final post

hello everyone ive just arrived home and started to unpack all of my stuff, im afraid that there will be no final post of all of my photos from my final adventure, its just gonna take too long. so this is my farewell, ive had the most amazing time in china and im so glad i have this to look back on. and thanks to everyone who actually read it and made my time in writing it well spent. i hope you have enjoyed the adventure however vicariously.

failed first night in HK

tried to find a club my friend recommended, found the building but couldnt find where the club was. tried to go to another area and the monsoon rain returned so i decided it wasnt meant to be tonight. plus its kinda wierd to be going out by myself to a bar/club. i need some friends.

anywho i think im gonna get an early start and just explore the city tomorrow and maybe have some better luck

see you all in a few days

fucking hong kong

finally made it! i think im carrying well over my own body wieght but i made it and got my new visa all handled for my flights to beijing. so relieved to finally have that handled.

this place is overwhelming after being in the countryside for so long. gonna go enjoy it!

ill be home in 4 days woooo

due to my lack of time/ energy....

... you will once again be getting an abridged version of my travels until i have the time to better explain them

lets see from where my last post left off some of the better moments have been:
-talking to a white guy from zimbawe about teaching music
-hiking in the stone forest
-meeting another spencer in kunming
-meeting matt and merrybelle in lijiang
-breakfast with pass and her family ( i met up with them for at least a little while)
-dinner at mama naxi's
-shots/drinks in lijiang
-flaming dr.pepper
-rocky mountain bear fucker
-prarie fire
-sexy tractor
-snickers kgb
-ice cream and beer after lunch with my 3 canadian friends for the day
-sneaking into the black dragon pool (forget paying 80 kuai!)
-epicness of tiger leaping gorge
-the "summer camp" group (a group that randomly assembled at the beginning of the tiger leaping gorge hike and stuck together through baishui tai, zhongdian, and all the way to deqin and back to lijiang with its remaining 3 members)
-matt from austin, tx
-merrybelle from north carolina
-joe and eric, brothers from santa barbara
-christian from germany
-jonathan from sweden
-getting to travel with these amazing people for almost a week
-banana pancakes at mama naxi's, there were bananas all over, sooooo good but too much for one man to eat
-making it all the way to the halfway house in the gorge
-drinking game with the spinning thing in the middle of the table at halfway house
-the videos of the aforementioned game
-my fortress of beer bottles
-drama at harmony guest house
-learning shaolin kungfu poses from christian
-cheap dali beers
-playing cut throat (my new favorite pool game)
-altitude making me a lightwieght
-seeing a glacier!
-epic poses with said glacier
-chinese people who need air cans to breathe above 6000 feet
-making our own hot spring
-pigs/cows living outside of hostel at the hot springs
-matt dominating the 3000 foot ascent listening to daft punk
-breathtaking views on the himalayas!
-ice shelf breaking with me and matt still on it (no harm occured)
-matt drunk off one beer due to the altitude chasing cows with a stick with his ass hanging out
-biking around er hai
-teaching kings cup to a bunch of frechies

pretty much to sum it up this last few weeks has been everything you need for a good time:
good people
good food
good conversation
and ad a little bit of amazing scenery

currently in dali waiting for a bus back to kunming to hop onto another bus to the yuanyang rice terraces, google it . im so stoked to go.

im so sorry to give you guys such an abridged version of my travels. there has been soooo much going on and so little time.

ill return on the 11th of august and cant wait to see everyone!

my travels so far

so this is actually a post i had been working on as a draft but i never finished it so i thought id post it anyway, its almost 2 weeks old now but whatevs

my trip has been going quite well as so far. i am currently in a hostel in guilin awaiting my train to kunming for a few days and from there i dont know.

lets see where to start. i arrived in guilin on sunday morning and got lost when i got off at the wrong bus stop, i went one more and then i found it easily. i was too early to check in so i attempted to buy some breakfast and instead wound up with 10 bread sticks, stupid american. i spent my day just walking actually around the edges of the touristy scenic areas and found some interesting markets and made a few paintings during my wanderings. the night was uneventful and i just hit the hay for my early morning boat ride to yangshuo with some swedes i met in the lobby.

