In staying overnight at a net cafe, I finally had enough internet time to upload everything! Please enjoy!
Archive for the ‘Location’ Category
I have a hell of a lot to post about…
2010 -
06.28
but mainly i seem to have found japan in japan.
http://www.media-cafe.ne.jp/tenpo/chiba/index.htm
i forgot, that in missing my gaming, that i would be in game world.
Addition- I was originally going to try and stay in a capsule hotel here in Chiba http://theinn.jp/view/2-5F.html but it is only for men. So instead I rented a bed cubicle at the net cafe! Yes, you heard me, d\for the same price as a hostel, I can game for 10 hours and sleep in a bed couch thing. They even have showers here!
I frikken love Japan. And I am mostly done learning hiragana!
Oh! Does my blog print hiragana? ひらがな did that work? I am now going to write a full update on my Izu excursion, and hopefully get my images to finally upload!
Japan totally wins…
2010 -
06.24
the potential residence contest compared to China. I have been here 3 hours and I feel so much calmer, it’s amazing. Even understanding 1% more language makes all the difference, being less intimidated by reading the characters, and being able to be polite with the majority of the struggle being courage to open my mouth and not the complete lack of memory about what to say… not to mention the infinitely cleaner environs and familiar styles of advertisements and mannerisms… its almost like I got to go home for a break. the stress flowing off me is palpable, and will be helped by a trip to the local onsen this evening. I’m going to take a day, probably, to check out tokyo, and then get my ass to the beach, pronto. Also, I didn’t sleep last night, so a lot of that is going to happen, too.
Last Post of Wudangshan
2010 -
06.18
Before this gets too out of date, I am posting the text. I need a lot of upload time on china’s bandwidth to get the pictures up and the display plug-in working, so I’ll likely just upload everything when I get to Japan. but here is the reading… :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I left Wudangshan this morning and am now on the train to Shanghai. My leaving felt… curious; as we pulled away from the school I felt some pangs of loss at the knowledge of how to navigate these streets becoming unneeded, regret that I would not be able to prove my tough skin 1000 times a day with the sights I was passing. It felt very strange, like perhaps, having given myself permission to feel how I felt about China that it no longer held sway or power over me. Maybe like the Buddhist distinction between suffering and pain. Seeing distressing things, I was able to say to myself, “There is one of those things I don’t like to be exposed to” instead of “there’s an onslaught of those things that I have to force myself to enjoy or approve of if I want to think of myself as a good person”. The thing is the same, but my self-honesty has moved me out of a suffering place, and thus I can begin to appreciate the appreciable in Wudangshan and China in general. I don’t think this means I’m leaving too soon, but I do think it has taught me a valuable lesson about “wherever you go, there you are” and “the grass is greener on the other side” and other clichés of travel.
I also think this shift was helped by my visit to Wudang Mountain yesterday (more…)
Kung Fu Dance Party!
2010 -
06.16
Tonight my school had a party that was also a bit of a talent show, so I went up and sang Lush Life, and it was received enthusiastically. My two closet friends at the school, Thomas and Jake, both said they enjoyed it, and even shifu made a point to compliment me, as did several others, foreigners and Chinese alike. It meant a lot to me on this journey toward healing my voice and my relationship with music and performing. I don’t remember how it came up, but the week before I had explained to Thomas about my decade off from singing and how my voice had deteriorated, and a few days after that Fifth Element was mentioned, so I was able to use that as an example of what I had been able to sing but could no longer, really, at all. So he knew something about what it meant for me to sing. This made me consider: if this is how I sound after not having sung for ten years, and everyone enjoyed it and considered me to have a lot of talent, just how would my voice sound if I dedicated myself to training again? And in this performance I did what I always used to do- I didn’t warm up at all, just got up and sang, and used my ability to feel what my voice was up to in order to alter my expression around where my voice was limber. And my breathing automatically settled into supporting me, and I had fun listening to the sound of my voice (and on a microphone, which is extra fun). So, I can’t really pretend that I don’t know how to sing anymore, or that my singing has deteriorated so far that it is hopeless to ‘get back’ what I had lost during my Lost Decade. Last year I promised myself that I would sing anytime someone asked me to or there was an opportunity for open performance, and it has been a very healing experience. No one has come out of the shadows and booed, like Buttercup’s nightmare in The Princess Bride, which I think I expect due to old experiences.
