he cant expect to be surprised that i traveled when he doesnt call me for a month and is then surprised i went off under his nose.

Looking forward to tonight, Mike, Olivia, and I are gonna go hit up a club downtown. I could use the night out so Im stoked. hopefully there will be some good photos to share on monday.

Congrats on finishing school to everyone in LB. summmmmertimmeeee and the livin's easy

enjoy!

things/people from american culture that are popular in china

2008-05-20T07:53:00.001-07:00

ive recently noticed some interesting things from america that are prominent and popular and china, so ive decided to make a list:

1. McDonalds
2. KFC
3. Hotel California (yes, the eagles song. and only that song)
4. Prison Break (everyone watches it...everyone)
5. Marilyn Manson
6. Linkin Park
7. Avril Lavigne
8. Eminem
-basically any top 40s artist from 6 years ago
9. NBA

so of all the things this is what the chinese get from america...poor chinese people

paintings/haircut

2008-05-20T05:43:00.001-07:00

so i decided it was time for a haircut. due to my lack of linguistic skills i decided to try and cut my hair myself. it took a little while and im still finding some long stray hairs but i think it came out pretty good. some random dude took my photo in the subway for some magazine him and his friend have. he sent them later that night, he saved me the trouble of shooting my new hair.

As promised here are some photos of my paintings, the first five are the ones i turned in for judgment after my first class.

these are the paintings from my sketching trip in tai hen shan.

my favorite from the trip

here are two paintings from my current bird and flower class, i do mostly exercises so these are some of the few paintings I've finished.

life update

2008-05-19T07:15:00.000-07:00

sorry to all of you who check this regularly, i apologize for the lack of updates. this last week has been a lot of changes and adjusting. coming back from traveling for 2 weeks and getting back into the school mode has been tough.
I've also started skating almost everyday again. I met some fellow skaters in the university town who setup a box and rail daily so I've been hitting that up a lot. I also went into downtown to catch the es game of skate, but i got there late so i missed it. I wound up skating afterwards and met some new friends. Luckily one of them was the local shop owner who happens to be a translator as well, quite handy! Anywho I skated for awhile and tried to get myself a little respect which i did when i finally pulled a kickflip backlip on the rail. I wound up going back the next day to watch the finals of the game of skate. there were some pretty good matches, though i was sad i had missed the day before so i couldn't register to skate. after the end i wound up challenging the winner to a game and got him 3 letters, so i was still stoked.
Monday has sucked, but its over now. yay for tuesday soon and hopefully my body will stop hurting from all the skating

p.s. photos of paintings coming soon and more frequent posts

Carla Comes to China

2008-05-16T19:44:00.001-07:00

my good friend Carla finished her school in Tokyo and decided to come adventure with me around china. our main plan of attack, guangzhou, huangshan, and finally beijing. these photos should pretty much sum up the experience

Carla's first meal at the dining hall
wooo subway!
the view from the top of our hostel in Tan Jai Qiao
xiaogang park
my adventure into the local village on the first day in huangshan after catching up on not sleeping for 26 hours and an 18 hours train ride.

the hostel lobby when carla woke up from the long sleep after the train ride
our afternoon wanderings into the hills

Day 2: Huangshan

we meetup with an Italian couple form Shanghai and shared a taxi to huangshan and spent about half the day hiking together

bamboo forest on the way to nine dragon waterfall
the Italian couple
the endless stairs that haunt me in china
after and hour and half of stairs and hiking this was not worth the walk
finally heading up the mountain and not down! this tram ride was amazing, it took us a ton of confusion and frustration to get up here but it was well worth it

beginning to believe peak i think, unbelievably epic.

hipster pose with the found tour hat
it was too cloudy to get many good shots this day but i tried, it gave it an interesting feel.
tired after a lonnng day of hiking.
Day 3:
this day i took a bike ride to the local city of Song Ke. on the way back a man on a motorcycle stopped to talk to me. to my surprise he spoke with a perfect british accent. i was surprised enough to hear english as no one really spoke it in this area and to hear that accent was crazy. anywho he owned a restaurant close to the mountain in Tang Kou which he claimed to have really good banana pancakes. i talked to him for a little while got his card and then continued riding home. later that night me and carla grabbed a taxi to meet simon at his restaurant for some good dinner since the hostel didnt have much access to any real food.

