After 4 years...a hapkido lesson!

Day 6


Okay, okay, I'm skipping around a bit.  I'll blog about day 3-6 later.  I just got back from my first hapkido lesson in 4 years.  It was friggin' awesome.  I think the master went rough on me once he figured out I had experience.  Either that, or he wanted to quicken the pace of my learning because I told him I could only train for 2 days.  Luckily for me, I remembered my break falls.  His teaching method was similar to that of my old instructor Dallas. It was kind of based more on the practical application of hapkido's joint locks over the fancy-schmancy agility feats.  A young Thai gentleman I met even suggested a Muay Thai place in Thailand for me to scope out.  I'll be going back for another hapkido lesson tomorrow.


My right wrist hurts like hell, and pain never felt so good.  I just wish there was someone in Wuhan who would teach me hapkido.  But gong fu will have to do for now, although I'm going to push my sifu to teach me either yong chun or san shou, which are more of my style. We'll see if that's possible.

Stealing the Seoul of South Korea! Part II

Day 2

Okay. I'm too busy exploring this city. It's huge, and really really cool.  In my mind, Seoul is quickly catching up to Tokyo for Paul's official coolest city in Asia.  I guess it helps that I have friends here, but day 2 was mostly me going solo.

Gyeongbokgung.  Nice park area surrounding the palace.  Japanese tourists approached me to take pictures  for them under the assumption I'm Korean.

I lucked out and saw a changing of the guard.

Insadong.  Koreans approached me to take a picture for them under the assumption that I'm Japanese.

You and your loved one can write stuff all over the place.

Toto's Nostalgia Museum. This place was really awesome.

Bruce Lee could take out Astroboy.  No problem.

Had sansachun and a BBQ dinner with Sue

Some sort of cold noodle.  It was delicious

After, we went Craftworks Taphouse in Itaewon, which is a bit of a walk away from the  major expat strip.  It was totally worth it.  They only serve tasty Korean microbrew.  Had myself a local hefeweissbier. Sue had a dark ale.

A sampler board.

Stealing the Seoul of South Korea! Part I

What? Section II of my Jingzhou, Seoul, and Thailand trip

Where? Seoul, South Korea

Who? Me, my friend Sue and her boyfriend, and a whole lot of Japanese tourists who think I`m Korean and Koreans who think I`m Japanese.

When? January 25 to February 3

Why? Mainly to visit friends but also to eat and drink delicious Korean food

How? T Money, real money, the subway, and depending on my friend Sue as a map

Day 1

Last time I saw my good friend Sue, it was at YVR. That was just short of two years ago. Her and I hung out in NYC and Vancouver.  I really had no idea I would be seeing her within two years time. I was thinking it would be more like five.

After meeting up with her in Seoul, Sue helped me figure out how to get to my home-stay. I must say that the family I`m staying with right now is hospitable and very friendly.  Check-in was smooth, but the room given to me was a lot more girly than I imagined.  Whatever. It`s a room and it`s comfy.  Period.

Sue and I walked around the home-stay's neighborhood and into Myeong Dong.  The place was lit up with colorful signs and neon lights, much like Tokyo.  It was a heavily commercialized and Americanized area, full of Starbucks, McDonald's and the like.  Sue and I opted for street food, which apparently is a dying art form in that area of town.

After eating, we walked some more and finally went into a coffee shop.  Not one second inside, I had a deep feeling of missing relaxing coffee shops similar to that of the one seen here or ones back home.

Seoul has so many coffee shops...mostly chain but also many independent ones too.  Hell, it felt as if there were more coffee shops here than in Vancouver just by walking from my home-stay to Myeong Dong! And Vancity has A LOT of coffee shops!

PVG to SHA and being a hater.

The day's traveling around made me how funny things are here in China.  In the morning, the hotel I was at in Wuhan didn't serve me breakfast, even though they gave me a food ticket.  Luckily, Cathy's mom packed me some extra apples that I ate.

Another funny thing happened.  In Pudong, I walked into a bathroom that was so clean you could eat off the ground.  It wasn't crowded, but a middle aged man who really needed to go pushed past me.  He looked into a stall and then ran out of the washroom.  I glanced in quickly. It was an empty, clean toilet.  But it was a Western sit down toilet. He did not approve.

Coming out of Pudong, I went to the Maglev, only to be told to not go on the Maglev.  Instead, it was suggested I went on the exchange bus, which had a maniacal driver who got us to Hongqiao in a bit under 30 minutes, despite traffic. I nearly crapped my pants in fear of a spectacular crash and painful death.