This era of my life is so exciting.
Additional, added on train:
I left without saying goodbye to my friends at the school. I could have woken up early and sat with them while they gathered to train, but I told myself I was too tired from packing the night before. I think it was actually a tolerating the good problem- everyone had been exceedingly kind and welcoming and helpful and fun, and I was going to miss them. If I had said goodbye, I ran the risk of being told I would be missed, or receiving compliments or well-wishes- signs of actual friendship that would have been hard to tolerate because they contrast so strongly how I expect to be treated or thought of. I think everyone deals with this on some level, and in retrospect I wish I had been a little braver. As it is, I left a note on Jake’s door to share my contact info with others. I truly hope people contact me!
We’re in Shanghai, so I need to run!
I will now be in Japan on the 24th of June!
2010 -
06.14
I am so grateful to my supportive friends who have encouraged me to trust myself. I am so excited about getting to Japan, I can’t even believe it. And I found a couple teaching jobs that look less corporate and more creative, too! And one of them is even right on the coast in shingu, which is farther away from tokyo than I think I want, but close to osaka, which will be fun in its own way. I’m not sure how the beaches are, but I will head by there in a couple weeks to find out. And I’m never sure how to explain in a professional manner how fun and silly I am… “goofball who can take things seriously when needed” doesn’t sound official enough. So excited! I cannot WAIT to go swimming in the ocean, watch the sunset from an onsen, and drink miso soup all day long! Vacation, here we come! *bounce*
Oh yeah, and 4 days in Shanghai, too! whee!
Getting honest about China
2010 -
06.13
There has been a pressure building since I arrived in Hong Kong that in my attempts to be mature, reasonable, politically correct and tough I have been suppressing. Thanks to a Yoko Kanno playlist inspired cry, I have remembered myself and my goals, and this has allowed me to get honest.
I don’t like it here. I really enjoy the people at the school, foreigners and Chinese alike. And surprisingly, I enjoy the training sessions a lot. I thought they would be the aspect I would have to push through to allow myself to get what I want out of this experience, and they’re not. I am going at my own pace, a pace that I am setting for myself as slightly faster than I usually think is possible for myself (Piaget would be proud- ZPD), and I am meeting it. I am sore and muscle-exhausted, but feeling alive and accomplished after a session, and I am learning every moment—the training is exhilarating and rewarding and physically difficult but emotionally doable. I have complaints about the school, but they’re not a big deal; overall, everyone is kind and accommodating and supportive. I feel confident that I will be able to take 90% of what I have learned with me into my life, which was one of my main goals. I have learned that I don’t necessarily need a residential kung fu school to move me forward, but I can see at some point of fitness and expertise me wanting to do the residential route again. Overall, I am pleased with my experience at the school. It’s China I can’t stand.
I’m heading to Japan the first week of July!
2010 -
06.10
I am taking the train to Shanghai on July 1st, then spending 4 nights there (I hope to like it more than Hong Kong, and the Expo is going on there), and then I fly to Tokyo on July 6th! I was going to wait longer to book everything, but STA UK and US (thank you Skype) thought that the Delta fare I found was a fluke ($200+ cheaper) and to book it ASAP. So, yeah! Now I get to learn about Shanghai, book my hostel for that layover, and then figure out what the heck I am going to do once I get to Japan. I registered for WWOOFing there, so I’ll probably do a couple days in Tokyo just to walk around with my jaw dropped and then head to the beach in Shimoda on the Izu peninsula, hangout at a onsen before I run out of money and then WWOOF and look for jobs teaching English or Psych at a college. And, somehow, that’s all the planning I needed for Hong Kong, so that’s probably fine for Japan for now, too. That’s weird to me, that it takes so little actual planning. I can’t wait to arrive in the land where my foreign language instinct is finally correct! I keep going “Arigato”, “Umm, merci”, “Uhh… syeh syeh”. This will be very vindicating.
The only tricky parts are 1) japan is one of those countries where they want to see proof that you have continuing travel tickets before the end of your visa (3 months), and 2) you can only get a work permit if you are outside of japan. So I may need to buy a ferry ticket or something before I arrive, and by the first week of October I may need to make a stopover in another cool place when I get a job. I really want the job to handle getting me an apartment because good grief is the process convoluted and is usually about 6 months rent upfront (which the school will cover most of when I am hired). So i will use the WWOOFing to find a nice place to live and work. ON A BEACH. NEED BEACH SO BAD. It has been almost 6 years since I lived in Mission Beach and I can feel it in my bones! Alright. Now for media entertainment before sleep. Mwa!
