Life on A String

The Blogger Ninja

2009-07-11T23:53:00.000-07:00

Today I was introduced to the world of web proxy ninja freedom fighters....
Yesterday my friend Scott and I took the back way up a mountain towards a lucky monastery hoping to find some dirt to put underneath our tires. Our wish was granted as pavement gave way to a muddy trail that had been cut to pieces by horses as the slipped their way up the trail. Keeping our eyes out for horses we charged up the trail only to find ourselves surrounded by farmers fields half way up the mountain with the real trail to the top no where in sight. Thinking we saw the trail threw our bikes over our shoulders and tip toed across a farmers field. On the other side we ran into a thicket of thorns and an almost vertical slope of mud and grass. Then a nice Chinese farmer came out and told us that he had been trying to get our attention for the last 30 minutes since we passed his house to tell us that we were going the wrong way. Eventually we followed his directions and found the path, it was covered in stairs so we again shouldered our bikes and hiked to the top passing Chinese tourists as they admired our bodies.(thats actually what they said, (wa they have nice bodies) but not exactly what it means)

Congenital Heart Failure An Earthquake and snow covered mountains.

2009-05-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

Right now I am sitting in a room full of smoke and computers. They call it an internet bar the bar part must be why it is full of smoke and the internet part is why I am here. Here is a quik list of my recent adventures. Came to China, got to the airport with three phone numbers and a partial address. Made friends borrowed phones got another phone number for the friends that I am going to stay with after calling their grandma and uncle who, it turns out, only speak Sichuan Chinese wich over the phone doesn't sound very much like mandarin. Decode Sichuanese get phone number and address, take taxi to their house. Start to build my cross bike realize peices are missing, eat hot and spicy food realize that it is spicy at both ends. ( if you have to think about that, then you probably shouldn't). Watch Nanjing Nanjing, it makes me sick in a way that a war movie should, violence is bad. Get a phone call invitation from Nana to go to the mountains the next morning, pack wake up three hours later, meet new friends, enjoy green mountians covered in snow and the first quiet that I have heard in weeks. Thank God for nature, get excited to be in China. Start working at the hospital, learn about diagnosing patients in Sichuanese, see doctors use catheters to implant devices to fix holes created by congenital heart disease. Feel really excited, learn about congenital heart disease, watch a temporary pacemaker inserted by catheter to stabalize an 11 year old with a sickness that has blocked the transmission of nervous signals from her to her right ventricule. Transelate for a meeting with heartlink to discuss support for the training of a new surgical team. Buy a cheap bike with a friend Luo Lili who has helped me get a gym membership, a bike, bike parts and taught me tons about medicine. See Nana off on her long worldwide trip. Ride my new bike home from where I bought it in the city center. This takes an hour and a half and navigation of streets whose names constantly change and the help of many really nice traffic officers. Make a makeshit shim out of coconut milk and soda cans mount my handlebars, ride my bike into the city looking for real parts to replace the cans with. Success, ride home really fast, run into rope, land on my feet, scar a guy getting out of a car, tell him everything is okay, ride fast again. Go to church, leave church get in a car go to the place where the earthquake was, feel sad, like the people, pray for them, come home get excited to go to work, realize this is the first time I have looked forward to going to work. Wonder why I like it so much, think it is because of the team work and the constant learning, don't care why, get up eat bread while I ride to work, don't get lost.

And that is my life in China.

Until Next Week,

Zaijian.

Rain drops falling on my head

2009-01-24T18:00:00.000-08:00

First backcountry adventure today. (With a beacon and with out a class) Two solid days of rain melted the snow that we were planning on skiing and drenched us as we hiked. Practiced with beacons and dodged rocks and dirt on the way down with grins on our faces.

Wraping Up Peanut Butter and Honey and Eating Plants

2008-12-19T17:34:00.000-08:00

Since I haven't blogged in a while I will throw in some pictures. Lately I have been working on the final papers so I can get back for the ski season starting on the 30th. These pictures show my everyday life in China. The first series is how I get my peanut butter and honey fix and the last two are me eating plants with my Roommate Chengxi 程曦. It was the stem of something that looked like sugar cane on the outside but wasn't on the inside. It tastes like syrup, and is pretty good the last picture is what is left after you get the juice out... not much. It makes me feel like a beaver!