got up early in the morning and hoped on this little janky motor boat barely big enough for the five of us to fit. we had a nice cruise down the river with some amazing scenery. we parted ways once in yangshuo and i went to find my first hostel in yangshuo as the one i wanted was booked up for the first night. i was met at the boat station by the owner whose distinguishing mark was the half a finger missing on his right hand, just as the website had stated. i got settled in and grabbed a bike and headed for the countryside. i made my way first toward the famous moon hill which like a mountain with a half moon shape cut out appropriately. it made a nice hike up to the top minus the old ladies following you up to the top trying to sell water. they will follow you all the way to top just so you might buy on bottle of water. so as mean as it sounds im a total asshole to them in hope that they will save their energy and not follow me cause i wont buy water from them almost entirely on principle. so i got the top with out my shadow only to have another one attach to me and then i had to get her to leave me alone and then she tried to guilt trip me and then finally gave up. finally i had a peaceful view of yangshuo with no, "hallo, you buy water!" "just buy one, you buy later". i continued my bike adventures and got quite muddly going through the "bike path" that wasnt marked at all and consisted of riding through random village streets. meetup with two guys from chicago and an english couple who were equally lost and we eventually found our way back via a super muddy road. oh and on the way i took a quick swim with a water buffalo which was rather refreshing. i made it back in time for the family style dinner and had a great talk with a father from Belgium on topics ranging from politics to hip hop. wandered around the city to quell my boredom for the evening and ran into a nice guy who ran a rock climbing gym and offered to take me out climbing in a few days.

so here is where my life got a littel complicated as i had to transfer to a little known hostel on the outskirts of town. i hitched a moto taxi and got half only to realize he was trying to rip me off. i got off and stuffed a 20 in his pocket and walked the rest of the way which wasnt actually that far. arrived at my new hostel, the giggling tree, a wonderful converted barnyard run by a very pleasant dutch family. i dropped my stuff and made my way to the "real water cave". this adventure actually wound up being quite fun for two reasons, swimming underground in a cave and no crazy multicolor lights like in every other chinese cave. i actually just kind of hung back and made the tour myself. there was a really cool mudbath pond that was a first time for me. and at the end there was a huge underground waterfall that you could stand under, just like in those herbal essence commercials =). i spent the remainder of my afternoon relaxing on the terrace overlooking the farming valley and amazing hills.

for my last day in yangshou i made arrangements with the friend i met the evening prior to go out rock climbing. i got up bright and early and cycled into town to met up. we grabbed some gear and a ton of bananas and headed for wine bottle hill. i hadnt climbed in about a year so i was pretty out of shape, i still managed to make it up a 5.9 and about halfway on a 5.10. after a few climbs i was tired and we headed back. the owner of the gym offered me some free noodles at his restraunt which were quite delicious, a really nice and genuine guy. i could really see myself staying in yangshuo for a few weeks and just climbing and hanging out. maybe someday, at the moment i have the travel bug and i need to be moving on. just after that the most random moment of my travels so far occured, i spotted on the side of the road the couple who we were marooned with in guangzhou airport and once again ran into on a private beach in sanya. it still amazes me how small the world is even here in china .i crashed for sometime back at hostel and waited for the midday heat to die down. around 4 the light was such a beautiful shade of yellow that i couldnt resist one more bike ride around the valley. on my way home i ran into my belgian friend once again for the second random encounter of the day.

craziness

so the last week or so has been so hectic hence the lack of posts, so im going to try and spell this whole situation out so it makes sense

things you need to know:
- lost my wallet (debit card and bank of china card)
-supposed to go to yunnan with pass and her family
-expecting a wire of money and a new debit card before i left for sanya
- i owe 1000 for my dorm

so i got back from sanya at midnight on tuesday night. i woke up the following morning with the hope of my fed ex package arriving with my new debit card so i could pay for my dorm. 9 hours later and 6 calls to the idiots at fedex my package arrives after the third attempt to deliver it. i got to every atm i can find to try and pull out money but i get locked out at 350 instead of the usual 700. so now im up shit creak cause i owe mike 400 for the sanya trip and then 1000 for the dorm. so now my luck banks on the money coming via wire to come in the morning, so i can leave for yunnan the following day.

thursday morning pass and i go to the bank of china at 9:30 right when it opens to find a 30 person line. ugghghghgh. so we wait for almost an hour to be helped to find out that the wire has not come yet. fuck. so now i scram frantically for some kind of idea of what to do about the money so i can leave at 12:30 with pass. after a little while i pretty much give up and have to tell pass ill have to come the following day. so i see her off to the bus station and say goodbye. after that i go to the place to buy tickets and ask about a train to yunnan only to find it is booked completely for the next 7 days. fuck. so it is then i decided to just go on my own and go the reverse of my initial plan. so i decide to go to guilin and maybe meetup with pass later in the month if possible. so things are looking up now, i was kinda hoping to travel alone for awhile.

so friday morning i go and wait at the bank for 2 hours! to get my number called finally and the money has arrived!!! i get my money and mikes money and i pay for my dorm and get everything inline. though i find out that the train to guilin only has seats and no sleepers. fuck. i just say whatever and buy the ticket, i just wanted to get out of guangzhou and start traveling.
and from then on it went pretty smoothe

im currently at my hostel in guilin and heading to yangshuo tomorrow via river boat. today i just kinda chilled about and made a painting or two. i also tried something new, instead of going into the tourist areas i just walked around the outskirts for awhile which turned out rather interesting. i found a really cool backstreet mart and accidently bought ten of these bread things when i only meant to ask if it costed 10 yuan. stupid americans. all of the chinese had to stop and get ridiculously close and look over my shoulder as i painted which got a little old but thats nothing new. im sure im pretty random, a white kid chinese painting. seriously what am i thinking.