Simon's daughter
she loved to make this face, she was really photogenic
her first portrait
and her first self portrait, kids love the sound of the shutter clicking
Simon and his daughter
apple pancakes, amazing!
Day 4:
as Simon suggested we went to the north side of the mountain to see the see the canyon. it was finally a good clear day and the views were amazing. carla did some sketching while i hiked around to get some photos.

more stairs......

this is the view from where i ate my lunch (an apple) it was amazing

one of the many amazing pines there
this is how they carry everything in or out of the mountain. these guys carry hundreds of pound of food/building materials/drink/anything. hiking these stairs is already tough but with 200 pounds on your back its crazy.

Day 5:
We took a bus to Beijing after staying at Stephens bed and breakfast in Tunxi which was a humble experience after the last hostel. we had a great duck dinner and comfy beds. we caught a overnight sleeper bus in the afternoon which was a nice surprise. the beds were really comfy, although they placed trance music with softcore strippers on the tv for a few hours which was something else. we watched a ton of friends and weeds until our computers died.

i woke up in traffic jam to see this out the window, these arent pets

the glorious sleeper bus
day 6:
Beijing! we made it. the bus ride took about 2o hours. we found our way to our hostel close to the forbidden city, it was a really nice little courtyard house with lots of bright colors. in an attempt to seize the day we decided to hit up Tianamen square and the forbidden city.

the entrance to our hostel

Go communism!

Tianamen
had to get a photo with Mao
we decided to take a bunch of jumping photos from then on, its just more fun

what ive dubbed the jackson pollock tree, the trees in the back of the city were the best part in my opinion.
we made it through the whole place in about an hour and i felt satisfied. we wandered back and grabbed some dinner with some fellow travelers from the hostel.
Day 7:
the Badaling section of the great wall, due to the last minute decision to go we had to go to the more touristy section. it was ok, but not that great in my opinion. i couldnt believe they put up a huge billboard for the olympics, if somehow you didnt know about them already. anywho we had our fun and got some souvenirs.

more jumping photos!

Day 8:
Carla left early in the morning to fly back to Japan and i got up early and left for a 4 hour bus ride to one of the more remote parts of the wall. we got dropped off and had to hike about 10km along the wall to the pickup point. this part was much better than badaling. as you walked farther you got to see the wall in its more original state and its non-repaired sections.

the beginning of the hike. this section was somewhat reconstructed as you can see

finally hitting some more worn down parts
Sam on the right was from New Zealand and on the right was Rodrigo from Colombia. both were really cool guys and we had some good talks walking along the wall.

getting to the really amazing parts

pretty damn steep
and here is why this was sooo much better than the day before, unreconstructed and original. this actually felt like the GREAT wall.

one for the parents at the end of the hike

a good view and what i had concluded was a large lesbian hiking group. there were 3o woman dressed in full hiking gear and only a guy as a guide. what would you think?

zipline down to get picked up. sooo fun

Day 10:
heading back guangzhou, yay for 22 hour train ride.

saying goodbye to the hostel
sorry this post took so long. ive been all dazed getting back into school after traveling like that and ive just been running around quite a lot. enjoy the photos and stories. there is just sooo much to tell but it would take me forever to write out the entire experience, but it was really amazing despite a lot of the frustration of language and unforeseen holiday weekends. i cant wait to start traveling again.

post from the road

2008-05-03T02:28:00.000-07:00

me and carla are currently at our hostel in east huangshan in a small town called tanjiaqiao. it has been quite and adventure so far and i really need to get better at chinese. anywho our adventure began in guangzhou where we had to get sitting tickets on the train rather than the sleepers. apparently we decided to travel on the weekend of the second largest holiday in china, didnt know that before. we got on our already cramped traincar to find that not only were all of the seat taken but people had paid to just stand in the aisle way as well. so pretty much imagine an airplane filled with people so you couldnt even get up to go the bathroom. luckily as we traveled on some left and space freed up. it was still an 18 hour train ride in which i slept about 2 hours. carla wound up reading ender's shadow in one sitting without really stopping and we then also watched a considerable amount of friends and the fifth element. i stayed up all night to make sure we didnt miss our stop at 3:45am.