How I love external hard drives…
2010 -
06.09
and fellow students who bring them to China! I have been craving media in the evenings, and until today was denied internet, and even now am blocked by the great firewall and prohibitively slow ISP + proxy… so I was so happy when a new friend has lent me his HD to copy many medias! And I am giving him many medias in return- it turns out he likes Nightwish, so I’m giving him Within Temptation to see if he likes them. Yay! So I will have things to watch while traveling and resting! *does a little jig*
On a related note, the guy who installed my DSL uninstalled my wireless card drivers! I am not convinced it was nessasry, and I have yet to find out if reenstalling them worked. I am trying to set up a wireless router (it’s so cute!) so I can use wifi for my itouch, but my net access is so finicky that there’s not telling what will happen… so if I’m not online again for a while, you know I got in over my head!
Last night I got surprise unprotected wifi and got to talk to my sister on the phone for about an hour- what a sanity saver! If I can get the wifi speed up a but I should be able to call more people soon! <3
Ji ben Ch’uan
2010 -
06.08
So the movie I made of my coach is too big, but if you guys search for “Wudang Basic Fist Ji ben Ch’uan” you will get a bunch of videos on youtube to see the form I am learning! I can’t check them out from here as youtube is blocked… but have fun! I’m about halfway through it already! I can’t wait until I have the flexibility, strength and speed to execute it prettily! Because pretty is the whole point, obviously! ;P
Fourth Day of Training
2010 -
06.07
Yesterday, on my third day of training, my spirits were back up. I had more “jaio” (sp; focus/energy/heart/power) and started breaking into that realm of training where I began to see where things were headed. So it felt good, and the pain from the previous day wasn’t exactly faded, but it had changed to something that felt productive. However, during the second training session I had to run to the bathroom because the water had finally caught up with me. Luckily I had a prescription for that, but until it kicked in I had to run to the bathroom every few minutes, so no second practice for me. Then, this morning, I wanted to be sure it was taken care of since the practice area is a 10 minute walk from here and I knew I wouldn’t make it if the problem wasn’t solved. So I am averaging 1 practice session a day, which, honestly. I’m fine with. My main problem is missing my new friends by staying alone in my room, but they are so welcoming and accepting that it doesn’t look like I’m ostracizing myself too much by being the problem child. Speaking of which, I poured water at a rolling boil all over my right hand this morning while trying to make breakfast! The electric kettle caught on its base and I poured it all over me, luckily not on my laptop which was way too close. So I have been sitting with my hand in a bowl all day, and in fact brought it to practice so that at the end of every kick line I could soak it until it was my turn. (more…)
First two days of training…
2010 -
06.05
It is taking all my self-control not to run away. Really. Everything hurts, the food makes my stomach turn, everything is weird and depressing if I think about it too much, and I only understand what a select group of people are saying. Living in China is not at all what I had geared myself up for. The people are great; fun, supportive, friendly and serious about learning kung fu. Just who I wanted to be with here. My body and mind are learning so much about themselves and kung fu- I can’t believe I’ve only attended 3 training sessions. As I explained to some costudents today- my goals are to 1) not injure myself, and 2) don’t quit. (more…)
Guangzhou and Train Ride
2010 -
06.02
Today has been a day of big thoughts, and I don’t think it’s just because I’m reading Neal Stephenson again. Man, do I love his style- I feel my brain expanding to align with the depth/breadth of his universe… good stuff.
So the last few days have been pretty crazy, though in the end, relaxed, somehow. On the train out of Hong Kong I realized I left my camcorder and iRiver underneath my bunk in the hostel. I was trying not to wake up the others, as I was leaving at 5am, and I remember thinking, “I should do a last check back in the dark underbed spots”, quickly followed by, “Nah”. Well, maybe I’ll be able to get a claim from my traveler’s insurance, or the hostel found them (they’re attached to each other in little sleeping bag pockets) and set them aside and I can wire the money for them to send them to my school, we’ll see. The hostel manager said she’s willing, so perhaps it will work out. I’m finding that the greatest losses are not the equipment itself, necessarily, but the recordings from group I put (only) on the iRiver, and the convenience of having my own camcorder (although my still camera does movies of acceptable quality, too). The school might have a camera they let me use, regardless. So besides running around trying to catch a train in HK, that’s how my day started, and I did not have as good an attitude about it yesterday. (more…)
Hong Kong Overview
2010 -
05.31
I’ve only been in Hong Kong for three days and I’ve already figured out that there is no way for me to capture all the noteworthy experiences I’ve had/things I’ve seen. Everything is already blurring together, so here is a brief outline for me to remember- more detailed stories will be added of my favorite events as I have time! I will hopefully be able to post all my pictures soon. I accidentally left my camera on 14 megapixel setting so I have to convert them all to small before any website will allow me to upload them! I have included some below for visual entertainment, but I want to get them all in a slideshow app soon. Enjoy!
