At the Shaolin Temple - DengFeng, Henan province

All the tea in China

Although I can find reasons to drink all the listed teas, I bought 1, 5 and 9..

Salon de Ning - Shanghai

Me and my date leaving Salon de Ning

Says it all!

Le palais Crosby a Qufu

Oblong building in the middle is where was home for almost 2 weeks

Chinese toddlers - let it all hung out!

Qufu - Outside Confucious Temple

Qufu - Confucious mansion

Sat 20th Aug - Last day in Shanghai

On Saturday we tried to fit in as much as possible. We started at the Urban Planning museum in the People's square.  it sounds very dry but it was a very interesting exhibition on the urban development of Shanghai from 18th century to-date and beyond.  Then a brief visit to the opera house in the same square, which is architecturally interesting. Then to pedestrian XIan Di quarter where we had lunch at very nice Shanghainese restaurant called Ye Shanghai - great dim sums!
Then on to Yu gardens in the Old Street district.  the gardens were designed in the 1550s with successive courtyards and beautiful pagodas, lakes with koi fish and high rockery. in one of the halls we came upon a tea ceremony - the Chinese guy talking us through the different types of tea we were tasting was so convincing I bought a lot more, bloody expensive Tibet grown teas to address every possible ailment. If you fail to recognise me in the near future, it could be put down to drinking copious amounts of No5 sweet tea which not only heals rhinitis but promotes female facial beauty and puts paid to hemorrhoids too!
From there we parted company with Theo who returned to the hotel and I went on a shopping spree in the adjacent streets with antique stores. I returned laden with shopping bags and just in time to pack, clean up and leave for the French district and the Coconut Paradise - a highly recommended Vietnamese restaurant. A combination of couple of cocktails and spicy food, despite the long walk after our meal, kept me up most night gazing through the drapes at the amazing night skyline.

Sun 21st August
The following morning, after breakfast we took a taxi to the Bullet train station for the last must-do thing in Shanghai..a ride to the Pu Dong airport.  It was worth all the dragging around of our 3 suitcases and 3 pieces of hand-luggage! The train took 6-7min to get us to the airport and at top speed it did 431klm..

Some pictures

At the school ground trying to look menacing

Fri 19th Aug - Shanghai Hot

First dry, clear sky and hot day in Shanghai..Today we walked to the pier and took the cruise boat..pleasant tour up and down the river for water views of the city..the embankments both side of the river were spotlessly clean and beautifully lined with trees and bushes creating green patches amongst the concrete and steel. We then went to the Shanghai World Financial centre (SWFS) officially the tallest observatory in the world. We got pictures done on the 100th floor skywalk and a certificate to prove it! The floor on the 100th floor platform was made of glass in many places so you could see all the way down..not a good place for vertigo sufferers..Then relaxing in the room for Theo whilst I slipped in another treatment - facial and shoulder massage. Very quick dinner at the exquisite cantonese restaurant of Grand Hyatt, The Canton as we had to rush across the other side of the town and the frightfully busy tunnel under the river to the Shanghai centre Theatre to watch Shanghai Acrobatic. The show was a modern take of traditional chinese acrobatics..very well done...some of the acts had stupendous difficulty in their routines..on our descend from the theatre centre i came upon Zhang textiles an antique textiles and embroideries shop, also favoured by Bill Clinton (Is there anywhere this guy has not been in Shanghai?) and the evening finished in a rather expensive way for me...Oh well a glass of red at Cloud 9 will underline another good day in Shanghai!

Thur 18th Aug - Results from afar

Today was a slow day, tinged with nervousness by Theodore who was awaiting his A-Level results in the afternoon. As it turned out he had good reason to be nervous..
So after a late breakfast we walked to the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium where we spent few hours. Then we returned to the room, we received the dolorous news, absorbed the bitterness, made few phone calls and sent few emails to couple of faculties and went out again. We wandered around the financial centre and the IFS mall for couple of hours. Shanghai is really a marvel of modern architecture. The skyline is really amazing and all the roads and pavements very neat. In the evening I had booked dinner at the Lost Heaven restaurant-must-visit according to a lux guide in our room. Mekong cuisine from Yunnan province on the border with Cambodia. very dimly lit I mistook the burnt chillies in the beef dish for strips of beef, spent good part of the rest of the meal with my tongue dipped in the glass of Tsingtao beer. otherwise the meal was quite good! The french quarter where the restaurant was in was also quite pretty and so different than the ultra glitzy, sky-scrappery PuDong side of the city. I then took reluctant Theodore to Salon de Ning in the Peninsula hotel on the Bund. This is the third Salon de Ning in a series inspired by the fictional Shanghai socialite and traveller, Madame Ning. The other 2 are in HK and NYC. The decor is 1930s decadence and a live band of 4 plus a man and a woman singers completed the picture. it was a quiet night, evidenced by the staff ushering Theo and I to two archairs right in front of the band..The singers were very both very good but the diminutive woman singer was exceptional..It was quiet until 2 40something black sassy women came in and sat next to us.. those two whooped it up and the band that obviously recognised them as repeat customers, started playing black anthems. The scene was right out of a film, both women were drawing from an an obsenely long cigar dancing to the groove with extended index fingers gyrating towards the woman singer..the latter was belting you were somebody else;s guy and our ladies were accompanying her with...mmmmmmmmmm..mmmmhhhhhhh..Oh Yes you did Giiiiirlll1!! I guess you had to be there..but they really made our night!!

