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• SomeGuy

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Birthday
• 1983-08-05
Gender
• Male
Location
• Vancouver, BC
Member Since
• 2003-08-02
Occupation
• Writer; Part-Time Hero
Real Name
• James

Personal

Achievements
• Visiting eight different myO friends in person thus far
Anime Fan Since
• Winter 2001
Favorite Anime
• Neon Genesis Evangelion, .hack//SIGN, Naruto, Bleach, Beck, Peacemaker Kurogane, Ranma 1/2 (the guilty pleasure)
Goals
• Visit the myO friends I've missed thus far; complete a cosplay from 300
Hobbies
• Writing, Gaming, Kung Fu, Movies, Acting somewhat strange in general
Talents
• Can recognise most quotes from almost any movie/show on first listen; Can recite the entire 12 days of Christmas by memory




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Sunday, October 8, 2006

   China Trip: An Explanation . . . . .
First a couple corrections seeing as a couple people didn't catch the right bits of info the first time around:
-I have not been to China. I am going to China.
-I have a Chinese VISA which they put in my passport to allow me to enter China; I have a Canadian passport, not a Chinese one.


Alright, so a few months back the people at my kung-fu club started planning a trip overseas. It was partly to participate in some kung-fu tournament over there, partly to visit the Shaolin Temple, and partly to just play around. Obviously it's a pricey trip, and it's also in the middle of the fall so not a whole lot of people could go. My dad had urged me to do it since it would be a good experience, but well . . . . . I didn't imagine it'd fly that well.

A month or so later, my dad apparently won a free trip to China. It might have had to do with this whole kung-fu thing, I'm still not exactly sure when or how he won this. In any case, he said that he was already going to be in Hong Kong on business anyway, and told me I should use his newfound ticket . . .

Now I know what this'll entail. I'm gonna hafta compete (which I hate doing) and I might have to take part as part of the Canadian kung-fu team and be recognised as such (which is cool but I'm really not THAT good). Also, I'd be meeting up with my dad and I'll more or less have to trust him to keep me alive for two weeks overseas and stuff . . . more on him later . . . . . .

. . . ultimately, though, travelling is what I wanted to do after graduation and is basically my excuse for not looking for "serious work" just yet. So if someone's gonna offer me a most of the expense paid trip to China, well . . . . . heh, I have no good reason to pass that up, now do I?


So here's what the plan is. On Tuesday morning, the tenth of the month (and incidentally my mother's birthday), I fly out from here to Hong Kong; on the 11th, I'll arrive in Hong Kong and my dad'll meet me at the airport, hopefully. The next day we fly from there to Shanghai and either that day or the next we go hook up with the other guys from my kung-fu club. At some point from there we're all then going to Zhengzhou, which is the city close to the Shaolin Monastery. So yeah, this is the big important part of the trip: to go to the temple, do some kung-fu, and let the monks show us some stuff. This should definitely be a cool experience. Oh, and I return on the 25th or something like that.


So why am I not exactly excited? Heh . . . for one thing I was more or less pushed into every aspect of this trip: hurrying to get my passport, all that other stuff with Visas and such, endless correspondence with my dad so he could set up my flights and other things . . . . . heh, endless correspondence with my dad in general . . .

Yeah, here it comes . . . . .

I'm sure most of you have probably noticed me referring to "The Stepdad" at one point or another in my posts. The rest should be pretty self-explanatory this point on. My dad and his children . . . we have an awkward relationship at best for obvious reasons, and though we try to meet for lunches and stuff, it's never completely comfortable (especially for my older brother who fidgets a lot during these meals - he was the one who noticed the change in household dynamics the most, after all). Heh . . . so yeah, relying on this guy to keep me alive in China for two weeks . . . . . I'm sure he will, but yeah . . .

Heh . . . so that's my dad. My grandmother, meanwhile, regales me with pointers like how everyone in Hong Kong and China is a pickpocket, and that I should basically keep my passport and stuff against my skin at all times. Heh, people at work tell me to not look like I'm rich. Yeah, people in general seem to be telling me about how this country is basically gonna be the scariest damn place I'll ever see . . .

. . . oh yeah, and I can barely speak Cantonese so Hong Kong'll be tricky (though Russell Peters alleges that everyone there can speak English); Mandarin in China-proper's not even worth trying, so yeah.


All in all, though, this should be a good trip, I think. Might be a bit awkward here and there, but it should be pretty memorable and stuff.

I'll try not to let them steal me once I get there, okay?
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