and so we arrived in the city of tunxi at about 4am where we were swamped by taxis and people offering tours and such. after running away from them to think for a minute we got a taxi to take us to our hostel which was a little off the beaten path. we arrived at the hostel by 5 or so and slept in the lobby until we could check in at 7am. and to my surprise they didnt have our reservation, but they had availability anywho. we got out room and promptly crashed. later in the day we wandered around the local villages. we wandered across the street to the only village in town to awkwardly ask for some friend rice. we went back to our room to watch some more friends and relax. we later discovered a bbq at the back of our hostel which was a nice surprise.

lists created during boredom of the train ride

2008-04-25T21:46:00.000-07:00

photostuff that i want:
1. 80-200 f/2.8
2. 18-200
3. sb-600
4. strobes
5. ring light
6. non shitty light stands
7. seamless background
8. 35 f/2
9. field view camera
10. polaroid back
11. second 120 back
12. spot meter attachment for my lightmeter
13. new lens cap

Some things I miss (in no particular order):
-my friends
-my parents
-munk munk
-people not always starring at me
-in and out
-mexican food
-my bike
-my flashes and radios
-getting distracted from HW and watching friends with Ju
-dan being a dick
-Divahhhhhhhhh
-the lunch posse
-a music scene
-danicng/dance parties
-parties
-family
-santa cruz
-Borchard
-winston and the hammies
-pancakes
-cereal
-the white stallion
-apt 216
-ty ty
-being able to understand what people are saying
-riding down second street

Reasons why pegasuses are better than unicorns:
1. they can fly
2. way more epic
3. if you have a sword you can turn a pegasus into a pegacorn
4. pegasi pegasi!
5. caitlyn says so

Things Divahhhh will be doing while reading this:
1. ROFLing

Things divahhh wont be but should be doing:
1. updating the wiki with gossip

Reasons why Im china:
1. i though i was gonna study photo
2. I ve always wanted to
3. I saw a flyer
4. I dont know
5. Im crazy

Tai Hen Shan sketching trip

2008-04-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

So this a post of my week or so long stay in Tai Hen Shan in the Henan province. every year the classes go to some cool place in china for a month to go sketching or whatever the class is. Its a pretty rigorous schedule, no weekends and you pretty much work all day long. We stayed in a Hostel so it was roughing it a little. Though it was awesome to pay 4 dollars a day for room board and three meals. the meals were pretty repetitive and was pretty much all vegetables and little meat. The village we stayed at was called Guoliang and until about 30 years ago was all but completely cut off from the outside world, until some villagers built a path up the cliffs. now its a huge tourist spot for Chinese people. The village still only consists of maybe 200 people and then all of the art students at the hostels, it was a really small village. I think that i might have been the one of the only americans to ever go there, which was a blessing and a curse. the people there looked at me like i was an alien, but cause i was American i got to have nice meals and drink with local dignitaries. I also learned a ton about painting as i was thrown into a situation where i needed to draw and then paint a really complex tree, i gave myself a crash course in sketching. ill post my paintings when i get some time to shoot them. until then here are a bunch of my photos and some notes from my journal for each day.

Day 1:
-this place is a huge beautiful valley
-decently sketchy bus ride up a cliff path
-im sad i can only stay here for about a week
-wo mei hua hao shou- i have no words

epic view from near our hostel
Mo Li Jai, Da Lou, and Chow Mie
most of my classmates
yeah they just raise the goats on the hillside behind the hostel

Day 2:

pretty nice view to wake up to. this is the view from on top of our hostel

a mid afternoon hike through the orchards
Li Ping hiding from the sun
the path up to the village on our night adventure
iso 3200= phone backlights usable to light stuff
the path is really just cut through the cliffs
the village
Day 3:
i got really early to watch the sunrise out at the point
there are more photos but they will be a composited panorama.....coming soon
Day 4:
-got up early to hike to the summit with Da Boss (dunno if thats how you spell it but its what it sounds like) but it started to rain
-got back and sketched in the rain
-got invited to lunch with local dignitaries
-got to drink with said dignitaries
-wai wai drank too much and threw up
-police came to check my passport
-watched the cooks skin a goat for dinner
-this was by far the most eventful day of the trip

view from the summit
me and Da Boss
probably one of my favorite photos from the trip
apparently i look really angry when i sketch
fail
Day 5:
-still raining so no hiking today
-sketched under and overhang with Li Ping until my hands and feet pretty much froze
-finished season 4 of friends

the clouds were really amazing

Day 6:
-went into the valley to paint landscapes finally
-walked along a really muddy trail for a few hours

the valley!
more amazing clouds
my class
my teacher
my other teacher and his amazing painting
Chung Hi

friendly motorcycle riders

Day 7:
-tried to get up early too hike but i was too tired
-left class to paint a more interesting tree
-spent the afternoon exploring all over the village
-my legs still hurt from climbing with Da Boss
the sign says "become the civilization tourist, travel the civilization scenic area"

the way cooler tree

Day 8:
-the sun finally came out
-still freezing cause of wind
-getting over this place
-tired of peopl always saying hello to me and then giggling
-its so ignorant
-lots of drinking with the teacher and his friends

other students chilling on the roof

the power went out....rave party!