Wed 17th Aug - Shanghai

Shanghai is like Manhattan on double steroids, bigger, taller, musclier and with tons more people and far cleaner (at least the centre)..I am inspecting the vast areas of tall buildings from my 81st floor suite..the whole front wall is made of glass..an advantage until yesterday..this morning I woke up very early from the noise of high winds and driving rain far more audible against the glass wall than would have been on concrete. Could not go back to sleep so left comatosed Theo in bed for another three hrs whilst I had a long breakfast, manicure, pedicure, head and shoulders massage and a consultation with the head concierge about where to go and what to see in the City. Heaven!
We started from the cultural centre of the Town - The Peoples Square and the Shanghai museum. Before going to the right place dim taxi driver took us to the Shanghai exhibition centre instead where we bought tickets and walked into a chinese books exhibition - all in chinese..no wonder we were the only foreigners around..swift exit and another taxi driver, this one right dodgy, left the meter on from previous customer at CNY40 thinking we would not notice the 5min drive was going to cost double the earlier 20min ride..we had a small altercation with him when I just handed him CNY20 but he bid a fast retreat when we started waiving our hotel umbrellas in the manner of Shaolin sticks..
The museum had a good collection of pottery, calligraphy, jade, furniture, paintings, etc but was not fantastic..still it was free..then we went to the zoo that is Old Street and surrounding streets..This is the upper market flea market of Shanghai with all kinds of shops selling every traditional Chinese arts & crafts, street performers, chinese theatre, persistent beggars, Rolex street sellers, the works! we spent few hours there, bought jewellery at Fangua - apparently famous chinese jeweller that had enjoyed the custom of many visiting dignitaries as conveyed by the photos around the shop. We ate at traditional Shanghainese restaurant of Lo Bo Lang under the picture of younger Bill & Hilary Clinton enjoying the same specialities..I know I should not be surprised by now at how much Theodore can put away, but he did surprise me and the serving staff with his gargantuan appetite..we then brought Theodore and his belly baby back to the hotel for couple of hours of reading and relaxing before we visited the 2 bars of the hotel..Cloud 9 on the 87th floor - very impressive but we preferred the much warmer (literally the chinese do crank up the aircon to the point that you would gladly wear a cardigan indoors) piano bar on 53rd floor. Jazz duo piano and bull-bass accompanied a miaowing singer..we sincerely could not tell when she was singing chinese vs english but the Chilean wine was good and managed to resist temptation of buying a cohiba cigar from the impressive cigar box..

Tue 16th Aug - Last day in Qufu

And so our last day arrived, hot, overcast but with a slight breeze making all the weeping willows around the school sway as if saying farewell.. we cheerfully went through our morning classes and lunch and then our mood got heavier as we started cleaning and packing and saying our goodbyes to our masters and fellow students. Zhang shifu intimated he wants to be a film star in action movies and wants to come to London, so we invited him to come and stay with us whenever he wants. We gave all the things we had bought to make our room comfortable, bedsheets, pillows, towels, carpet, kettle to Nelly and Lia, the 2 translators of the school who were too happy for words. They are getting paid virtually peanuts and we gave them represented more than their combined monthly salaries. After dinner, the calligraphy teacher who doubles as taxi driver and his wife, drove us to the 2hr drive to Jining airport. For one more time as in our previous drives by car and train rides I observed the infrastructural miracle of modern China. It is not a fluke! In all these provincial cities and rural areas we went through, beautiful big highways, bridges, overpasses, fantastic airports and futuristic train stations. Very frequently in the middle of nowhere we would see these huge residential projects under construction; a clear effort to attract and retain population in the rural areas. We also saw at least 2 nuclear stations. Most cars in the streets were less than 10yrs old a far cry from 15yrs ago when they were very few cars in the streets and most were held together with elastic bands..Flight back to Shanghai was on time and uneventful..Arrived Shanghai at midnight. The Grand Hyatt driver in his uniform awaited at Hong Jiao arrivals. In the air-conditioned limo for a smooth ride to the familiar opulence of yet another 5star hotel..and yet I was melancholic..I missed the academy and its raw, true spirit.

