The Bamboo Forrest: A C-land hiking extravaganza

As our bus wound it's way up the side of a mountain I was both surprised and excited. I was excited because: 1. we were seeing mountains covered in trees and bamboo!! (this is a far cry from the forever flat, cemented streets of Shanghai). 2. We were on our way to go hiking, which I dearly love and haven't gotten quiet enough of while living in a city of 18 million people. I was surprised because as our bus sped it's way up slope, I noticed that there were actually guard rails between the road and the sheer drop that didn't level out for many hundreds of feet.

After much climbing, our bus pulled it's way nearer to a parking lot. Judging by the number of other buses, and the sheer mass of people I should have known what lay ahead. However, for the time, my mind was aglitter with the prospect of hiking in an uphill direction.

Making our way through the parking lot, and up to the entrance our guide informed us that there were 3 levels on the way up at which you could cross over from the upward path, to the downward path. We were told, if we were "very strong" we could make it to the third level. We had 1.5 hours to make it to the top, and make it down (we were shooting for the 3rd level) so we headed up the path in earnest.

We quickly came upon a wall of people. Apparently all of China had come to this same hike on the same day. As we wound in and out, between, through, around, making our way up the man-made sometimes cement, sometimes rebar, path and stairs.

As we hiked up, dressed in running shoes, shorts, and a t-shirt-- and, became overall more sweaty than we were when we started, I was amazed to see Chinese women and men, dressed to the nines, and wearing dress shoes.. or even... high heels.

Chris caught these great shots of a couple anonymous woman hikers:


Hiking in China sure is different than hiking in the US.

In other news:
• We made it to the very top-3rd level- strong hiker- level in our allotted time.
• We were hiking in what was considered a "bamboo forrest," so it was no surprise when I came across a wonderland of bamboo sticks that had been chopped down. Well pole vaulter mode kicked in, and my excitement for using one of the original pole vault poles kicked in:

Ahhh gude times.

China-Land Spelling Bee

I found out today, that China has a Spelling Bee! This was a pretty amazing discovery, since not two weeks ago I had decided that China was one of the few countries that absolutely could not have a Spelling Bee. Fact. I mean, how do you spell a character?! This is about the point you can color me....pink (I've decided that the color pink shall represent being stoooopid, as I don't like the color pink, and I wouldn't want to demote any other colors' status with the relation...sorry April). I've found out not six hours ago, that China CAN and DOES have a spelling bee! Fancy that. Apparently, you can "spell" each part of a character. I'm in the process of looking for a technical definition... or Proof that is not also written in Chinese...but so far no luck. :(

For now, you can marvel at the idea of a Chinese Spelling Bee :)

What's coming out of your headphones?

So this is a survey. Being in China, and not having a job where I can listen to music throughout the day, I've fallen behind on my new-band finds. So I'm asking the masses (or at least the few that read this page) what's your favorite music right now?

I'll start:
Juanes : Mi Sangre
and some "bests from the past":
Death Cab for Cutie
Counting Crows

your turn :)

The Jaws of death...

I just wasted about 2 hours of my life surfing this thing we call the world wide web...sad I know, but I did find some funny, if not interesting time-killers:

It all started with a link my Unkie Gunkie sent me for a YouTube video...



I then somehow made it to another YouTube video...again, quite funny...



Next I embarked on a mission to see more videos by said videographer, which led me to...


...yet again, pretty funny. Especially with myself being a Mac user. My next mission: find out who this current.tv is. I think their website is worth visiting. You'll have to read the "about" page yourself to really get a feel for what the websites purposes are, but I'll give you some hints in the direction that it's to help people get their voice heard, and it was launched by a certain influencial someone who's name I will chose to keep hidden in the interest of you actually visiting the website and not blowing it off because of political loyalties.

Of course while I'm waiting for all these YouTube videos I want to watch to load, I continue checking my e-mail and find that I have a new "friends request" on Facebook! Two Kudos and a candy bar for me. Ussually I just delete the message and let the person sit in anticipation as they flip flop over whether or not I "love them not" or just havn't responded yet, but this time the Jaws of Death take hold and I take one step into the co-bane of evil (myspace being the bane of all evil)...I click on the blue "confirm friend here" url....ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

Once in facebook my heart slows a bit, the evil bane methane kicks in, and I start to think "hey this place isn't so bad"... their new "newswire" feature is kinda creepy and stalker-esque, but besides that there could be good times. I'll look at my friends posts.

It was then that I found out my friend Nate had possibly one of the coolest stories about seeing a celebrity that I've ever heard.

So yesterday afternoon my buddy Matt and I were driving up to SLO and some jerk in the car next to me starting blaring his horn at me and shaking his fist out the window...I opened my window to see my favorite musician of all time in the passenger seat of a Lexus SUV yelling "nice sticker bro!" I remembered the "Fight For Your Mind" sticker I had just put on my car a month ago and had a quick conversation at 65mph with an amazing artist. He told me as he drove off that was headed up to big sur for the weekend and I was left thinking what a cool guy for making a fan's day like that!

That was Ben Harper he had a casual freeway conversation with by the way.

I found out that Cal Poly is ranked as the 6th hardest school to get accepted to, right behind: Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Columbia (see article here); and, that April has a list of about 200 things that make her something called a "Porteno." I've obviously failed the "you know you're a Porteno if..." challenge.

So now you've been filled in on my "new finds" of the night. It's about time I put a stop to this insaine rate of productivity. I think it's time to nestle down with a good book: Wild Swans, and pay a visit to the great study by Wanda Beth Moore: Breaking Free.

Goodnight and Goodluck!