Day 9:

-got up at 4:30 to hike to summit for sunrise
-saw a sunrise/moonset which was really amazing
-climbed all the way up in about 30 minutes which kind of destroyed me
-my hangover kicked in the while hiking back down
-gave up on painting trees and went with my friends to paint landscapes
-got some amazing friend chicken on stick

moonset at the summit 5 am
sunrise on the other side
mountains before the sun came out again.
moon still out
hassy looking good

not a pet

my station

Day 10:
-got up for sunrise in the canyon
-cramed a bunch of people into a van to leave
-got stopped by the cops cause apparently the registration on the van was up

the kitchen of the hostel
yes this is some car pulling a cop car down the mountain...oh china

hanging out waiting for the cops to deal with us
i dont really know what was going on here

apparently your car isnt allowed to catch on fire on this road

so this was a really amazing experience. sorry for the low quality pics if you wanna see any more hi-res let me know.

ill my composites a little while when i have the time to ...composite them

sorry for the lack of updates

2008-04-09T07:58:00.000-07:00

sorry everyone i've been quite busy with many things lately. i found out that i had a review on friday and had to finish a few paintings. im also trying to figure out my schedule for long beach for the fall. and on top of that i found out that i will be leaving for two weeks to go with my class to go sketching at a mountain in Henan. i will be gone for just under two weeks, though i have to sneak my way there as the school administrators dont allow me to officially go but the teacher is col and doesn't care so hes helping me out.

I wont be able to update while im gone so this might be my last entry for awhile.

thanks to all for reading!

weeeee weekend

2008-04-06T16:59:00.001-07:00

friday in the fashion district:

the beginning of my first creative painting. im already over it, i just wanna finish so i can start another. mines the onein the middle
saturday in the city:

i knew spaces were cramped in china but the skateparks are just a little small.
i played some ping pong for awhile with some old chinese people

i took this photo and then they invited me to ride in the boat with them

chinese hospitality + fascination with white people = this situation
village restraunt

Sunday at Baiyun Shan:

chinese for a shit ton of steps

yeah thats my shadow its been awhile since ive seen it
yeah like i said a lot of steps
foot massage walk, but it just really hurt
this girl had quite an animated walk, notice the arms at the peak of their swing
when there are enough koi to fill a entire 18mm wide shot thats just too many

analogy for shopping in china

2008-04-04T03:46:00.000-07:00

so ive decided to quantify the fashio district here in guangzhou

(the labyrinth + (black friday)^3 + 1/67(Africa) - authentic brand name cloths)

yeah just imagine the labyrinth, yes with crazy david bowie hair and the maze, mixed with black friday cubed with a good portion of Africa and no authentic name brand clothes and thats pretty much it.

I am really tired of the administration here

2008-04-03T02:43:00.000-07:00

so for anyone that knew in the few months leading up to my departure know my struggle to get my class schedule worked out. after 5 adjustments i finally got one that pleased the school which was 2 chinese painting, one landscape, one flower and bird. i wanted just landscape but i could because i cant travel with the class. i was going to take photography as my optional course at the end of the semester to be somewhat productive.

i went in to talk to the foreign affairs officer about something problematic with my class. so it turns out that the photo class is full and i cant take it. awesome he only knew 3 months before the semester and about 7 months before ill take the class but now once again he realizes that it wont work. though it turns out that it was a intro class so it wasnt too bad i guess. now im taking a color chinese painting class which should be cool actually. but im starting to feel like a trip that was intended to be a way to study photo in china is becoming a frivolous pursuit of chinese calligraphy and painting. im just gonna have to work more on my own i guess. im hopefully gonna get access to the lab once i go through some application process or something else ridiculous just to develop some film. gahhhhh, there is soooo much stuff i CANT do at this school. im about to sneak into the lab like i have to sneak away with my class to go and do some actual landscape paintings.

