Saturday night here in Auckland. Had a nice week here so far. Spent Monday and Tuesday resting mostly at the hostel, and then took a free bus tour of the city offered through the hostel, which was fun. Our first stop was the Sky Tower, a Space Needle-like building that's either the tallest or second tallest in the southern hemisphere (at 200m), and the tour guide gave away a free jump off of it, which I didn't win, unfortunately. The jump, which is a wire-assisted base jump with a maximum velocity of around 100km, normally costs about $200, which is a ghastly price to pay for a 200m jump when skydiving costs about the same. I met two nice Germans on the bus during lunch on Wednesday, and we joined up again on Thursday and Friday for day trips. On Thursday we took the ferry to Waiheke Island, which is a little smaller than Bainbridge but dedicated mostly to vineyards and summer homes, and walked around to a few of the beaches, ending back in Auckland in the evening. On Friday we took a different ferry over the Rangitoto, a volcanic island formed only 400 years ago. There is little development on the island and no infrastructure, so we ended up walking up to the top (a gorgeous view of the city), down the other side and around the shore back to the ferry dock, clocking about four and a half hours of hiking. The big news from yesterday was that Tevon started feeling sick and had to delay his flight to New Zealand by four days, so in the mean time I plan to travel on a bus up to the town of Paihia tomorrow, stay the night, come back in the evening on Monday, and meet up with Tevon Tuesday afternoon so we can bus down to the farm on Wednesday.

My first impressions of New Zealand are positive; people are generally kind and helpful, and there is a distinctive international feeling to the city of Auckland, even beyond the hostel. Pretty much every foreigner here speaks English, which makes a certain amount of sense, but it certainly brings attention in my mind to the severe lack of foreign language education in the United States. The German girl that I hiked around with was fluent in German, English, Spanish, French, and Flemish; and there I was, feeling pretty good about being conversational in Spanish. Sure showed me.

To make a long story short, I made it to Auckland.

To make a short story long, my journey began on Friday during lunch break, when my left foot began to hurt talking on the phone with Raven and degressed to the point where I couldn't put weight on it by the time I got to my room to finish packing. I hopped my way to Zije's house to tell her that we would need to stop off at the hospital on the way to the airport, which was fine by her, as long as I had Master Yen, the White Crane instructor, look at it first. Yen prodded my foot a little and then proceded to take each of my toes in turn and yank, shake and wiggle them in every possible direction. The funniest part is that outside of the excruciating immediate pain this caused me, it probably helped the healing process, because the next day, after applying a Chinese ointment prescribed from the hospital, my foot was 100% healed. So that was good, considering the consequences of a serious foot injury could have been a trip home. Once we got to the hotel, Zije translated for me that they didn't accept credit cards, and to my dismay I found only 160 yuan, a little less than the 200 the room cost, so Zije convinced the clerk to let me stay the night for 100 as long as I went to the Bank of China a few miles away the next morning to get the rest of the money, using my remaining 60 yuan for the taxi. Forunately this worked; there was doubt because the ATM near the hotel rejected my card, and I don't know what I would have done if it hadn't.

I made it to the Wuyishan airport (a ten minute walk from the hotel) at 2:00, and sat around in the domestic terminal until the international terminal opened at 5:30. I got into Hong Kong at about 8:30 and immediately located a bacon cheeseburger, after which I tried to find space in a nap room at the airport lounge, only to find that they were sold out, so I ended up benching it for six or seven hours. After spaghetti bolognese and chocolate milk for breakfast and a chicken burger and chocolate sundae for lunch, my reintegration into western society was complete and I spent the rest of my time reading and taking advantage of complimentary airport computers (my laptop cord decided to stop working on Friday).

Ten hours later, I landed in Auckland at around 7:30 in the morning and bussed into downtown to find my hostel, the Fat Camel. I rested and read in the common room for a while and wandered around, finding a Seattle coffee shop and a Thai restaurant to read in. Now I have four-ish days before I meet up with Tevon and will probably see a movie and bus around a little to see the surrounding area while I wait.

An exciting and important week so far here. I've made the tough decision to leave the school, and China all together, and head to New Zealand to meet up with with my friend Tevon and join him in working on an organic farm until the end on November. I began to feel at the beginning of last week that things here were not going to work out for me long term; the training was a part of it, but mainly the mental exhaustion and frustration was too much to take. I leave the school tomorrow with Zije, the owner's wife, who will take me to an airport hotel in Wuyishan. On Saturday I will fly to Hong Kong, and then on Sunday to Auckland, where I will stay at a hostel until Tevon arrives on Friday. I should have more details on the farm within the next week. After the month at the farm, Tevon and I will travel to Christchurch to maintian our regularly scheduled programming (meeting up with Chris, Ben, Dante, my Dad and Graham). Thanks to everybody for your support through all of this. I will write again from Auckland.

Week two in the bag. Had a hard last three days of the training week as well; we ended us sparring on Friday, where only two of us wanted to/could spar, so I was matched up against Russell, who outweighs me 95 to 72 kilograms. We had a good match, but I ended the day with a large black eye and a left thigh disabled from leg kicks; in the end, no hard feelings and a good learning experience, but Russell hyperextended his elbow during the match and won't be able to use it fully for a while. Injuries aside, it was a very tough week mentally and I needed all the patience I could muster to pull through.

The weekend, on the other hand, was very fun. On Friday we all headed into Taining and went to a great barbecue place to eat. Two hours later, stuffed with bacon rolls, duck hearts, chicken skewers and rice flaps we got the bill: 27 yuan each, about four dollars. By far the best food deal of my life. The next day was spent almost entirely in two places: the coffee shop near the hotel where we stayed (from one until six) and back to the barbecue from eight until two. I stayed the night in town again after the barbecue and came back today mid-afternoon, where I was beckoned into the kitchen to help make dumplings with Zije, the owner's wife, and the cooking staff. Simple dough with a vegetable filling; very satisfying eating your own cooking. Tomorrow the pain starts again.