Mon 15 Aug - My chi is down!

Felt lethargic all day, so much so, that I threw a sickie to avoid the 3pm class. To be fair it has been over 30c and very humid..Did do the 2 morning classes though and managed to eventually get alright one of the 7 step formations and in the process catch a muscle in my left groin.. Highlights of the day, playing with Gremlin and Paddles, the tiny puppies found abandoned outside the gates of the school last weekend, and talking to a French girl, Alex, who I was shocked to find out she's only 17 and already living on her own and travelling and working since she was less than 16! She does her schooling through internet, and hopes to finish over the next 1yr she'll be at the Shaolin academy. She's learning Mandarin and teaches English over the weekend to make ends meet.She wants to study business law in either Cambridge or Oxford or Harvard Her mother, a famous french designer, has stopped giving her money since she was 14yrs old and has been working since then for her spending money..

Sun 13 Aug - Dengfeng to Qufu - observations of foreign traveller

Breakfast at the Shaolin Int'l (my ass) hotel was a big array of chinese pickles and delicious, as chinese hostess told us, breads. We came out to the main hall where a frisson of excitement and flurry of activity by staff prevailed. A number of them were covering the at least decent marble floor with rolls of awful quality red carpet. Assistant manager Yu could hardly contain himself when he told us beaming: premier person of Mozambique is honouring us with visit. I pointed the ripplY everywhere carpet and told him the president would probably fall over that disgusting carpet. He looked at me very happy and said; Oh thank you very much! Of course at that point I gave up. Paid my bill, about 4 clerks had a little conference to charge my visa card - I only had 2 waters..example how the easiest of tasks can be made to look difficult..so inefficient!
We then boarded a private taxi, which assistant manager Yu arranged when I turned down the normal taxi for the 1.5hrs trip. Normal taxis look like cages with a big metal grid between the front and back seats and no aircondition by most of them. The car called was a beaten up small Nissan with probably the cousin of the assistant manager dring it. The driver had no knowledge of english..I had asked Yu to forbid him to smoke - so he stabbed out his cigarette end and kept givng me black looks for the duration of the trip through the rear view mirror. The driving in the roads and highways is so bad it is beyond words can describe. Everybody overtake from all sides, you are customarily on head on collision course with cars from the other direction, avoided the last second, the double uninterrupted line is used as a zig-zag marker, cyclists and motocyclists cut through in front of oncoming traffic, their faces totally indifferent to the wake-up-the-dead honking of oncoming cars, I can go on for a while..
Eventually arrived at Zhengzhou main train station..had 1hr to kill so I succumbed to Theo's begging for a KFC meal which he came to regret much later as it upset his tammy. There were 3 large KFC and 2 McDonalds restaurant around the station and they were all full. Whilst I was washing my hands at the KFC and a guy next to meet was washing his feet at the basin, Theodore observed a man walking up to the counter , shouted something angrily in Cjinese and threw his burger at a female assistant's face. She in turn grabbed a tray to attack him as he charged behind tje counter; intercepted by a manager with a placating drink of Coca Cola which the angry man grabbed and threw on the floor. I came out at the point hey were finishing cleaning the cola. The funny thing was that everybody looked and nobody did anything to restrain the abusive customer, diners, other staff and most importantly the 2 security guards wjo were just watcjoing as if nothing to do with them. As we were leaving the bully was back at the counter shouting again and waving his hands threateningly toa 4-feet tall female assistant..Theo had to physically push me out of the store as my natuaral instinct was to jump on him..
The trainstation was a maze and pretty much all signs and announcements in Chinese. We managed somehow to get on the right platform and train just in time. For the next 4 hrs - read my book and listened to music to avaid the disgusting hawking and spitting noises that both male and female chinese do with alarming frequency. We almost missed getting out at the right station as the train screen was saying Qufudong and we thought this was different to our Qufu. Saved by the nosy parker old lady next to me who every now and then would lean over and take a good look at the page I was reading and tjhen move back. Whilst through her routine she saw the toicket I have taken out and started shouting in chinese that this was our station and harry out +i half the wagonm got up and started pulling our things from overhead shelf and helping us get out fast! Oif it were not for thjem we would up next station 1hr away in Jinan!
Outside the station and at the taxi rank tried to explain to the first driver in the queue - Shaolin Wushu tsiao, to no avail. A flash mob of a dozen cabbies gathered around me having a loud debate about where I was going whilst I was trying to locate the mobile number of translator Nelly, who eventually explained the right address. We left the taxi rank with all the drivers waving and shouting Halo!
Back at school in time for dinner, catching up with other studentys and doing ouur laundry..