Pictures for Huangshan Day 3 and 4

2008-11-16T06:37:00.000-08:00

Guanxi

2008-11-16T06:12:00.000-08:00

Saturday the rain kept coming down and although many of my friends were sad that we were walking in a cloud all day and couldn't see very far, it was beautiful, and a perfect contrast from the day before. We were walking in a cloud...you don't get to do that everyday. We got up early to make it to the door of the Grand Canyon which they apparently close early if you are walking in a cloud.

We hiked down into the canyon along walkways that were sticking strait out of the wall and the cloud cleared periodically sometimes cloaking us in mystery and silence, sometimes breaking to show the shear walls along which we were walking. At one point we saw a cloud running like a river up a valley cut in the shear rock across us. Fall leaves of read and yellow poked brilliant colors out of the mist.

At noon we went back to the hotel picked up our stuff and they left for home while I waited for Susanah and Javier to meet me. We were planning on hiking around then camping under the stars in a secret grove of trees that we were sure we could find, but it was still raining and they showed up just as wet and tired as I was. So plan B, find somewhere else to sleep... The only dry place on top of the mountain was inside one of the hotels so we hiked up to the second floor hallway of a hotel and decided to dry off rest and figure out how to stay in the hotel. Rooms on top of the mountain cost around a thousand Chinese dollars which is way more than you should pay for anything that isn't imported... so ethically that was out of the question.

After a little while of sitting on nice soft chairs in the hallway we decided that the best place to stay would be right there, in the hallway. Yep that is right, we wanted to sleep in the hallway of a 5 star hotel on top of a mountain. But how to do it. The answer is Guanxi. A couple hours later we were best friends with the Guard who checked us in and told his coworkers that we would be sleeping there for the night. We slept soundly and left early the next morning.

It made me realize one that even the most outrageous idea can work out if you are respectful and give go forward with it. It also made me realize the importance of treating people well and not becoming a free loader.

The next morning we hiked down the mountain as the clouds blew away and the sun came out revealing gorgeous vistas, freshly touched with rain.

We got to the bottom of the mountain hungry, cold and incredibly happy.

At the bottom we found Javier's company car parked where it had been left and drove into the small town of 汤口 where we found steamy soup filled dumplings, hundun, and youtiao which we ate in an open walled shop while we looked out at the still misty morning, happy and content.

Three hours later I made it back in time for the last 30 minutes of church, and felt incredibly grateful for the opportunity to go to a church lead by the Savior through his priesthood.

Pictures for Yellow Mountain Chinese Baptism

2008-11-16T05:40:00.001-08:00

The Yellow Mountain-Chinese Baptism

2008-11-16T04:49:00.000-08:00

Friday morning I awoke to the quiet footsteps of workers carrying bamboo poles with huge bags of heaviness swinging pack and forth on either end as they trek up the mountain past my hiding/camping spot, I quietly role up my sleeping bag and eat some breakfast as I hear the first tour groups approaching the gate that I walked around last night. As I walk out of the woods onto the trail leading towards..., well I really don't know, but it goes up... I run into a group of four people also going up the trail. One waves at me and another hits them on the shoulder, telling them that I just came out of the woods cause I was going to the bathroom... this actually was true, but not the only reason. As they politely ignored me I followed them up the trail trying to figure out what language they were speaking. Turns out the Shanghai dialect sounds quite like Japanese.

A couple minutes later I started talking to them and began a conversation which would end up lasting for the whole day and into the next!

I wasn't going to meet my friends until noon the next day so the invited me to join them.

Hiking with Chinese people is different that hiking with anyone I have hiked with before. The first thing that you do is eat 黄瓜 or cucumbers, then we hiked more.

My new found friends had never hiked a mountain before in their lives, they road the train and elavators to work in Shanghai and then decided to go hike a mountain!

The rest of the day was gorgeous, clear blue skies, clouds floating somewhere below us like an ocean with mountaintops poking through like breaching whales.

We hiked all day sharing raisens, chinese dried meat and soysauce eggs. Lots of people took my picture and I did a photo shot with a pack of giggling college girls from Chengdu, my new friends were great starting to answer questions for me. Yes he speaks Chinese and is wearing a big backpack. It was really nice to be protected from having to answer the same questions over and over again. They even started to try to collect money for me from people who wanted to take pictures of me. Along the way we ran into a bunch of people that they met on their bus ride the day before.