Two days into this week, things are not looking quite as bright as last post. Our class, originally 8 people, was down to one fully functioning member today, after a knee injury, a groin injury, an ankle injury resulting in a defection to White Crane style, another defection, someone taking a mental rejuvenation day off, someone with a general leg injury, and myself slightly pulling a hamstring during forced stretching yesterday. The mood was generally frustrated and demoralized, and I ended up taking the afternoon session off to rest and hopefully not re-aggravate my injury. 

The Chinese mentality towards training injuries is unless you can't use it, keep training on it and the pain will go away, something that frustrates all of us and is, of course, completely contradictory to our western health idealogy. Our teacher told us today that he's been through what we are going through right now, with small, nagging injuries, and that if he hadn't pushed through it he wouldn't be where he is today. He also told us that he pushed too hard once, snapped his hamstring, and couldn't function for three months. We are all doubting the choice to plunge our unconditioned western bodies into deeply challenging Wushu practice without a chance to acclimate to the training intensity and atmosphere. We reason that, after all, when our teacher was starting out doing what we are doing now he was 10 years old, naturally flexible and naturally quick-healing. After realizing that I had pulled my hamstring a little, I took precautions to avoid aggravating it further, but trying to explain this to my teacher was useless. It is, after all, a minor injury, and I figure that with a day or two of rest it should heal. After pushing myself again today, though, I slightly re-aggravated it. Very, very frustrating. Not having the best time here, because of a combination of factors. I'll see how I feel tomorrow...

One week in China today. The last three days of training were progressively easier than the first two, but the soreness has yet to wear off completely. Thursday and Friday focused more on forms than conditioning than Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and we even got to spar (in full Sanda gear - chest protector, foot/shin guards, gloves, and headgear) on Friday. Friday evening, last night, we took the last bus into Taining and checked into the local Holiday Inn (two to a room), got cold drinks (thank god) and food, wandered around the city a little and ended up at Scott (the school's owner)'s bar. Side note: while Scott is in England getting a torn ACL repaired, his friend and business partner Richard is running things in his stead. After a few hours of pleasant conversation and games we all retired to our rooms at the hotel - only a few seconds away. 

Today, after a sleep-in on a comfy bed and soft pillow, we stocked up on supplemental food for the next week at Joy Mart, the Chinese equivalent of WalMart, only smaller and with techno music. In town we met up with Jing, our Wushu instructor, who, when we saw him, was toting a bag of cigarettes. Surprised, we asked him if he smoked, and he told us (through pantomiming) that he smokes two to three packs a week. Unbelievable.

Tomorrow is another day of rest at the academy. Probably watch some movies and hang out.

Above student accomadations:

Tai Chi area

Student accomodations:

View from accomodations:
Walking towards training hall from accomodations:

Still sore after my second day... my instructor says I should be able to do the front splits tomorrow (with his help in the form of weight) because i was only a few inches away today. Which sounds nice, but it hurts like nothing else (besides some of the other stretches). Day 2, overall, was not as bad as Day 1, thank god. But i should sleep well tonight. We had noodles for dinner tonight, which was a nice switch from the usual rice and veggies; it was greatly appreciated. Not much different here... but the sun shone for the first time since I got here, which was wonderful. Here's a picture of the view from just outside of my room, my room, and the training hall:

I made it through my first day of training, and think I'm going to stick with Wushu. The teacher is young, 24, and just arrived at the academy last week. He placed fourth in China's national competition this year, so I guess he's pretty qualified. We did a ton of stretching (including some forced stretching), and a lot of squatting in various forms. The basics of Wushu are very similar to Karate, but the stances are much, much lower. We did a total of six hours of training today, and I'll be sore as hell tomorrow morning. There's a belief common to most Chinese people that drinking cold water is bad during excercise (as is sitting), so during our breaks we have to just stand around and talk. There are eleven total students at the school right now, and eight of us did Wushu today; we'll see how many stick around.

I made it to the school yesterday after a full day of travel. Phew. Got up this morning and met the four students remaining from before, and went into the nearest town, Taining, and got a massage (for 28 yuan, about 4 dollars) and looked around shops. While waiting for a taxi in the lobby of the local Holiday Inn, a Chinese family offered us fruit and then and had us sit down for tea with them (using the hotel lobby tea set). We talked for about an hour, using a Chinese phrase-book to get our points across, and probably went though about a pint of green tea each. What and experience! The town is rather remote and we were the only Westerners for many, many miles, and were stared at wherever we went. We took pictures with a number of families, and recieved a nice "Welcome to china!" from a Chinese mother with her kids. I think things are going to turn out alright here.

Landed here in Incheon/Seoul in S. Korea after an 11 hour flight. Everything here is bilingual, including the airport employees. Very convenient. Fly next to Xiamen and then to Wuyishan. Six hours until final arrival. Picture from the airport:

Skype

If you have Skype, my name is mattbaranmickle. I should be able to talk during my afternoons, which are evenings back home.

Tomorrow I fly to Seoul for the first leg of my flight to China. I will end up in Wuyishan airport in Fujian Province, and from there I will travel a couple of hours into the mountains to Taining Rising Dragon Martial Arts school. I should be arriving in conjuction with six other people, most of whom are staying a little longer than I will be. Here's a map of China (Fujian Province is across from Taiwan):

Pictures and stuff coming soon.