Sat 13th Aug - Zhengzhou to Dengfeng

I treated to breakfast my fellow students that stayed in youth hostel in town. It was a huge buffet and they proved that sometimes a flat price does not work in favor of the hotel! I had afterwards arranged for a Mercedes minibus to drive us to Dengfeng, wait whilst I checked in at the Shaolin Int'l hotel, drop all our things in our room and then drive us up to the Shaolin temple where our headmaster Wei shifu would be waiting. The hotel was OKish, definitely not very int'l most of the staff did not speak English. Only the assistant manager did in quite an amusing wrong way..but he was at least trying. The temple was the local Disneyland..for couple of miles before the site you had peddlers and shops of all kind, mainly Shaolin paraphernalia - weapons, beads, clothes etc. We got special treatment as they allowed our driver to go past the first entrance to the top. There we met with 2 more students who had arrived to Dengfeng the previous day, Ryan (Spanish crazy tattooed hippy with shaven head minus a tuft in the front and a small ponytail in the back) and Federico (Colombian engineer - normal looking 38yr old). The 9 of us were taken by Wei shifu through all the gates without paying, straight into a performance by the monks which was amazing and videotaped by Theo. Having done and seen at the school a tiny fraction of what these were doing made me appreciate even more the extraordinary difficulty of their routines.
The monastery and temple consisted of several buoldings arranged around courtyards ascending the mountain. The buildings were beautiful; very evocative with camphora essence burning everywhere and monks' recorded chanting piped through hidden loudspeakers. What was not very beautiful were the mindless hordes of thousands of Chinese tourists charging through every opening. We were taken up the hill opposite the temple for some of the students to find a place to stay and to also get some lunch. Foreign tourists are taken for a ride in this place - everywhere they tried to rip us off and in few instances they achieved it. At lunch we sat at a very basic place, outside in the heat in a dirty courtyard under rickety fans. We ordered several beers and at least 10 dishes and a bowl of rice each. The bill came to Y700 which is very expensive for a good restaurant in that part of China. We had a standoff and managed to take it down to Y500 which was still double what it should have been. We when spend the afternoon being guided around the grounds by 2 13yr old monks. They were very patient with our partyof wandering monkeys. They had several cuts each on their heads, obviously from their training and conditioning. About the latter, there were several ancient trees in the courtyards with holes the size of fingers from monks' training over hundreds of years. The young monks also unlocked couple of halls and showed us the floors, where similarly, the floor had caved from the repetitive jumping and stumping of training feet.
We did some shopping at the shops outside the temple and then some more in the back streets of Dengfeng. Everywhere we were surrounded by impossibly cute toddlers with crotch-less jumpsuits and pants. This is standard in provincial China for all babies and toddlers, begging the obvious question what do parents or whoever holds the baby do when the inevitable happens!?
In the evening we all gathered at our 4star hotel for a western buffet. Couple of us had a la carte menu and the rest the buffet. I think management will be revisiting their price after Ryan scoffed everything in sight. He had over 7-x big plates and one of all the desserts - and there were several. Without the wine, the bill came to Y700 which further validated how conned we were up at the mountain. After a long day and few glasses of lovely Chianti I passed out into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Fri 12 Aug - TGIF

Another hot and sticky day but with a bit of merciful breeze. After breakfast, we had 1.5hrs of Shaolin power stretching. We were pulled and stretched in impossible positions, so much so than I thought I tore few ligaments. Hobbled back to the room for 20min and then off to running, warming up and on to shaolin formations. I have finally grasped the basic 5-6 step formations..Lunch, pack our bags for the next 2 days on the road and catch some sleep before the 3pm workout. Running, warming up and chinese kickboxing. Although we were hurting we did not mind as we were 1hr away from leaving. We got taxis to Qufu and had dinner at the hostel. The Qufu train station was very impressive, huge, modern, clean and air-conditioned would put to shame most western stations. The same with the fast train from Jinan (Shadong's capital)to Zhengzhou.it was not quite a bullet train, it was what they call a D train. Very new and spotlessly clean. Every 15min hostesses would come round to pick up trash and sweep the corridors. The only reminder we were in China was the horrible hawking and spitting they do..almost 4hrs later at 11.20 we arrived to busy, dirty and hot Zhengzhou station. Theo and I left the others to find a hostel and with some guilt took off for our 5star hotel - Sofitel. I cannot describe the relief and pleasure of rolling in our beautifully clean, luxurious rooms and bathrooms. First time in a week we could sink our aching bodies in soft beds. Heaven!!