That night it started to rain and my tent was in America so they insisted that I stay in their hotel room with them. They had arranged a room with 5 beds and only had for people but when we got there it turned out that one of the beds was built for three...there were two couples and me...I camped on the floor in my sleeping bag. It was really fun to joke around with them and the first time that i have ever camped on the floor of a mountain top hotel room.
I will attach some pictures above.

The Yellow Mountain-Solo Start

2008-10-26T05:19:00.000-07:00

My only Friday without a class was swiftly approaching. Weeks ago that I would take off on Thursday night and spend my long weekend exploring China. Little did I know that I would end up sleeping on the floor of a mountain top hotel room with four Chinese friends I had meet only hours before. After spending the last couple of days riding my little Chinese bike across the city looking for hiking shoes and other camping supplies that fit my American Body, finding a sleeping bag, pad and shoes for reasonable prices I crammed them together with peanut butter, Chinese breads, raisens, banna chips some sausages and headed off Thursday morning's writing class. In one pocket I had a one way ticket to Huangshan which was either taking me to a city or a mountain the ticket agent wasn't really sure. In my other pocket I had a treasure map drawn by the Leopord, a friend from the climbing gym that lived on Huangshan for a couple of months. My goal was to find my way to a little city called soups mouth 汤口 then following the map walk out the main gate and up an unmarked trail in the dark avoiding the ticketed trails that had been closed for the night and accessing the Chinese "backcountry". After arriving in Soup's mouth in the dark I ate some soup and started asking around for the Paifang that should lead me to a stream and a trail eventually taking me off the beaten track. A really nice man and his wife were out for a walk and walked me up to the road that I could take to a place where there was a trail going up the mountain but encouraged me to walk along the mainroad and go up the main path like everyone else. I started off on the little path praying and thinking about what the best decision would be, as I walked through the dark and my flashlight flickered and I realized that I had long ago decided to be careful about solo trips and decided that I should be in a place where I could get help if I needed it so when the trail came to the main road I walked along the main road planning on finding the trail and exploring it the next day in the sun or maybe the following day when Sussanah and Javier showed up. As I walked I looked for the secret trail and enjoyed the quiet of the night.
Eventually I arrived at Ciguangge 慈光阁，I still hadn't seen the trail and all I had was a little treasure map without many details so I decided to explore a little and look for a place to sleep, the main gate was locked but I found a side trail that led up through the woods overlooking a complex of old houses turned tourist attractions. In the dark I could here the noises of people getting ready for bed as I walked through what could be their back yard. Finding a small flat section of wood with piles of rocks and a couple of sedan chairs I squezzed my shoulders into my small sleeping bag and staired up at the stars through the bamboo greatful for the clear skies both for the view and because my tent was still in America.

The Yellow Mountain- Chinese Baptism and The Yellow Mountain- Its Cold Outside will follow shortly.

For the Love of Skippy

2008-10-26T05:11:00.001-07:00

I like China and Chinese food has been treating me very well for the last month...but something has been missing hiking small mountains my legs have felt strong and my lungs feel good but I feel tired. I knew something was missing but I couldn't figure out what it was. Firguring it was something to do with my diet I tried eating differint things, more meat, soy milk little tiny mushrooms China had it all. Eating different food helped but alas I was still without power and then I found the answer.......(Sorry Brad you might not want to read this)......the answer was peanut butter!

Look Ma no hands!

2008-10-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

After Yangshuo I went to Liuzhou to visit Fan's family and learn how to make some Chinese food. Fan had told them that I love to exercise and like to swim, so they got her uncle to take me swimming in the river that wraps around their city. I put on my slightly loose board shorts hoped they would stay on, shook hands with Uncle and jumped in the water. As we swam out across and up the river to a huge bridge I realized that I had never swam in a huge river with waves and boats before. As we swam up river small waves would crash over my head and sometimes into my stomach, not directly, through my mouth, making my wonder about what it would be like to have giardia on the 27 hour trip back to Nanjing the next day. I decided that it wouldn't be much fun but stopping swimming wasn't really an option. Stopping swimming means sinking and the river bank was a long way away, plus Chinese people keep telling me that I look like feier pusa, Phelps. Since I had an image to keep up I decided swam my heart out and had a wonderful time. Swimming in rivers is addicting and now every river time I see I wonder if I could swim across it.

On a side note I am home now and the train ride went smoothly. Apparently the river is clean or the Giardia is afraid of people that look like Feierpusa.