anywho im gonna go grab some grub

keep posted

<3 田予川

weekend in paradise

our weekend was off to a slow start as out hour long flight became delayed for an unknown amount of time.  we got put up in a shitty hotel 30 minutes away which was ok.  our view out the window was the rusty air conditioner on the roof and the my personal favorite bad translation as of late, "wham poo" in the bathroom.

4 hours later we got going and this guys hat made my day!

tsing tao and bbq it doesnt get much better

calamari, stingray(yeah stingray), and eggplant soo goood.  
gotta love the village style, just trying to fit in with the chinese

one of the best moments of the weekend not documented between this photo and that one. sneaking onto the local 5 star resorts' private beaches.  perfect white sand and crystal clear blue water.

oh and we went scuba diving for about half an hour two, which was really awesome. so weird to get used to breathing underwater, but it was awesome to see the coral and all the fish.  gotta love china, no need for certification.

chilling on the beach after scuba diving, attempted to surf but failed. im a shitty californian
mike going to conquer the 2 foot waves
2 months without direct sunlight means i got owned by the sanya sun
our friends at the hostel; elyse from minnesota (which i had no idea where it even was, but now it seems like a cool place), Filipa a teacher from NY originally from the Carribean, Jessy the wonderfully helpful intern and mike and I.
the restraunt across the street had a legit western menu! steak, burritos, sandwiches, quesadillas, everything and it was all spot on and amazing!
just look at that burger, sooooo legit

view of sanya from deer hill
more of those relationship thingies
my awesome getup, all of this awesomeness for 30 rmb, taken by my friend rico (see below)
ridiculously amazing hand made ice cream, 100% fruit, take that jamba!
This is Rico, a police officer from Changqing who i met on deer hill. we started talking and he offered to take me to lunch, gotta love the chinese hospitality.
the magician behind the amazing ice cream, such a cute old lady.

just another great moment from the weekend, our rommates came in while we were out and found my pink phone charging and immediately though they had a couple living with them and were like, "oh shit".  later when they saw us they just assumed i was gay, i love the reactions my phone gets.

ive been sitting around all day waiting for my replacement visa to arrive so i can have some money, ive been here since 9 am and its now 6pm and no sign of the package.  gah i this is getting ridiculous.  

i was supposed to leave for yunnan tomorrow but i think i am going to have to cancel it to deal with this stupid money situation.  

gahhhhhhhh

sometimes scary kids says it best

"I’m losing what’s left of my dignity
But ill fight till the end for her heart
Ill never give up for what’s possibly
For better for worse this love must be cursed"

today is going to be too long, i have way too much to do

finally made it to sanya

after a 4 hour delay at the airpor with our 1 hours flight to sanya we made it. me and mike jus got back from getting some bbq and walking along the beach in front of all the hotels. checked out the bars/clubs but they were all pretty lame.

tomorrow's mission: sneak onto the private beaches of the hotels a lanyao bay!

should be an amazing day tomorrow, its summer and im in paradise!

schools out for summer...schools out forever

so yeah just officially finished my studies here at guangzhou today. doesnt seem like it all, its summer time though! i still have no money, but im going to sanya tomorrow with mike. its pretty much the hawaii of china so im stoked to go chill on the beach.

im pretty much all packed up in my room, its all going in two suitcases which is kinda gnarly.

this week has been really amazing actually minus the wallet incident. ocean's bday on wednesday, our going away party last night, and then we went on a boat ride on the pearl river tonight. it was a great way to spend our last week in guangzhou.

lots of photos to share but i really have no time as i havent packed for sanya and i have to leave at 9 tomorrow and i havent slept much in the last few days.

4 weeks-ish and im back in america!

expect a big party for my/divahhh's/tyler's coming home

rinse and repeat

i wake up and look out my window to see the sun shining on a beautiful partly cloudy day and within an hour or two it returns to monsoon-esque weather with really heavy rain falling sideways

so over it

venting

wow fuck my phone service, whenever i finally get through to someone who might be able to help me with the shitty situation im in my phone runs out of money. apparently calling hongkong is long distance. i tried to call the american express office but they didnt speak english and hung up on me... awesome. then i got transfered to the hongkong hotline with someone who was telling me that there are no places to buy travelers checks in guangzhou, but i can buy them in Lhasa the capitol of tibet. its the biggest city in the fucking country! gahhhhhh. now i cant call anyone so i have to go and dish out more money that i dont have to try and figure this stupid shit out with some outsourced person in India trying to read chinese cities to me.