Thur 11th Aug - Shaolin students in the mist

We woke up to a fine rain and mist sitting low on the ground. Theo would not get out of bed, this little warrior was already spent..I fetched him breakfast and made it just in time for 8.30 class. We were fulling expecting to be dismissed because of the rain and we train al fresco. No such luck, our Zhang shifu is the youngest and toughest of the masters. He made us run in the rain and then warm up in the patio in front of the main building. He then marched us outside the walls of the compound under a large aluminium canopy where we did body conditioning. This means different thing in Shaolin parlance - it involves getting punched and kicked repeatedly in different parts of your body to toughen them up to withstand pain. After 1hr of literally getting beaten to joyful shouts of shifu: Harder, No pain, no gain!we were allowed to hoble back to our digs. The rain continued so I thought we were going to be left to relax as promised by shifu. I was caught on my way to wash our dirty clothes, so was the newest arrival, Rob. The rest did not bother showing up. So we were the only lucky ones to receive a private lesson and theory of Chiqong by our shifu in the mid section of the lake. This was almost mystical. Chiqong engages the power of Chi with breathing and helps in mental and physical healing. As were going through the first 2 out of 8 basic formations watching the gentle rain on the green lake with the lilies something amazing happened! My brain for the first time totally emptied, and my aching limps relaxed. Afterwards I was so relaxed I almost flopped on the floor to sleep. At 3pm the rain had stopped. After the warming up ritual we were ushered in the very hot gym to do abs on the most disgusting smelly damp mattresses. No ordinary abs session, we were made to do 100 of each front, back, sides, hand stands and feet up on the wall with endless push ups. We were then taken in the forest behind the school and given more of everything we hated. A new record was listing another person on your shoulders and doing 15 squats. I sat on Theo's shoulder who almost and embarrassingly for both of us collapsed. He somehow squeezed the squats and collapsed afterwards. I amazed myself - lifted Eze a stocky girl about 60klg and did 16 squats! We literally crawled back to our hovel and collapsed. Strangely 30min later I was fine and in facy feeling energised and strong..Yippee!
The headmaster summoned all 7 traveling to the Shaolin temple tomorrow to let us know he called his younger brother who is a senior monk at the temple to arrange for monks to pick us up at the bus station on Sat morning and give us the VIP treatment and tour! That's very exciting cannot wait! Just when I thought could not finish on a better note, for dinner we were treated to variety of yummy dumplings along with other dishes. Theo was so happy he ate 3 plates of fried rice and one big plate of dumplings and forgot about his aches and pains..

Wed 10th August - Another scorcher

Around 30c with high humidity it was another difficult day to just get through the day.!reakast at 7am, first class 8.30-10am, then 30min break then another hour. We practised Shaolin formation after running and warming up - the latter is a joke as after running we are already drenched and as hot as furnaces. Lunch at 12 is always good and one has to hurry a) to get a seat and b) to get to the meat dishes. I have taken under my wing 2 boys that miss their mums / home; the 20yrs old French boy, Andreas, has been at the school 2yrs and is understandable he misses home. The 19yr old British boy, Rob, arrived 2days ago and is his first time away from home. He is here for 1 month and then he joins the RAF back home in Oct.
Theo and I slept like the dead after lunch and whatever little ebergy we could gather we went through the afternoon Seda kickboxing class. A quick shower afterwards and hoped on the bus to Qufu and the train station for tickets to Zhengzhou Friday evening. We managed to get on the fast train -like the one that crushed last month. This should take us to Zhengzhou in 4hrs. Seven of us are heading to Henan province to the Shaolin temple and the sacred Song mountain. That's the epicentre of Shaolin culture and where all our shifus have been trained since they were wee kids. We will be staying Friday night in Zhengzhou and following morning take a bus to Dengfeng where we will stay Saturday night. I booked luxurious hotels for both Theo and I - at £50 and £100 respectively which although very cheap by London standards, scandalised the translators at the school. After train tickets we walked around town, got some very tasty milkshakes from a very dodgy place and ended up at the Qufu hostel where we had nice dinner and caught taxis back just as the rain started and just in time for 9.30pm curfew.
I would have slept like a log if it weren't for abt 5 calls on my mobile vetween 10-11.30pm after which I struggled to sleep..

Tue 9th August - It's a hot one!