i think the school just really doesnt want me to learn photo from it.

oh and we're going on 5 days of straight rain, i havent seen the sun in 2 weeks

shopping in china

2008-04-02T07:40:00.000-07:00

so ive decided that shopping in china sucks and is awesome at the same time. i though wearing my huge headphones might deter the people from trying to talk to me so much and get me to buy stuff. i guess its not enough that im obviously white, add the fact that they are trying to talk to someone wearing noise canceling headphones. and on top of that they are talking to me in an exponentially more difficult version of Chinese, cantonese. through all of this they are undeterred.

shopping is awesome cause i can get lots of cool fake stuff for pretty cheap which is awesome.

oh and one homeless guy actually came up to me and poked me trying to get money. i ignored him and he kept poking.

ive also learned two things here, you have to be rude and make sure not to make eye contact.

point and shoot randomness

2008-04-02T07:30:00.000-07:00

yeah another random post, i found some photos on my point and shoot

this breakfast would have been awesome except for two things, a.) the milk tasted like shit and b.) i forgot i didnt have a spoon
mike still seems happy after the surprisingly small "burritos"
we found the mexican restaurant!
quasi margaritas!
happy birthday Deng Xin (the guy on the right)
Arabian pizza... i guess. still really good though
does this look like pizza hut? yeah i didnt think so
our buddy Marshall (he really likes Eminem)
yeah pizza hut is totally different here

ghost town 3-30-08

2008-03-30T21:26:00.001-07:00

me and mike decided, since our previous plans got rescheduled, to take the metro as far south as we could to Jinzhou. the metro ran above ground so we could see more of the country side. it goes from industrial to country pretty fast. most of the scenery resembled the central valley in california, which tyler and briana know so well. we arrived at our final stop and walked a good mile and a half to reach the downtown area. on a whim walked up a sidestreet and came across this abandoned housing complex. it was huge about 5 or 6 8 story apartment buildings and many smaller condos. they were all about half done, mostly just the walls and some had bathrooms. they looked like they had been abandoned for quite some time. it made good wandering for a few hours.

and for dinner we went to pizza with mikes friend Marshall (as in Marshall Mathers, he really like eminem). anywho, pizza hut in china is like a really nice sit down restaurant with gourmet pizzas kinda like cpk. it kinda tripped me out.

and i will leave you with my favorite quote in recent times which was at a photo exhibit at the guangdon museum on sunday:

"photography is a magic thing! A magic thing with all sorts of mysterious smells, a bit strange and frightening, but something you learn to love very quickly" -J.H. Lartigue

random post

2008-03-28T19:07:00.000-07:00

this is going to be a somewhat random post as i havent updated in awhile, blogger/internet has been testy sorry. so anywho here are a bunch of photos courtesy of Mike Nguyen. i thought it might be nice to see me on the otherside of the lens.

it was necessary
mike has a talent for catching me with this face
resting away from the rain at dinghu

climbing the crag (i never got to be on global guts so i took my chance)

yay calligraphy!
camouflage

mike once again capturing "the face"

breakfast!!
so someone stole my bike, no more kobe bryant show stopper 007. im still contemplating another bike.....

i got a skateboard! dwindle hooked it up and shipped me a complete from their factory in shenzhen. i met some other kids who skate on campus who have sessions a few times a week in the front of the campus. im stoked to be skating again. my legs hurt from how long its been, but its a good feeling.

divah get your uncle to send you to china!

me and mike are currently trying to plan out two week break as the rest of the school goes out traveling for 6 weeks as we stay behind cause we're foreigners. we were going to go Yunnan, but decided that this would be a better time to go and see beijing before all of the Olympics stuff gets too crazy. should be fun we're probably gonna go up to inner Mongolia and back.

time to find the days adventure. thanks for reading!

zhaoqing weekend!

2008-03-25T07:46:00.000-07:00

so this wonderful weekend began at Dinghu San(mountian). we got off the bus and grabbed some dinner which include frog which wasnt half bad .

the family eating next to usfrog hunting party on the way to the mountain
our view in the morning as it was raining
midnight wanderings. this was shot in near complete darkness. i love high iso capabilities
the ran didnt stop us from adventuring!

