China Trip Revealed

China Trip Finally Revealed:
After traveling for close to 20hours I have finally arrived at the school. This is a picture of the main front gates. The car ride from the Zhengzhou Airport to the academy was probably the scariest 30 minutes of my life. It mainly consisted of a utility van with makeshift seats in the back (that were not attached to the floor of the van), no seat belts, and a ton of darting and weaving by the driver while looking back at me and talking.













The school grounds were (aside from the loose garbage on the ground, and the one training area turned swamp) really nice, but many buildings, such as this one, were left unused due to being rundown and old. By the end of July they were tearing them down in order to make way for new construction.

On August 4th our school moved to the main branch (I had just left the school so it did not affect me). The Chinese students were really friendly (though only a handful could speak English [and not too well at that]) and the atmosphere was great. Our shifus were all friendly and most were able to speak English really well.














The bedrooms were, by Western standards, horrible, but I got used to it within the first few days. The beds were wood and there was a small problem with flies and mosquitoes. I later bought a bug net and a bigger air matress. Each foreigners room was a shared double room with a bathroom. In comparison to the Chinese students' accomodations ours were great as they stayed in rooms of 4-6 and in worse condition.


It was amazing having our own washrooms instead of having to use the public ones like how the Chinese students did. Those were horrifyingly disgusting. Washroom downfalls: no showers had hot water and all toilets were squat-style.
(This is a picture of my room's washroom [the shower is off to the right of the toilet and is just a shower head attached to a pipe coming around the side of the wall])


My daily schedule was as such: all days except Thursdays (where we had a 10km morning run followed up by "power stretching" and then were allowed into the city until 16:10) and Sundays (full day off) we went for morning runs at 6:00. After the run we would do what the Shifus called "power stretching". At 7:45 we would have breakfast. For those who were taking the half-day Mandarin, as I was doing, we started Chinese class at 8:50 and ended at 11:50. Those who trained full day martial arts had Basics training from 9:10-12:10. Everyone then had mid-day break at which time you could do whatever you would like. Most people slept or watched movies in the DVD room. Some days I would spend that time doing extra free training to make up for the training time I lost from taking the Chinese classes. At 16:10 everyone resumed training based on the daily schedule (some days were Kung Fu, some days were Sanda, some days were Tai Chi). In the end, though, you were able to choose which activity to train in. The afternoon training would go on until 20:10. We then had dinner and at 20:50 we had night training. Night training gave you the chance to practice anything of your choosing that you were unable to practice during the day.




Most times we would train in the training halls, but at times we would train outside with the Chinese students. The foreign students had priority of the training halls over the Chinese students except for the school performance team. Therefore, if they wished to train there, we had to train outside. There were three halls, two general halls and one acrobatics/Sanda hall.



Sometimes during break times or for a warm-up we would play basketball...... if it hadn't rained that is. The summers there are rain season and it is supposed to rain every other day. At times it wouldn't rain for a few days, at which point when it finally did rain it would come down like no tomorrow (like in the second picture here).



















We went on a trip to Shaolin Temple early on in June. It was an amazing trip and a great experience. I personally didn't enjoy the actual temple itself as it was too "touristic", but the other things we did were fun. The main highlight was the climbing of the Songshan Mountain.... who knows how many uneven stone steps we climbed; it was definitely 100 times harder than climbing the CN Tower here in Toronto. One: There is no A/C (haha)... it had to have been at least 35 degrees celcius (as it was every other day of the week). Two: The steps were completely uneven, some so skinny that even a baby wouldn't even be able to place their foot on it! Three: After 1 hour of walking/running/quad walking up it, after a 10 minute break to look around the pagoda and buddha statue we then had to go back down!

To make it simple and short, I started up with a t-shirt and pants, by the middle of the mountain I was without a shirt and had taken off the bottom half of my shpants. It was boiling.... but fun and a great workout. (And to imagine that the monks used to quad up and down this every morning!!!)

I had so much energy at the beginning that I was climbing up and down all of the bamboo.... I should have conserved my energy for the mountain...












