We had a blast.... 'nuff said

The weekend.


Friday-

Started off with training. Today was the mountain run. Morning training was pretty easy. We had a new guy join our Wing Chun class. His name is Jake, 22, from Australia, and he came here with his wife. Not sure what his wife's name is but she is 23 from Australia too.



After lunch was the mountain run. Usually you can run 6 times up and down the mountain. I wanted to try the Bear Crawl on my hands down the stairs. They tell us that if you do bear crawl instead of run, it’s only 3 times up and down. A new thing is that, the master makes us bear crawl down a different set of stairs because it gets too crowded on the mountain. The stairs for Bear Crawl are a bit shorter. They are a  set of white marble stairs. Since the number of stairs are about 1/3 of the regular run, Master said if we do bear crawl we are to do it 10 times up and down the small set of stairs. That didn’t sound to bad so i decided to do the bear crawl.

When we got to the mountain Kyle, Rob, and a couple other guys were doing the bear crawl. Most of the guys were only going to do it five times, but Kyle was committed to doing the full 10 sets. I was going to try this and I was going to try the full 10 sets. After I did 3 bear crawls my arms were so sore! I was thinking that maybe the guys who were only doing 5 sets had it right. Then Kyle said, "Come on Scott, let’s do 20 sets!" For some reason....I said, "OK!" Kyle was always two crawls ahead of me. He crawls fast! Now crawling on your hands and knees down a flight of stairs might not seem too hard to some people but there was one other problem. The stairs were marble and a bit slippery. If you don’t keep control, your hands could slip away from you and your face smashes on the marble step. So we were not just diving down the stairs letting gravity do the work. It was more like we were doing moving ‘planks’ because we had to keep our bodies balance and stable.



When I was on the 16th crawl and he was on the 18th crawl, the Masters came to watch us. When we started there were about 4 guys crawling. As time passed more and more guys came to crawl. About 7 students including me were crawling today. Once the masters came we crawled even faster! That didn’t help my arms at all! One of the masters followed a student down the stairs kicking her because she crawled too slow. (yes a girl student) We all kind of ignored what was happening and crawled because we didn’t want to be kicked...well I didn’t anyway. Kyle and I did all 20 sets. After we finished I headed back to the academy to get ready for Rodney's goodbye dinner night. Sam, Danny, Gram, Kjertil (AKA Gertle), Mark, Matt, and Rodney were all going out tonight. We had a blast.


Saturday-
Next morning headed back to the Academy after sleeping at the Bath House. Did my laundry, cleaned my room, watched a couple movies, had a relaxed day.


Sunday-
I was talking to Rodney and planned to see him for Lunch before he left Yantai. I booked a cab for myself to go to Yantai. I met up with him, went to a noodle shop that he told me about a while back and i wanted to try out. The food was great. First time i had noodles in China. During training Rodney told me about how you can fish for crab and I wanted to try that ever since. I asked Danny and a few other guys who have been here pretty long and no one had heard of it. I told Rodney before he leaves we have to try it out. So after we ate we went to the beach to fish. When we got there the waves were so strong they would smack into the other people who were fishing. They got SOAKED. I told Rodney, "Ok, well I know where to go now, I’ll come back another day." He had to finish packing anyway. 

Rodney and Scott at the beach.

Lady with a stick and Crab net

On the way back we were talking about how he is sad to leave and he doesn’t want to go. We realized how bonds are quickly made here at the academy. In the car he said, "Bonds are made so quickly probably because we train together, suffer the pain together, eat the same food, its like spending time in prison." I can’t say I know what being in prison is like....not sure how Rodney knows either, but I agree. Friendships are made quickly and since we share so many things in common, bonds are made quickly. I have known Rodney for 5 weeks and it feels like I am saying good bye to a best friend I’ve known for years. I saw other friends saying goodbye to him Friday night and I couldn’t imagine how sad I will be on that day when I leave here and say goodbye. Rodney even said that was the hardest part of leaving. Seeing everyone and hugging them goodbye… must be hard. It feels like we are a family here. 

5 students... wait there are six of us.
Gram, Clement doing horse stance, Issac on top, Andres under clement, Philip kneeling and  me (Scott)

After the beach I had the taxi drop Rodney off at his Apartment he stayed at when he was working and before he went to the academy. Saying goodbye made me sad. I told him next time i see him it'll be in Australia on one of the nice warm beaches.



Before we headed back to the academy I wanted to get a hair cut across the street at the mall. Risky I know. I walked in and asked if they spoke English. The lady ran up to a hair dresser and he came over and asked me how I wanted my hair done. I told him just a trim. So I got my hair washed and went to a seat. I had no idea if he understood me, no idea if he told the hair dresser who was cutting my hair I wanted a trim, but he went to work. I just hoped for the best. Luckily he cut a little off and I relaxed a bit. After got another hair wash and paid 30 Yuan. Basically 5 dollar hair cut. (Beat that TARA!) After that I had the taxi driver take me home. On the way back we passed a bus stop and Peter Pan was there. The taxi pulled over and I told him hop in and I’ll share the taxi with him. I asked him if he knew where a couple shops where in Muping because I wanted to get some martial art slippers. So we went to the shop, got some good kung fu slippers and on the way back to the cab we saw a tailor shop. We went inside to see the prices. I wanted a long jacket for the winter because I only have the sleeveless top and I will get cold. I asked how much it would be. 320 expensive! For me to get 2 pants and a top at another tailor shop altogether was only 400! Peter Pan priced a pair of pants they said 150! I said ‘let’s leave and check out the other shop’. We walked around the corner to the first tailor I bought my outfit from. A top with sleeves alone was just 250. Pan didn’t want to buy anything so I said, "ok ill come back another day." On the way back the taxi driver was in the tailor shop. We went inside and they offered Pan 140 yuan for pants. The material here really was a bit nicer. He said, "130?" They said, "120?" He was shocked and said, "120?" They agreed. He said, "OK!" They told me the top would be 240 for me. I said ok that’s pretty good. They sized me up, wrote out the receipt and the total was 140. I said 140? and I wrote out 140 on the calculator. They said "ya". I said, "OK!" Made some great deals there. Then went back to the academy. Had dinner next door because we got back after dinner. Washed up and going to sleep to get some rest for training tomorrow.

Goodnight

-Scott