Li Xiongcai's calligraphy, the person whose paintings i copy in class

cliche long exposure waterfall shot. i really wonder who was the first to do this kind of shot?

gotta have an epic pose in front of that waterfall
all of the trash cans had smurfs on them, kinda creepy

something got lost in the translation.

temple at the top!
buddhist temple/tourist trap what a combo
tea at Li Jai's home. the background is a huge painting his father did!
zhaoqing at night
back street wandering through old zhaoqing

Mo Li Jai written in light
more tea!
yay seven star crag!
dim sum breakfast

these bows sucked but it was still way fun
what my hassy sees =)

this yellow tree was definetly the most beautiful part of the entire park/weekend in my opinion.

can u tell i like this tree?

climbing the (agro) crag!

those trees are so green its kinda rediculous, it looks fake in person

disorienting much?

these guys wanted to take a photo with me, i guess not too many americans make it here

this whole thing is in the center of the city

weekend adventure posse

Li Jai's and his cute 3 year old cousin

im sorry but these photos dont really do justice to the places i was at, but thats what i get for a shitty bandwith. anywho amazing weekend, breathtaking views, and good people.

some of my more recent paintings/ classmates/fisheye day

2008-03-20T03:41:00.000-07:00

here are pretty much every painting ive done since the last post, im really happy with how many of them are coming out. enjoi.

i want to do more of these, i already started another. by shenzhou

semi creative painting, i was copying a tree and messed it up so bad i just made it my own.

same deal as above
im trying to decorate with anything that i have
rocks a la Li Xiongcai

please ignore the calligraphy

my class!
my desk, working on painting on nylon "paper"
beating Mo Li Jai to the punch. this guy is the reason im able to survive in my class. he is the only one who can speak good enough english, and hes an amazing painter which helps me learn.
lunch! with Ye Ya and Deng Xin

so many ways to have pork and peppers but they're all amazing

mmm bbq unagi

everything is so damn tall here i need a fisheye to shoot them
mike trying to be stealth

im stoked on this, dunno about it though. intentionally blurry

word im off to go grab some dinner and go practice my calligraphy in the local village with my classmates. im heading the zhaoqing for the weekend but as always ill be back with stories and photos. thanks for listening!

more photos from a nearby village

2008-03-18T07:51:00.000-07:00

my second trip into the village across the river from university town. i found some really cool decorations in the trees and shot some more photos a small taoist temple. i had to cut my adventuring short due to rain.

"oyster house"

taoist temple

really big incense, it smelled awesome here

more photos of some of my paintings to come soon... oh and the monk photos.

thanks for reading

shenzhen weekend

2008-03-16T07:09:00.000-07:00

good people, good food, and good conversations. those three area about all you really need for a good time, much to my surprise and luck this weekend was full of all three. when mike asked me if i wanted to go to shenzhen this weekend i didnt even hesitate and jumped at the possibility of traveling. Little did i know what this weekend would be an amazing experience that I feel truly honored to have experienced. there is so much that happened this weekend that i could write for a day on it, but im sorry but i dont have the energy or means to put some of my experiences into words. when Mike's friend Pass (our connection to shenzhen) told him that she had a Buddhist family friend in town little did we know that her friend was in fact her "teacher" a Buddhist monk. during this i was able to share the company of three Buddhist monks, Pass' wonderful parents, and of course Mike and Pass. This weekend was filled with many good conversations that ranged from awareness of the world around us to advice from the monks on our energy and how to improve it to religious fundamentalism. I was also given the honor to shoot some photos of the "teacher". i will post them up when I am finished working on them. It was a great pleasure to get to shoot a monk in a very unusual space such as a living room rather than the typical temple. I also drank a lot of amazing tea this weekend and i really think that i need to start drinking it more and when i get back to America. This weekend has really opened my eyes to Buddhism and it vast difference from any other religion I have known. I feel like I really experienced something spiritual and special this weekend, and that is all I can say without typing for days.

and now for what you really want, photos:

ominous clouds as we got to the city
"metro ticket"
i actually didnt realize how perfect this photo was until about 2 hours later. they have this cool thing called window to the world in shenzhen hence the mini eiffel tower, columns, etc
lovely translation

the crew
under the "wave"

fire exit to the wave

and thus my fear of heights develops a little more

on the way down
the fruits of the climb, inside the wave (i have a panorama that i need to stitch as well)

Pass
Pass' parents and the "teacher". this would turn out to be the one of the last photos of her parents before they went off to become monks themselves.