NOTE: I haven’t figured out how to have the captions not be white text on a white background yet, so if you want to read them I suggest highlighting them! Sigh, technical difficulties… And yes, changing the text color doesn’t work… :P
Day 0: Thursday May 27th
- Took airport express train to shuttle to Chungking Mansions area. So far so good.
- Got accosted by Indian hotel salesman to rent a room in his business in same building as my reservation. Decided to follow him just to find where I was going. Got talked into walking down seedy alley, but was okay. Commenced negotiations before remembering what I had paid in the first place, what the exchange rate was, and what I wanted. Finally managed to escape respectfully and he walked me to the correct elevator.
- Checked in and was not accosted. Saw bathroom and laughed (the shower is in the same small room with the toilet and sink, so when you shower you are also spraying the toilet! EEEEW…..). Met nice kiwi guy dormmates. Took shower with sarong curtain awkwardness (Since door is only frosted plastic, decided to duct tape sarong over door. It fell as I was showering and the sweet kiwi guys scrambled to restick it- it fell again but eventually stayed. Much awkward laughing was had!) Fell asleep- first real sleep in about 4 days, with all the packing and leaving!
See the showerheads coming out of the wall on the left?
On the plane to Hong Kong
2010 -
05.26
I am in awe. I have discovered that the healthy closure process of leaving for a long time is a little like how I imagine faking your own death and attending your memorial service would be. My friends have used this opportunity to express their appreciation, respect, admiration and love for me. Whatever part of me still doubts that I am valued, that I mean something to the people around me, that I effect the lives of those I care about, that I live in people’s hearts, that I am a good person… this part has mainly melted away during these past few weeks. Seeing the tears in the eyes of my loved ones was almost too much to let in, but as I allow myself to stay in heart-to-heart with them, it becomes obvious that we would have this kind of connection because of who we are and what I know in my own heart about my love for them. What a gift to receive undeniable proof of being loved by so many wonderful people! It opens my own heart to my own love for myself, which in turn gives me permission to not hold myself back in engaging ever deeper with the Self that both they and I love. While many aspects of this journey could be described as spiritual, I conceive of it in a less heady way… it is really only about love. When I took Love as my seventh middle name I feared I was being presumptuous- especially given that I feel that I have only truly learned (remembered?) what true love is in the past few years. But it is not presumptuous at all. I know exactly what love is, and I know how to live it, even if I am out of practice in many areas of my life, and even if refining my acquisition techniques will be a lifelong practice. And I’ve come to understand something else about myself- I love beauty above all. I feel the most ‘right’ when I am surrounded in beauty, when I let beauty into my heart, when I act with beauty, when I am beautiful. And the most beautiful feeling of all is integrity- when my insides match my outsides, when I align my life with my true self. This requires the work of continuous discovery of my truth in tandem with building skills to create a customized life. I love this work. This work is beautiful. So these three guiding concepts- integrity, beauty, love- are my compass for happiness in this life. That I have figured this out is miracle enough- that I have a growing number of inner circle friends who know and love this about me swells my heart. (more…)
Going Away Party!
2010 -
05.22
Just a brief post on the going away party- we played Puzzle Fighters, MarioCart (sang the fish song) and watched Crouching Tiger! Much silliness and awesomeness was had!
Rainbow Hair!
2010 -
05.17
My sister colored my hair rainbow for me! Seven colors: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Hot Pink! It took 14 hours to put all the color in! We were working from 10pm to noon the next day! Then we were too exhausted to wait and rinse it out that day, so I slept for like 14 hours and then we rinsed it the day after that, so the color was in for like 30 hours! It looks AMAZING! Here are a bunch of videos and pics of the process and result for the fans of rainbow hair! Such a nice gift to get from my sister before I go- and easy to pack! She has gotten so many compliments on the work- people assume she is a professional dyer of hair! Thanks, Katherine, for doing such a careful and amazing job!
