07-11-2024, 07:36 AM
Well alright. Let’s turn it up.
Successfully made it to DengFeng - in the hotel building 3 rm 640 - roommate is Arturo Martinez from Mexico who mostly speaks Spanish. We only spoke briefly then he crashed. Switching from English to Spanish to mandarin breaks my brain.
Had a great visit with Shifu. So glad I made the extra effort. He’s studying tea now and served me for the last hour of our visit. He was very impressed that Huijin is in Lishi school. With our phone translators we had a great chat.
The high speed rail was intense. The stations were huge and only in Chinese so navigation was challenging but I made it. Took me a while to find my contact Mr. Wang because our meeting place, west square was ginormous, surrounded by a tangle of cars, and brutally hot. But we connected and I caught up to the team at this restaurant that was decorated like an ancient bastion library. More outrageous exotic food. Plenty of veg including several local fruits and leaves that was only found here.
DengFeng has changed dramatically. So big now. We went to the Shaolin zen music show which has a cast of over a thousand performers set on a stage built in a mountain ravine with traditional folk dance, Buddhist chanting, drumming and horns, Kung fu, lasers and a soundtrack by Tan Dun. It was … well it had some amazing moments but crazy - like a herd of goats crosses the stage for one song & martial artists are lit with lighting cable and fly across the mountains on wires. Too much.
Met a ton of friends in the lobby. Shaoliners from all over the world.
Tomorrow the event begins. I’ll probably only have wifi at the hotel here.
Successfully made it to DengFeng - in the hotel building 3 rm 640 - roommate is Arturo Martinez from Mexico who mostly speaks Spanish. We only spoke briefly then he crashed. Switching from English to Spanish to mandarin breaks my brain.
Had a great visit with Shifu. So glad I made the extra effort. He’s studying tea now and served me for the last hour of our visit. He was very impressed that Huijin is in Lishi school. With our phone translators we had a great chat.
The high speed rail was intense. The stations were huge and only in Chinese so navigation was challenging but I made it. Took me a while to find my contact Mr. Wang because our meeting place, west square was ginormous, surrounded by a tangle of cars, and brutally hot. But we connected and I caught up to the team at this restaurant that was decorated like an ancient bastion library. More outrageous exotic food. Plenty of veg including several local fruits and leaves that was only found here.
DengFeng has changed dramatically. So big now. We went to the Shaolin zen music show which has a cast of over a thousand performers set on a stage built in a mountain ravine with traditional folk dance, Buddhist chanting, drumming and horns, Kung fu, lasers and a soundtrack by Tan Dun. It was … well it had some amazing moments but crazy - like a herd of goats crosses the stage for one song & martial artists are lit with lighting cable and fly across the mountains on wires. Too much.
Met a ton of friends in the lobby. Shaoliners from all over the world.
Tomorrow the event begins. I’ll probably only have wifi at the hotel here.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse