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Shaanxi & Gansu Motorcycle Ride

December 15th, 2011

For the October holiday here in China everyone gets about a week off from work and school. The first thought would be, “hey, let’s go somewhere and see some touristy stuff!”. Except that’s about the worst thing to do because that’s exactly what everyone else thought too. So unless you want to go to super-crowded tourist sites the next best thing is to stay home. But that’s boring too. So a few buddies and I decided that getting on the motorbikes and getting out into the countryside would be a great way to spend our holiday. We set out early on the first, 5 guys and 3 girls; 2 motor scooters, 1 motorcycle, and 2 side-car motorbikes. I had my motor scooter along with Jiafei on back. Fortunately we were able to pack light and strap our bags to the rack on one of the sidecars, that really took some pressure off my little bike and made it much easier to drive.

 

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Unfortunately we didn’t get too far before one of the sidecar bikes had a spark plug problem. A lot of sputtering, loud backfiring and a new spark plug later and we were on the road again heading south through the Qinling Mountains. Once you can get over the first peak and down the other side most of the tourist traffic is lost and you’re on your own through the twistys.

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While the mountains were no problem for the big 750cc sidecar bikes, they posed a bit of a problem for me on a weighed down 125cc bike. So on the steep inclines I actually kicked Jiafei off to sit on the jump seat of a sidecar bike so I could make it up the hill! She didn’t like that too much, but it beats walking!

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The Philippines: Alona Beach

February 10th, 2011

After a couple days in Cebu, and seeing what there was to see, we took a ferry out to Panglao island and made it to Alona Beach. The beaches were nice, the food IMG_2885was decent, and people just cruised around on their motorcycles by day and got drunk at night. My kinda place! Admittedly it was a little touristy, with all the resorts and expensive food on the beach but if you walked just 500m down the road in any direction it was quite a bit more authentic with much more reasonable prices. We were fortunate enough to meet 3 other people at the Cebu Guesthouse who were also planning on heading down to Alona Beach. We were fortunate enough to be able to spend the next 5 days hanging out with our new friends, as well as a Filipino friend who we met at Helmut’s Place (a bar).

For the next 5 days we spent time exploring, relaxing by the beach, and drinking cheap beers (1L 7% Alc. Redhorse!). I took an afternoon opportunity to go on a refresher dive excursion. I didn’t realize it had been more than 7 years since I last went diving and got my PADI Open Water certificate. Most of what I needed to do came back pretty quick, but the nervousness still warranted the refresher. Diving can be dangerous, certainly don’t want to go out there unprepared. It was great being able to dive in warm water, and see many colorful fish and reefs. I’m now very excited for my next trip down to Thailand so I can do more diving!

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The Philippines: Manila & Cebu

February 9th, 2011

I recently got back from a little vacation in the Philippines, I’ve always wanted to go down there ever since having a Filipino roommate in college. Unfortunately my IMG_2802buddy Randy wasn’t actually there, but he was certainly happy that I decided to go and check out his home country. Myself and 2 other guys, Ryan and Patrick, had planned to make it a “guys trip” down there, but Patrick couldn’t go due to only having 5 months of validity left on his passport. Understandably, most countries require six months of validity. So it turned out that it’d just be Ryan and I enjoying the beaches. 

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Back to the Mainland

August 31st, 2010

I was excited. I had a great time in Taiwan, but it was finally time to go back to the mainland. In fact, according to Taiwan I had IMG_2224overstayed my visa by two days. not  exactly my fault, just a simple oversight when booking my tickets. Two-thousand Taiwan dollars, and a one-year “no-free-visa” ban later and I was on my way back to the mainland. Being in mainland China just has a certain feeling to it, something that HK, and Taiwan just doesn’t seem to have.

Shortly after I arrived in Shanghai, I felt kinda like I was home again. My phone worked, the street food smelled like stuff I knew, there wasn’t 10 7-11s on every street, I could buy things I liked again. It felt good. Later that evening I picked up Marina from the airport, as she had come to join me on my holiday.

Our first stop on the holiday tour was in Xitang “water town”, which is kinda like a Chinese Venice, Italy. With a river running through the middle, the city offered a great display in the evenings with hanging lanterns, floating candles, and romantic boat rides. Xitang isn’t really one of the “see things, do things” kinda places, it was more of a “sit on a porch, drinking beer and reading a book all afternoon” place; and the latter is precisely what we did.

 

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Taking a break in Taiwan

August 11th, 2010

After 3 weeks at camp ALV I was a little tired of the summer camp lifestyle. The camp, itself, wasn’t so bad, in fact the kids were great as were most of the teachers and teaching assistants, some of which I will miss. The bad part was that I pretty much only saw the golf resort for 3 weeks straight. Granted it was a nice area and I woke up to a gorgeous view outside everyday, I really needed to get out of there before I went stir-crazy. So on the last day I collected my pay and accompanied the students on their bus to Taipei.IMG_2018

The following day I took a train to Hualien, a city on the east coast of Taiwan, and famous for it’s sights, surfing, and beach-town atmosphere. Upon arriving and stepping out of the train station, I knew it was true. The park in front of the train station, lined with fruit stands, locals cruising around on their scooters in shorts and flip-flops, and the smell of salty ocean air, told me; “this, this is a paradise”.

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Summer Camp in Taiwan

July 25th, 2010

One week down at the summer camp and two more to go. It’s been an interesting and for the most part fun time so far. I now know at least 5 different dances to random songs, 3 different chants, and can now sing loads of songs. I also have to pretend that I can’t speak any Chinese (which isn’t too hard), I take at least $2 from a kid if he or she speaks Chinese, and another $2 if they call me “Teacher”. I have a name, it’s not that hard, I also wear a name tag all day long.

The days are long, and start at 6-something with a shower; dancing warm-up follows at 7:20, then breakfast, classroom teaching, activities, and situational teaching. Next is lunch, more situational teaching, activities including chants and dancing and acting (being somewhat of an actor is helpful here). Dinner comes next at around 6 PM, followed by a meeting and then followed by an activity of some sort like dancing, or games, then there’s night snack before kids get ready for bed. By 10:00 PM all the kids are in their rooms and presumably in bed (of course they aren’t really, they’re watching TV quietly till midnight I’m sure). That gives the teachers and teaching assistants time to shower, relax and take care of their own business. If I actually went to bed at 10 like the kids did, I probably would be so tired, but like that would actually happen. I don’t think I’ve gone to sleep before midnight here, usually 12:30 – 1:00 AM.

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