4th time I'm writing this entry - as the connection is cut off. Damn hard typing this on blackberry with unreliable internet connections.
So, hot and sticky today, the kind you barely breathe for the humidity in the air, let alone run and train. I stayed up well past the 10pm curfew catching with bad news in markets and London. I was using blackberry sitting in my bed and had couple of kamikaze fat bugs dropping from the ceiling on my screen and lap. I am almost non chalant about it..I just flicked them off me and the bed and I crass with my designated bug-killer slipper. In fact, we have become very profficient with Theodore in exterminating creepy crawlies; he spots the and I kill them and get rid of the evidence. He is very deft with the swatter - so he does the flies - he combines Shaolin jumps whilst doing this.
We gave elective Tai Chi a miss at 6am as we are both very stiff. I woke up with shooting pains up my legs and arms at 3am - so much for taking it in my stride. We went through the 3 other Shaolin classes - total 4hrs, 2.5 before lunch and 1.5hr after. The running alone before each class is a killer in this heat. We are changing 3 times per day and we are running out of clean, dry clothes.during the Shaolin jumps and rolls, I managed to get through the forward rolls we each had to perform on a line of mattresses in front of everybody else, but was excused for the backwards. Then it got quite spectacular with some seriously fit people able to follow Zhang shifu in his acrobatics. The master performed double rolls in the air amongst other. He is poetry in motion and totally effortless. After the last class finished at 4.30 we all dash for the 3 showers as we all queue in our swimming costumes and towels shouting to the lucky ones inside the cubicles to hurry up. After refreshing myself I had permission from the shifu to leave the compound and go to the supermarket to buy few things we needed. I took the bus outside the academy - all the passengers just stared at me which is what Chinese do with foreigners. Difficult to get used to. I went to a different supermarket today..I got a little too early and was saved by a woman whom I asked for directions - not knowing how to answer in English she grabbed me on to her moped and took me there - aufully nice of her. At the supermarket I was the only foreigners amongst hundeds of shoppers and staff. They all gawped at me so much so I had to feel my head for any protruding horns. Somehow managed to find all the items I wanted not for any help I got given - nobody spoke a word of english - oh I lied, they can say hello. Got a taxi back - Everybody knows Wushoo tsiao..at 7.30 - attended 1hr of Mandarin lesson with Lia, one of the translators. It was just me and a french guy so almost private. We learnt how to buy train tickets and ask for train timetablesn etc. Tomorrow will come in handy as I will be going to Qufu to buy train tickats to Zheng Zhou for Fri 12/8 as a bunch of us will be going to The Shaolin temple and Song mountain for the weekend.
Then I did stayed up late watching a movie with Theo - Notorious, about Biggy Smalls the Notorious B.I.G. - surprisingly good ..took me ages to sleep and I could feel every bone and muscle in my body aching!

Monday 8th Auugust - Let the games begin!

I was up at 5am and ready by 5.30am. Theodore struggled a bit but eventually hje was up too. The field in front of the main building was filling up with students doing their warming up moves. There's few that have been here for 2yrs like Joe the young French boy with the cheeky smile and bad mullet, courtesy of Qufu coiffures; Pete, he's been around for 1.5yrs, couple of other french guys also almost 2 yrs. The students are all in their 20s (same as my mental age), with only exceptions Federico - the colombian oil engineer, who is on 3m sabbatical from his job in Alaska and a weird, small old guy with the broadest N.Jersey accent like someone straight out of the sopranos. When the 5 shifus arrive with 2 translators we all formally line up facing them and headmaster Wei tels up about the program and dishes out penaltiees to the tresspassers of the weekend. One young Brit, Derek, got so drunk that he does not remember how he eended up in hospital with bad cuts on his hand and back and several of his things missing. Somehow he made it back to the school at 2am Sat. Other that missed the 10pm curfew were listed. They had to clean all the common areas inside and outside the scholl for a number of weeks according to the severity of their failing. I think Derek will be cleaning for the rest of the year! Then we we the new students we were asked to formally introduce ourselves. The warm up for Tai chi involves a lot of difficult stretching. We were assigned to Jao shifu who is the nicest in my view and also speaks some english. We learnt the basic steps and were made to repeat everything many times. We broke up at 7am for breakfast - soya milk with Nescafe Gold and chopped up banana never tasted better!