Update: I ended up deciding not to take the rest of the dyes due to weight when we got the to airport, so hopefully when my sister comes to meet me in Japan she can bring them with my TEFL books to color the hair that has grown out!
11 days until Hong Kong!
2010 -
05.16
When I really let in that I am really selling or donating all of my belongings except for the one backpack I am taking with me and the 10 bins of keepsakes that friends are going to hold onto for me, I get alternating shivers of nervousness and excitement that is a fascinating sensation. I have started the goodbye process with my brother and sister and closest friends, and, strangely, I think I am handling this the best of anyone- but I guess I’m the one about to fill my life with novelty, so that makes sense. It’s not like I will be bored! I’m sure travelling by myself will be lonely sometimes, especially as I want to share things with the people that are 12,000 miles away (exactly halfway around the world- as far from them as I could get!), but it is also handy that spending so much time alone as a child will have its payoffs in regard to a well-practiced imagination. I am shocked that I have been able to save almost $3000 by selling my stuff, with more money next year after I file the donations with my taxes. With what I have in the bank I am sure to have an awesome first leg of this adventure.
The other realization that keeps washing over me is that, in 3 weeks, I will be studying kung fu on a mountain with a badass sifu (master). Having never studied martial arts before (and with the specific body issues I am working through), I have many insecurities about whether I will be able to handle the intensity of the training, complicated by the cultural learning that will be filling my brain at the same time. I am strengthened by the sifu’s supportive encouragement about my health concerns, and I’m sure he will be able to help me find that balance between not selling myself short and pushing myself too hard. I also have to listen to my own body, and I am looking forward to the luxury of learning all the nuanced messages my body has been trying to tell me but I was unable/unwilling to hear before. This time of concentrated reverence for my physicality, libido (in all of the Jungian/Ancient Greek sense), and power/force/aggression/boundaries is going to be revelatory for me; one of the main topics I will be posting about to get support processing and celebrating insights. I have been so blessed with my ’sparky’ loved ones and their ability to grow and accept and love… I don’t plan on losing contact with them! And infinite admiration for my (much younger) siblings and their ability to work out 98% of our parent-child dynamic in record time! I am completely convinced that they will not only be safe and fine, but freaking awesome without me- they have their own lives that are taking off, and they are becoming more themselves every day. They are just amazing creatures and shining examples of human potential. I am totally not exaggerating, either. Lucky us!
So my website exists now, thanks to my friend Jon and his awesome ability to host not-like-domain.com-with-no-permissions *growl*. I hope you like what I’ve put together!
On my way back from getting my Chinese Visa in NYC
2010 -
04.16
Careening down the highway at 80MPH in a Chinese bus of questionable maintenance is surprisingly easy to adjust to. Last night at 2am I hopped on such a bus, arriving within 8minuted of the departure time due to Katherine and me forgetting about that whole “directions to south station bus terminal” thing. The wifi advertized on these buses seems to not include leasing an IP address with the reception, so no actual internet access, but full strength wifi. Arriving in New York’s Chinatown at 5:30am was exhilarating, given it was still dark and all I had were google directions and a map Dana gave me to fine my way. I started to follow a fellow passenger who looked like he knew where he was going, but if he did it was not where I was going, as I realized within a block. I love how my brain works with maps so well- I could tell by the layout of the streets that the angles weren’t right for what I had glanced in the map earlier that day. So I turned around, returned back to the bus stop and ran into a middle aged Chinese woman who asked me if I knew how to get to the Chinese Consulate! I told her that’s where I was going, too, so we decided to stick together- power in numbers for women during the witching hour in a city infamous for violent crime. Yay, self-care! Doing this adventure with a stranger was a lot of fun, and of a type I had not really experienced before, given that I often am hit with bouts of shame regarding inflicting myself on strangers. Joyfully that insecurity was gone today, I believe because this was me doing My Thing, and I not-so-secretly love my own style and so gave myself permission to attract attention- and boy did I ever! I forgot to mention that while the main purpose of this trip was to get my Chinese Visa, I was also using it as an experiential lesson in What Not To Carry To China. (more…)