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