It reminded me of an increasingly concerning issue in China that Cathy told me about, which will unfortunately affect school on Friday and therefore Cathy's work schedule on Friday.  Around China, the school bus industry are notorious for unsafe practices.  Some schools load up the school buses with kids to max capacity and then  some.  Once said buses have a head-on collision, which has happened around China recently...well...you get the picture.

My school has cancelled Friday school buses for the kids to go back home.  I've been on the school buses before and I must say that whatever company we use do a pretty good job not overcrowding them.  Perhaps during next term, more students will opt to stay on campus for weekends.  Cathy will have to stay longer after school on Fridays, which sucks because that's our eating out day.

Bus safety for kids or better quality times being with Cathy?  I choose the latter.  Aren't I a terrible human being?

...

Now for something completely different, I'm in Seoul.  I love this city.  More posts to follow.

Midnight explosion!!!

Midnight in Jingzhou.  Firecrackers and fireworks have been going off in the distance for the last 2 hours, intensifying as midnight approaches.  Cathy, her mom and I lit some of those red chain firecrackers you always see but never get to experience lit up.  It's one of the clearest nights that I can remember here in Hubei.  Bloody hell, I can see the stars for once, which is a rare sight!  Colorful explosions are everywhere in the sky, across the lake, and behind the Jingzhou city walls.

Unfortunately, none of my pictures do justice to what I saw and heard, so I just stood there and soaked in the experience.  One of the best moments I had in all my travels here in Asia. It will be hard to match.

The firecrackers and fireworks of small-town China during Chinese New Year are equal to the epic Eve of St. James Day fireworks presentation I saw with my mom coming off the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela just after finishing the Camino in Spain. Both were absolutely stunning.

...I'm never seeing another Vancouver Celebration of Lights ever again because it isn't worth my time.

Spring Festival in middle of the Middle Kingdom!

Two more days and I'm off to South Korea.  I've spent the last six days in small-town China with my girlfriend's family for Spring Festival..."Chinese New Year" to all you Westerners out there. Earsplitting firecrackers go off every 30 seconds!

I've been to Jingzhou before, but this time it was a more substantial stay. I've gotten to see Cathy's family in action during the most important celebration of the year here in the Middle Kingdom.  If I had to sum up the entire experience in a word, that word has to be "educational."  I'll leave it at that for now. If you have any questions about what I mean when I say "educational," shoot me a FB message.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

The Blind Masseur

Cathy and I have a membership card for a massage place...a blind massage place to be exact.  A massage from a blind masseur isn't for the weak of heart.  Unless otherwise stated, they'll dig right into your muscles as if they were all pressure points...just the way I like it!

We usually go once a month.  But this time, something very peculiar happened to me.  Let's just say you don't know the meaning of embarrassing unless a blind masseur tells you to drop your pants, only to put acupressure cups on your bum...at the front of the store for all passersby to see.

...only in China.


...correction...only in Wuhan.

Hankou NYE

Cathy and I planned to go to Shanghai for New Years Eve.  But her being a councilor meant that she had to work on our January 2nd day-off.  Instead, we opted to go to Hankou to hang out with some colleagues.

We started off by taking the bus to Wuhan Square, a big mall complex in Hankou. We had dinner with another counselor from the school.  I had the "American potato" appie (aka: fries) and lamb chops with red wine sauce.  Yum.

After dinner, we went to a DVD store with a massive English title collection.  It was pretty awesome.  The store front looked a lot like HMV, but on closer inspection (and through a questionably dangerous back-store hallway), there were tons of DVD and bluerays...every conceivable English movie and TV series and some Korean, French and Japanese movies too.  Needless to say, we stayed there for a while just browsing the stacks.

We wanted to get to Hankou's river front area to see some fireworks, but it was way too crowded.  Our taxi got us within 5 blocks of the river, but then stopped dead in its tracks because of the legions of people and cars.  We walked the rest of the way. The walk took a long time because we were baby-stepping it the whole way due to the wall of people and motorcycles in front of us. We met up with some more friends.

From there, we took the ferry across Chang Jiang (The Yangzi River) back into Wuchang. Walked around Simakou Food Street and had some xiao chi. One place we stopped had chou tofu...stinky tofu.  Cathy was into it.  The sign above the kiosk read "The cook's great grandfather served chou tofu to Mao Zedong here."  Apparently, on any regular day, the place would have a massive lineup, but on NYE it was surprisingly short.  I downed some of Cathy's.  Chou tofu from other kiosks smelled like week old sour milk, but Cathy's choice wasn't so bad.  No wonder the Chairman chose this place to eat!