*edit- apparently there is no office in guangzhou, wow. the closest one is in shenzhen, i guess the gaungzhou branch doesn't exist anymore(fuck you american express website), so im abandoning this idea and ive got a much better one.

woke up today and the sun was shining and the day was looking up, hopefully all is not lost

ending the weekend on a good note

icees still make everything better

this weekend is over, for once im stoked for monday

wow fuck this rain

just as i was getting setup to make a painting in the village is starts to downpour of nowhere, i make the trek back to my dorm soaking wet cause i lost my umbrella the other day though it wouldnt have helped in this rain. i just got back and rinsed off and now the power just went out, this is best weekend ever........

so over this weekend

-two failed nights of trying to get out of the university town

-eating bbq by myself while surrounded by groups of friends

-lost my wallet on the bus

-i have about 30 us dollars to my name

-i owe 1000 dollars for dorm rent within the next week

-tried to make a painting, looks like a 4th grader painted it

-still raining, with no end in sight

-its only saturday night

god help me if it is still gloomy and raining tomorrow, i might just sit in bed and sleep, so over this weather.

my afternoon

the best lunch ever, two plates of sou si kai and some bo lo bi (pineapple beer, actually just soda but they call it beer)no rain so i decided to go sketch, this is my setup
ghetto palette on a plastic bag
no one drives in the university town
yeah im embellished the background a lot.....but my teacher would just do the same when i showed it to him
went skating again finally. it was so nice not to have any rain for one day. im gonna go hit up some bbq in the village. another quiet friday night. after spending my last two friday nights in shanghai and beijing guangzhou is rather underwhelming.

and it came to bite me in the ass

this photo deserves its own post. if anyone ever talked to me before i came to china you probably heard me complain about how i learned how to say "i have two tickets to the beijing opera" before i learned to say "i want food" . i always said that i would never need the first phrase and how useless it was. well low and behold here i am with two beijing opera tickets in my hand, damn you stupid chinese language lesson plan you were right. caitlyn has already said "i told you so" and im sure one from my parents wont be far behind.

finally the photos are up

these are some of the choice photos from our trip up north in china. they are all out of order cause they were shot on 3 different cameras, so just read the captions n stuff. enjoy!

and so our journey begins, 18 hours to huangshan, luckily we got bottom bunks
good morning huangshan!
these guys have to carry these gnarly loads up tons of stairs all day. craziest calves ever!

climbing to my roost
perfect spot to attempt to sketch hah

finding our way on top of lotus peak
gotta stretch out!
moganshan art district....meh
on my mission at tianamen square
kicking it with Yu Ji

epic much?
stair to lotus summit, the tallest in huangshan


our buddies at the hotel
climbing up the western stairs, we walked down to the lowest part of the canyon and back up the other side....so many stairs
no sunrise =(

quintessential huangshan
gnarly crosswalk on nanjing road
bund photo #74563450834527852348752 ever taken


yay tourism trap!
awesome dumpling thingys for 3 yuan around the corner from our hostel
speaks for itself

PuDong district
suzhou canals
fishing suzhou style
the real suzhou
canals at night just before our delightful encounter with Ross and Bob

crouching tiger hidden dragon
1000! year old pagoda, china's leaning tower of pisa
this photo is vertically lined up, this thing is leaning like crazy


oh mike and his naps
tre bombs, not A-bombs
hutong district where our hostel was located, cool street

oh the pollution in beijing, you cant even see a mile away
this old dude was so stoked
shredding the gnar

this looked so unsanitary yet so awesome at the same time
all the tours stopping to get a photo of the stadium, this is as close as you can get
the photo op
summer palace
our far to short yet exhilarating section of our boat ride to the summer palace

factory 798 photo gallery, so many amazing photos.
and old weapons factory from the culture revolution turned modern art district


nike's exhibit: 100 victories over drag
chair made of rice!
the last original culture revolution propaganda painting in 798
mike and his ufo toy as we killed time in Tunxi
asian girls at the central academy
these are the kids who bombarded us with question at the huangshan railway station, the one on the right was the ring leader
and then one of them got the bright idea to ask us for autographs and every kid in the station wanted one
our rockstar moment. definetly made both of our days
dillon and oswald the scavenged mannequin

rob and the now dressed oswald ready to party
tsing tao, the official drink of backpacker in hostels all over china

ghetto ride in a motorized trike through back alley and construction sites from the hostel to the suzhou railway station
stereo setup while waiting for our train in shanghai
ughhhh

kungfu tea!
oswald strikes again in beijing with his owner tiago
everyone was dressed in suits and at least a button up shirt and what was mike wearing