Truth be told I didn't think about Phelps until just now but I did think of all of the crazy waters mom swims across, and then just relaxed into the water.

Deep Water....SOLO and Swimming in a big river with waves

2008-10-06T07:43:00.000-07:00

I have wanted to come climbing in Yangshuo since I first heard about the Karst Mountains in Guilin about four years ago. Yesterday that dream became a reality, today was more than a dream come true!

As Susannah and I took off looking for a place to climb today we remembered a place that we had bouldered the day before and a place we had seem some other climbers. The climbers recomended some deep water soloing but from our vantage point the place looked a little dirty and we were a little worried about parasites.

Yesterday's bouldering on an unmarked wall next to a small farm road had wetted our apetites and a morning of hiking with Jialiang (Anthony) and Dainian (Daniel) had made us start dreaming of cool water.

At a climbing guide store the rumors of deep water soloing were confirmed so we mounted our dear little pink "Alice"

town crusers headed off into the afternoon.

Riding down city streets strait backed and feeling like Mary poppins soon gave way to rock filled country roads that took us to some stairs hidden between two restruants. As we decended the stairs we eyed a couple of widely spaced rocks that lead around the corner of the cliff.

Nearby some people on bamboo rafts watched...

I hoped that some of the kids would come over and let us use their rafts as a floating base. I packed my electronic dictionary and passport in plastic bags and twisted the tops as well as I could then we stood on a sunlite rock and tried to figure out how we were going to change into our swiming suits. After deciding that mooning the river traffic might not be that bad of an idea we noticed some men heading our way on a bamboo raft. The were dressed nicely with button shirts and shiny leather shoes.

After paddling over and asking our permission they began to play pocker on our rock. They happily let us use their raft and we (feeling like my boyhood hero Huck Finn) paddled around the corner to take turns changing in a small cave with a hand towl to protect the river folk from viewing more than intended.

Now feeling like a fantasy from a climbing magazine we took turns controling the raft while the other climbed, all the while our excited Chinese hosts cheered us on and played pocker. After a while Susanah, asked if that was my back pack in the water. Looking over I confirmed that it was indeed my backpack floating down the river and we scrambled to reach it before it, my passport and everything else that I didn't want stollen from our hotel room decided to stop floating and dissappear.

We soon discovered that bamboo rafts are not speed boats and also are not extremely manuaverable, at least not in our novice hands. After a diving save of the back back we returned to shore and were greeted by a flock of 8, 12 year old, Chinese boys swiming down the river to meet us.

In a tender mercy the double layer of bags had fully protected my valuables, wich if lost would have been worth every penny!

The pictures will follow when my flash drive starts communicating with my computer.

Chinese Food makes me greatful for Fiber Crackers....

2008-09-14T00:04:00.000-07:00

Chinese food is good.... most of the time. Some of the time it is really good, and sometimes its weird, and sometimes when it taste good it feels weird the next day. This time it felt weird the next day....and the next.... and the next ...and the next all the way until Saturday. I had been eating at the student cafeteria which is pretty tasty and is supposed to be pretty sanitary. Then Tuesday afternoon I went and got a cup of fruit the fruit looked pretty good from the outside it looked really good but when I started eating it it tasted a little funny, sort of like fermentation. I paused but thought about how most Chinese people don't waste very much and I thought maybe Chinese oranges and grapes are supposed to taste this different. After a couple more pieces and one incredibly nasty taste of orange that made me shiver I realized that different and bad are two entirely different flavors. I threw the last peice away and headed off to class where I began to feel like the fruit tasted, nasty. (the meaning of the word nasty in this context should not be confused with its slang usage as sick, wicked or awesome)

I headed home for class and spent the next couple days on the couch, trying to avoid puking, and my bed which is so hard that my but hurts after a good nights rest. It is better than my previous bed though which made my but fall asleep while I was sleeping... a pretty funny feeling I might add.

I was really greatful to have a nice couch to sleep on, some good friends Daniel gave me a priesthood blessing and Susanah brought me peptobismal and high fiber digestive crackers, which were pivotal in feeling better.

Most of the time it was nice to relax not worry about class and as long as I stayed on the couch or bed I was pretty comfortable. I am greatfull to be back on my feet and able to eat Chinese food again.