Note the look of extreme exhaustion on my friend Arnold's face.... we were only a quarter of the way up!

Note: Do not be fooled, it is not cloudy up on the mountain.... the grey cloud in the pictures is pollution (the one thing I really did not appreciate nor enjoy in China).



In July we went on another field trip to Luo Yang. Very fun trip. Here are a few pics:

On the way there, our bus broke down.... 3 times! The third time was most serious as the engine started smoking and the smoke was entering the bus! Solution 1 and 2: pour water on the engine. Solution 3: bus driver magically becomes a mechanic.... view below (third pic)
Our bus driver got sooooo dirty. He was litterally inside the engine face first, with his legs sticking out... one of the funniest things ever. After that, he and his wife (who for some random reason came along) went to the stream on the side of the road and washed him up.
After about a 5 hour drive, we finally made it:
These grottoes were the main attraction. Thousands of them containing statues that are thousands of years old. It was very interesting, but got very redundant near the end.

After crossing the lake over a bridge we arrived at that temple. It was huge and beautiful.

We trekked through some forest trails behind the temple and eventually came upon a nice, small tea restaurant in the middle of the forest. These two cute girls were playing music for the customers. Very very very relaxing and amazing scenery

Some of us on a cliff beside a waterfall.

We eventually came upon this souvenir shop.... my friend Pedro and I found the English translation of "Handicrasps Shop" to be a little off. So we fixed it.


The following are pictures taken around the city and on my days off from training:

THESE BLUE TRUCKS WERE EVERYWHERE!!! And the Chinese people were so insistent on putting as much stuff as they could possibly pack on them! This is an example.

This is what a typical side street in the city looks like. Mainly what you see would be small stores on ground level and then housing complexes, appartment-style, packed vertically. The suburban residential areas were a little different as they had no stores, only appartments (I only saw one house while there).

Here is the main shopping market.... the only place in the city where the cars were not allowed to (and actually did not) drive.

This is one of the numerous parks in the city. Lots of times when walking through, we would get stopped by a Chinese person who wished to practice their english with us. (They all were definitely studying from the same course books because EVERY QUESTION WAS THE SAME!). It was fun/funny though.... I enjoyed it.

Want a scooter? Well, there were a million of these (at least!) driving around everywhere, including the sidewalks. One guy actually offered one time to taxi me and my roomate on the scooter with him after we had just purchased 2 luggage bags and carrying our regular day packs... he appeared so confused as to why we didn't take him up on his offer....

An example of the thousands of street food stands that were scattered all over the city.... the noodle stands were great. I actually became good friends with one of them when I was staying in the city after leaving the school.

Those aren't bullet holes... they are "speed holes".

Here is the Er Qi Ta (February 7th Tower). This is one of the two city centers. The other was more prestigeous and for the more wealthy.

Here's the Er Qi Ta at night. The city was amazing at nightime as the weather had finally cooled and there were so many less people out (but still a lot of stuff to do).

The following two pictures are of general scenery of the farmlands and non-city life:

This is a picture of me and the foreigner shifus as I was waiting for my taxi to leave the school. Top from left to right: Tai Chi Shifu (or Ocean as he liked to be called), Sanda Shifu (nobody knew his real name), Headmaster Shi Yan Lin (don't be fooled, he isn't the headmaster for no reason. very nice guy, though), Xue Shifu (nicest man you could ever meet... no joke, definitely in the top 3 nicest people I have ever met). Bottom: Me and Yuan Shifu (my shifu).


There are many many many more stories, but I only have so much time and so many words... The training and lifestyle was amazing and unlike anything else I have come to encounter. I am very satisfied with the results and the mindset that I had coming out of it.

All in all, this trip was INCREDIBLE! I have never had so much fun in my life.... every moment contained a different emotion. I felt extreme satisfaction to utter disgust, extreme seriousness to extreme hilarity, confusion to understanding, total fear to total happiness.... the list can go on and on. This trip is definitely one to put in the books of my life experiences. It will be one that I will never forget.... I only wish I could have stayed longer. I miss it already.... I'm definitely looking forward to going back some day.

-kshap