all the family
mike busting out the buddhist skillz

chinese chess
somehow these got a little out of order, im probably just tired and messed up. bottom line: amazingly fulfilling weekend.

more photos of the monk to come.

some possible projects ideas

2008-03-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

i have been working on some mock up and preliminary photos for some projects i have been brainstorming

my first idea is to use the long shape of the alley ways of the nearby villages to create a photo that has a shape that resembles the proportions of classical Chinese painting

my second test is of an idea to try and show the dichotomy of the new development and the remaining villages left behind after the construction of the higher education megacenter in guangzhou. i want to show how interesting it is to see a third world looking farm across the street from a modern university. the contrast is really amazing.

and on a totally unrelated note south park is back on! wooo season 12

im gonna go pack for my weekend in shenzhen. ill be back soon hopefully with lots of photos and stories of adventures.

some photos of the village/dragon dance!

2008-03-11T20:29:00.000-07:00

old taoist temple
go Mao......just kidding
drive through instructions

stupid lightroom

2008-03-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

since lightroom is being stupid here are some photos of my first painting! bear in mind that i have been doing this stuff for about a week and some of these were made the first day i ever picked up a brush. the first two are copies of Li Xiongcai's sketches and the other ones are copies of Shenzhou.

as for the past day or so mike and I journeyed off the island to the surrounding areas and found some really interesting farms with houses that look more or less like they are out of the dust bowl refugee camps. i didnt have my good camera with me so no photos of that at the moment. we also got lost in this interesting historical village near the fields. in this village there was so much to take photos of i didnt take really any because it is so overwhelming. this seems to be a common theme in china. the universities are epic and overwhelming as well as the small villages that are so dense. im still trying to just take in everything while im here. i need to find some kind of focus and purpose for my photos. i want to do a series on my classmates and their studio which is located in a 100 year old house in the nearby village. id also like to do something with the difference in biking from here and California.

im bumbed i got a copy of die hard 4 and AVP 2 and they both dont work in my computer, so i guess thats karma biting me in the ass. but then again the copy of plant earth i got does work =)

Ni Hao!

2008-03-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

hey y'all i've been really busy running around so I've decided to abandon the idea of trying to post everyday and go for every other day or so. it takes a lot of time to upload due to the complicated process to bypass the slow internet and firewalls. so ill be uploading a little less often but ill just have more photos at once.

shopping in china is awesome!

2008-03-08T23:40:00.000-08:00

new bike day!!! 3-6-08

2008-03-07T04:12:00.000-08:00

This morning i went to the art gallery at the old GAFA campus to see the opening of a art show that included my Chinese painting class.

my teacher
and a few of his magnificent paintings
Yung Cao's paintings

and after the trip to the museum and to get some supplies for class i returned to GAFA via taxi/metro/motorcycle. and then to the part that makes it new bike day!

tape service! wooo (they did it wrong and backwards)

Apparently mike bike is the "Kobe Bryant Los Angeles Show Stopper" model and i also found this out after purchasing it. it was made to be
the seat post cant go any higher without failing off =(

our first bike adventure took us to one of the coolest housing plans ive ever been to.

ridiculous track homes/condos

lotus flower!
on the way home i got a flat on my amazingly Chinese new bike. then to dinner at the canteen and the mistake of trying mint flavored sprite. it was like drinking mouth wash.

FRESH!

3-6-08

2008-03-06T05:45:00.001-08:00

finally my blog is caught up to the current day!

anywho today was a really great day. I painted a few trees that I am proud of and thought turned out well considering ive been chinese painting for 3 days. after class I went to lunch with a friend from class Mo Li Jai and his room mates. After lunch he took me to his studio in the nian ching village nearby. The building is really old and probably a hundred years old, but it is fantastic. They have a studio setup to work at after class. They go to class then continue to practice everyday after school. Their commitment and drive is quite amazing. I sadly forgot to grab my camera as I was running late so no photos today but I intend to go back and photograph the whole studio and the artists.

i spent the rest of the afternoon practicing my calligraphy, which has along way to go, and talking to friends and girlfriend online.

and that brings us to the current moment as I get the blog updated and look forward to the next day. I will probably practice my calligraphy for awhile longer and watch some friends and hit the hay.

thanks for reading and keep checking and ill try to update daily.

p.s. can someone email/myspace/facebook me about the quality of the photos if they're ok or not. thanks

first bike ride in china

2008-03-06T05:37:00.000-08:00

I got to borrow alex's bike as he rode winnie's with her on the back. we went to the university town to get my modem and router and some of what I have come to call Tiawanese tacos which as amazing. hopefully i will have my own bike in a few days.