We resumed at 8.30 for Shaolin Basics. Before each class we have to run twice around the lake (1Klm) and then warm up with thorough sretching of each part of our bodies. That alone is exercise enough, but in humid heat like today's it was a struggle. The warming up lasts 45min and then another 45 min of basic steps and movement of shaolin kung fu. We then had less than 30min break, enough to rush to our cabin, cool down by the aircon, eat some nuts and take lots of vitamin C in our water before 10.30am we were gathered again for.Shaolin formations class. Again run 1klm in what is now 30c heat, warm up and 30min of yet more Shaolin Kung fu movements. By 11.40am Theo and I were drenched in sweat and red as lobsters. We rushed to take a shower and wash our sweaty clothes - all in less than 30min because lunchtime at 12, everybody was so hungry they did not even wait for the bell to ring. We did and could not find soace around the tables and most of the meat was gone. We then had a nice long rest until 3pm Sheda - Chinese kickboxing. You know the drill by now, run 1klm in 32c heat and what felt 90% humidity, warm up exercises and then basic steps an moves of Sheda in tthe gym which was like a furnace. At 4.30pm when we finished Jao shifu made us do again 40 push-ups (20 for me) and endless squats. We were both so sweaty and exhausted we could hardly walk to the showers again - but we did and it felt great despite the trickle of water that comes out - it takes me ages to rinse my hair. Dinner was earned and devoured by all.
I then had calligraphy lesson *t m30-8.30 with Federico and a duch-arab girl called Taz. I impressed the tutor when I drew the ideagram for horse and recognised couple of his - the one for wood and forest.
Very full and fulfilling Day - I looked at the markets before I went to sleep and frankly I could not care much!

Sunday 7th Augiust

Today after breakfast we braved the showers. We were happy to be clean again. Then we set off by bus NO6 (stops right outside the gates of the school). We visited Confucious mansion which was beautifully restored. The downside was thousands of Chinese tourists, each group with their own guide and each guide with a loudspeaker. They were all competing to bee heard and the outcome was pandemonium. Nobody seemed to mind - Chinese have total disregard to noise pollution anyway, other than the only 2 foreigners - us! We the had a pit-stop at the youth hostel which is where most of students hang out when allowed out of our school. They have such luxuries as chips and club sandwiches and nice coffee. The chinese do not have a good relationship with cheese and so you cannot buy it anywhere in Qufu..we then hitched a ride on a horse drawn cart with a friendly family from Fujian on hols. We all went to the Confusian cemetery outside the city walls. Basically
an ancient thick canopied forest with pathways and scattered around large standing tombstones and animal statues. Pleasant 1hr+ walk but humidity and mosquitoes made us cut it short. We took a motorised pedalo taxi back to the hostel, driven by a toothless old lady who cheerily bypassed our destination and almost drove inside a restaurant (probably her son's) where she wanted us to have a meal! We declined and proceeded to the third ancient site - a 15th century temple and gardens. From the three this was my favorite - probably because we were almost the only ones there and was so tranquil.After our cultural overload we decided to support the waning domestic demand in China. Now seriously, despite the thousands of people in the streets most of the shops were empty and I donkt blame the buying public, the fashions are terrible, incomprehensible who the target market is. Although I have yet to see a nicely dressed person, I have seen several women dressed like colourblind hookers on speed. In every shop there 2-3 people for the job of 1, sometimes more. My negotiations to buy an antique vase with an export certofocate failed ( I blame Nelly at the school who instructed to offer 1/3 and close at 1/2) but was successful in buying couple of nice pieces of jade at a good jewelery store at half the price , which my jeweler in Athens will turn into earrings. We bought extra flip flops which were immediately needed as out of nowhere a tropical downpour ensued and our umbrellas only managed to keep dry the top of our heads. We jumped into waters knee high - streets have drainage problem, and caught No6 bus back to school where we had dinner at 6pm and another very early night - asleep by 9pm.

First day in Qufu

The taxi took us to the largest super market in town - Inzwa, where we loaded up with bedsheets, pillows, a bamboo carpet to put in between our beds,electric kettle,mugs, water, food supplies, cleaning stuff, broom and of course precious toilet paper! We spent the rest of the day cleaning and managing to make our hovel somewhat liveable, even comfortable in a strange, spartan way. Lunch and dinner were quite decent with usually 4-6 different dishes served on each of 5 round dining table with ample amounts of steamed rice. Different vegetables and meat cooked every day, accompanied with cups of hot water. Food is definitely OK in this place. As it was raining all day we were back in our rooms quite early and fast asleep by 9pm.

First night at the Qufu Shaolin school

Still fuming, we washed the shelves of the book case and arranged our clothes. The place was so dusty it was beyond the joke. Our beds had 5cm thick mattresses and some kind of shitty cover and horrible, dirty looking pillows. For cover, we had one bath-towel each! We couldn't stop making jokes like who's going to get the spider web on his bed first.. Exhausted and emotionally drained we closed the lights and passed out by 10@m to be woken up at 2am by torrential rain and thunder. It went all night, sometimes so strong I had images of mudslides tossing our little hut in the lake..the rain continued in the morning..insistant, loud bells summon us for meals. Zam is breakfast - chinese cakes, hot water and sweet soya paowder (looks disgusting but tastes surprisingly OK). After as brief a visit to the dreaded toilets, hands clapping, tiptoeing over the dirty waters, we got a taxi and drove to Qufu town.