明孝陵，中山陵

2008-09-07T16:48:00.001-07:00

A quick smattering of some pictures from to historic sights in Nanjing, Mingxiaoling, and Zhongshanling. I really like literal translations, remember if you want to ride the wheel it is free depending on the admissions ticket, ....understand?

Monopoly Money

2008-09-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

After spending the weekend in Shanghai I moved into my apartment in 鼓楼区三条巷 on Monday evening. My landlords are super nice and I got a pretty good deal on rent. The house is also close to campus, and clean. So far I have only seen one cockroach which is good for living in huge city. My air-conditioner just started raining again though. The money is to pay for five months of rent. In China people don't like to use checks so almost everything is done in cash. My rent for my two bedroom apartment came out to be 11,000 rnb with a 2,2oo rnb security deposit so I had to go to the ATM and pull out as much cash as I could the whole weekend that I spent in Shanghai. It was sort of scary and cool to literally have my pockets bursting with cash.

While I was running down the street to check out a house the previous day my pants ripped... now I have another pair of shorts.

A Broken Watch and the White Guy in the Waiting Room

2008-09-04T06:01:00.000-07:00

June 23 2008
After a sleepless night (By Choice) I am in LA waiting for a delayed flight to Shanghai. On the last flight I meet a guy named Jasper who plays in a rock band called Rock Fed from Moab Utah. He was a super chill guy that was stocked about his musical dreams. I sat next to a 30 year old Jewish girl after talking about kite snowboarding, surfing, the word of wisdom, kids and adoption we thought I had a five hour layover so she invited me to go swimming in the mansion that she is house sitting at. After double Checking my flight time, I found out that I wouldn’t have time. It would have been fun to be that spontaneous, I even had my swimsuit in my carry on. Traveling alone is a little nerve racking but going solo puts you in positions to meet some really cool people.

Finally I arrived in Shanghai after not having slept laying down since the 21st, and went took the Maglev ( A train that goes super fast levitating on magnetic repulsion) to the sub-way where a really nice Chinese guy told me which subway to take and a nice Chinese girl helped me buy a ticket from a complicated looking machine that turns out to be very easy to use if you are not nervous, used to millions of people running around behind you speaking Chinese and have used the machine before.

With there help I made it to the train station only to find out that the tickets to Nanjing were sold out. There were tons of people in the square outside waiting to watch the closing ceremonies. I thought they were all waiting for trains so I considered sleeping in the square until the next morning when I could take a train. When I nice taxi driver came up to me and offered to take me to a hotel I thought for sure he was going to steal my everything. Instead he saw that I was a poor college student and charged me less than the normal fare for Shanghai taxis and got me a deal on a room for the night, still expensive but fair for Shanghai.

That night I had to get out and walk around so I left the hotel with the address and the Chinese in my head and promptly got lost. It is amazing how similar all the buildings looked in the dark. I was doing fine until I tried to take a short cut. I ended up walking past a park where nice man wanted to sell me DVDs when that didn’t work he asked me Sex 你要不要。 Do you want sex, startled I told him that I would rather pet a porcupine and kept walking. (I don’t know who to say porcupine in Chinese so that part isn’t true but it would have been a good story if it was.) Eventually the people on the street told me how to get home and I slept well, I woke up with the sun but had no idea what that meant the room had no alarm clock and my watch had broken the day before so I had to go all the way down to the front desk to ask the time. That morning I got free breakfast, roasted peanuts, soy milk, fried rice, fried noodles, some little cakes and a big pot of warm water with rice in it, which was actually okay once I decided that it didn’t matter if what it tasted like.

That day I made it to Nanjing got hustled by an illegal cab driver. (if you are in China only take the official cabs that have 出租车 written on them, some people drive around ordinary cars that don’t look like taxis and charge you as much as they can get from you. This one wanted 90 yuan I ended up giving him 40 which is about 20 more than a real taxi would have cost. The big difference is that if you get caught in one they take everyone in the car to jail and if you get hurt in an accident they don’t have any insurance so you lose all of your money. When I finally made it to my hotel I was so tired of traveling I wanted to see something familiar so badly that I thought about going home then I ran into a friend and life was instantly better. It has been amazing to see how far you can go when you have no idea where you are going. It really boosts your faith in God and your fellow man. When I was standing confusedly at the subway station a man came up to me without me searching him out and told me which train I needed to take. It was a small miracle that step of the journey so much easier.