3-5-08

2008-03-06T05:17:00.001-08:00

today was the adventure into downtown to go the second hand market/ camera district. there were sooo many cameras i didn't know what to do with myself. I also got my bank account opened here and my card has a mouse sailing on it, amazing. I havent walked as much as I did today in years, but it was a good day with lots of fun.

super adventure fun squad!

apparently the security guards didn't like us running the wrong way on the escalators

chinese hot dog! the bun was amazing but the hot dog wasnt as good as the american ones

cantonese pork!

this kinda apartment building is pretty usual in downtown its crazy
amazing green apple popsicles

i had to shield my cameras eye from all of the body parts lying aroud
I want to buy them allllllll!
ballin' hassy!

ballin' nikon
Winnie
Olivia
Mike
Alex
Sophia
Sophia

3-2-08

2008-03-06T04:48:00.000-08:00

another good morning adventure to the nearby shore and nearby campus. i spent the rest of my day pretty much tracking down and buying a card so i can get hot water. it really awesome, i have one card for the bus, dining hall, and hot water all in one. around dinner time i met up with mike and a bunch of his friends including Winnie, Alex, and Olivia. They were cooking in a "hot pot" which is pretty much boiling a bunch of stuff in a big pot. It was a really good meal that consisted of bread, lettuce, shrimp among many other things. It was a nice little family dinner of sorts which was nice. It made me really miss my family back in LB and our tuesday nights together. im sorry all of the photos are soo small but the internet here is pretty bad so i cant upload big files at the moment. hopefully i can get something worked out soon. zai jian!

3-1-08

2008-03-05T05:20:00.000-08:00

i woke up really early this morning and decided after a few episodes of friends and the sun coming out that it was a good time to go for an adventure around the campus to get my bearing straight. i found some really amazing sculpture in one of the yards and a pretty epic entrance to the campus.

here are few so you can see the view from my window

After my morning adventure i went with sophia to downtown guangzhou to explore a little bit. my favorite part was the bootleg dvd store, 7 dvds for just over 12 bucks! i love china!

we also went the local art museum which had an amazing photo exhibit.

2-29-08

2008-03-05T04:51:00.000-08:00

first day off the plane. 16 hours went by pretty fast. Edward met me at the airport and drove me back to my dorm. my dorm is quite comfortable and considering 4 people usually share a similar space i cant really complain. I was pretty jet lagged most of the day but I tried to get on schedule. One of the students, Sophia, showed me around and took me to get some food at the university village. I really need to get some kind of decoration because my room is really drab at the moment.

stupid internet that doesnt like macs

2008-03-03T05:38:00.000-08:00

i havent been able to get the internet going here yet =(. hopefully in the next few days i can get it going and you can all expect a super post of photos and stories!

eta 7 hours

2008-02-27T15:57:00.000-08:00

all packed and just getting the last thing where they need to be. i cant believe im gonna be in china! thanks to all that have wished me well and came to my going away party. if you want the photos from the party they're on facebook.

shitty day

2008-02-05T19:38:00.000-08:00

after dealing with 2 hours of traffic to get the consulate they mess it up and give me a single entry visa instead of a multiple as i asked. grrrrrrrr

Exact date/time of flight

2008-01-24T18:58:00.000-08:00

February 27th at 11:53 pm from LAX!

holy shit Im actually going to CHINA!

Finally my visa forms

2008-01-16T23:51:00.000-08:00

Welcome

2008-01-10T22:16:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the radtacularly awesome escapades in China. Here you can follow all of my fun adventures as i attempt to study abroad in China.

Facts you need to know:

1. I am barely competent in mandarin

2. the city I am studying in speaks cantonese

3. I am a photography major

4. apparently photo wasnt part of the deal with my school so I am now studying Chinese painting

5. I suck at painting/drawing

6. I am scared that I am not scared of this situation =)

7."I am gonna miss you a lot a lot" -Caitlyn Carhart (girlfriend)

8. I am studying in Guangzhou at the Guangzhou (guong- joe) Academy of Fine Arts

9. I start the semester on March 2nd

10. I will return pending how much adventuring I decide to do =)

Im gonna try and update this as often as I can and add a lot of pretty pictures and such so make sure to check back and such!