Qufu Shaolin Warrior Monk School

It's about 8pm 5/8 and dark when finally arrived at the school. The entrance of the walled compound resemples old chinese temples with ornate gates and security guards either side of it..we can see the big, artificial green lake that occupies centre stage and various chinese bungalows all around it whilst at the bottom there is a big 2 storey building where most of the students stay. So far so good, the car make the round of the lake and stops in front of a bigger bungalow to unload our suitcases. Outside all chinese themed and then doors open! Oblong big room with 2 steel framed beds, a desk, a chair and a bookcase which will be our wardrobe for the next almost 2weeks. A naked bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling, the dirtiest concrete tiles you've ever seen for floor, black with dirt windows covered by some tatty, flimsy yellow curtains and corogated iron beams all around. We are stunned but manage to put a smile on our faces and say we'll fix it. Of course our hosts point at the immense luxury of the aircondition over one of the beds with all the electrics also hanging naked through the wall to the electric socket. Cobwebs everywhere and the glass double door entrance with only dirt to obscure view inside our place.
The hosts push us to leave our things and have dinner. I need to pee so I insist we are shown the toilets which I knew they were going to be communal. With panick rising we walk a good 50-60m to the main building where the toilets and showers. OMG, OMG, OMG! I was not prepared for N.Korean army standard of facilities! The women's toilets were right next to the men, both disgusting with suspicious looking wet floors all over and no lights! Oh you have to clap your hands for the lights to come on says translator Nelly cheerfully. So clapping my hands I try to go about my business when I spot total absence of paper. I zip up and run outside again. By now we are joined by second translator, Joy (master 1ei's wife) who helpfully offers: oh you need to bring your own toilet paper! At this point I finally exploded in front of few gathered students as well..THEODORE WE ARE LEAVING THIS SHIT-HOLE NOW! Get me a taxi I want to go! Theodore looks alarmed and embarrassed. By now I have quite an audience: I have called you and emailed dozen times - at no point did you say bring your own bedsheets, towels and above all paper! So f++++ charge me, we just arrived after 24hr trip and you expect me to have toilet paper in my luggage ?!?! One of them scarpered to get me some paper. I still had to balance, not touching over the filthy toilet, clapping my hands every 30sec to keep the light on whilst holding the toilet roll in my mouth. As soon the immedite problem of relieving my bladder was addressed and substantially calmer I emerged from the toilets to a small welcoming committee of students sent to placate me. "You know the place is very substandard re hygiene but we are all here for the Kung-Fu and that is magical. The best there is said Peter who has been at the school for 1.5yrs.. Let's eat you'll feel better afterward.. Food is served in 3 glass pagodas next to the lake. Five-six dishes served with rice and is always good and varied the students said. After regaling us with more stories and meeting couple more students who have been here for several weeks and they all like it and do not want to leave, Theodore stated : Mum I want to do this and that was the end of my hissing fit. I did the paperwork at the office, paid $1,200 and retired to the hovel that was going to be our room during our stay.

Jining to Qufu

We arrived at Jining at 6pm fri 5th August. We were picked up by Wei Shifu (master) and Nelly the translator. Aufully nice of them considering it was 1.2hrs drive. We later found out that Wei shifu is the headmaster. He was driving a chinese banger and gave us one of the scariest drives in my life. I remembered driving was bad, but this was lunacy! Everybody was driving towards each other, in what was pretty big, new roads, honking incessantly. As mainly farming lands all around, the road was packed with huge lorries and tracks with demented drivers zig-zagging without any warning. I am sure there were few more white hair on my head by the time we arrived the outskirts of the Qufu and the Shaolin school. In the next and half hour later the rest of my hair probably turned white!

Shanghai

We arrived in Shanghai on 5 Aug at 8am. 30c heat and sticky. Straight to the Grand Huyatt for a last bit of luxury at the Oasis club where we spent few hrs: swimming,and having a bone-crushing oriental massage. After a quick shower and a fine Shanghainese meal on the 86tth floor of the hotel where we had uninterrupted views of the seas of skyscrapers as far as the eye could go, We then rushed to HongJiao airport where domestic flights take off. That's when it started hitting us - although vast and efficient, there were thousands of Chinese milling around and maybe a handful of gweilos..
China Eastern flight to Jining - Shadong province, took 1.30min. As we were flying over the airport of Jining, all around there were vast agricultural areas all covered in cloud - I hoped from rain/humidity rather than pollution!

4 August 2011

13.05 BA0169 Flight London to Shanghai
Theodore and I, travelling light (3 large suitcases plus hand luggages,checked in, rather tired from the late night and copious amounts of red wine consumed previous evening with uncle Roger-the-financial-world-is-collapsing-Crosby who regaled us with his stories from HK and Asian travels.