I like to ride my bicycle

Ay yo. What it do? I totally got it in my head that I was gonna make this blog update a weekly thing, but here we are two weeks later and I'm finally getting around to it. Let's start things off right with a brand spankin new Made In China Podcast. We're now on volume 6 and I got way more in the trunk for you. Let me know if you're enjoying the music, if you'd like to hear more of something, if you want to know the name of a track or artist, if you would like me to not include something, what your favorite color is, whatever it may be let me know. I've gotten a few emails over the last 6 months or so that have the occasional "I'm diggin the podcast" but those have been few and far between. The reason I do the podcast is because I love music and I have a LOT of it, so I'd like to pass some of it on to you. If you haven't downloaded one yet, give it a try. Who knows, you just might like something on it. Also, tell your friends. Seriously. If you know someone who likes music tell them you know this dude who's posting a podcast occasionally on his blog about living in China. Hell, they don't even have to read the blog since they probably wouldn't care about my bike rides (probably even less than you do) or anything else I talk about here on my little corner of the world wide web. Anyways, this podcast was an effort at putting some music together that makes me feel good. Some rockin tunes, some feel good tunes, and the highlight track called The Sun by Ghostface Killah feat. Raekwon, The Rza, and Slick Rick. This will remain as one of my favorite tracks of all time. Some of the rhymes are pretty terrible (surprisingly enough, given the line up of mc's), but it makes me feel like all is right in the world when I can listen to 4 gangsta ass mfers who usually rap about hard shit, talking about how dope the sun is. Check it out.

Ok, last time around I wasn't terribly happy to be back here in Chinatown. Since then things have started to settle back in and I'm getting more used to things. I'm on this 'new me' kick for the new semester. I rearranged my room, put some shit up on the walls to make it a little more home-like, and have decided I'm gonna start changing things up. I signed up for a the olympic distance lifetime triathlon in July right after I get back, and then another almost-olympic distance tri the week after lifetime. That means some I'm in for some lifestyle changes here. With my new teaching schedule I don't have to go into work until about 9:30 (instead of being in the classroom at 8 like last semester) and then my first class isn't until 10:50. It's really nice. This means I have more time in the morning. I'm gonna start (i hope) running and biking in the morning soon, like as soon as it starts warming up which is pretty much right now. I also decided to switch things up on the food front so last week I went to Wu Mart (swear to god that's what it's called) bought frying pan and ingredients, and have now made myself pancakes for breakfast 4 out of the last 6 days.

The biggest reason for me beginning to enjoy China a little more lately was last Saturday which may remain the most epic saturday of my time in Beijing. It started out with a bike ride, but we did a new route that was about 100k out to the mountains and back. Our goal was a climb called Python Hill, which isn't so much a hill as a small mountain. It gains 500 meters in elevation over just less than 10k giving it an average 5% grade with a lot of places steeper than that. What does that mean, you might be wondering. Imagine some of the steeper hills that climbs out of the mississippi river valley back up to the main roads. Now imagine one of those that is 10 kilometers long instead of a couple of blocks. Last weekend we abandoned our attempt on the summit because there was still plenty of big patches of ice and snow due to the 'storm' a few days before. The ice wasn't terrible going up, but we decided it would make for a pretty annoying descent so we stopped about 4k up the road and turned around. Here's some pictures that Tom (the dude from Belgium that organizes the group) took on the ride:

We did the ride again yesterday and I can now say that that climb is a mother f*****r. It took me 34 and half minutes to make it to the top and I was the second one up, a few minutes in front of the larger bunch. Anyways, back to last weekend. Sometime in January I mentioned some guys I met at a party who wanted to play music. This last weekend play music we did. I spent most of my time on the keyboard but played a couple songs on drums. This dude Armando has a real sweet set up in his apartment with an electronic drum kit, a guitar, his bass and a keyboard all hooked up to some monitors and run through his macbook running Logic Pro. I'm sure that means nothing to most of you, but some apparent readers will understand that it's pretty sweet, and that's all you need to know. After playing music and drinking a few beers with them for about 3 hours I made my merry way to a hip hop show. Who was playing you might be wondering. Well, I'll tell you: PEOPLE UNDER THE (MFING) STAIRS. That's who. If you don't know, these guys are one of my favorite groups. They are superb and i suggest you check them out sometime. Needless to say, the show was off the chain like mr. t on welfare. Really. It was amazing. It was sooooooo nice to see a good hip hop show because it has been far too long for me, and this show was the best I could've hoped for. To give you an idea of how excited I was, here's photographic evidence of me throwing my hands in the air, but obviously caring. A whole lot. (hint: I'm the tall lanky dude in the corner).

The playing music thing is turning into a weekly event which is great. We did it again last night and then went out for some drinks afterwards with Jon (a dude I work with) and Joori (hsi girlfriend at who's bday party I met Armando, Tony, and David (the guys I'm playing music with) I bought a new camera for my birthday (a Nikon D40x for those of you who know cameras) and it's pretty dope. I'm trying to take it around with me so i can take pictures of my life here in China. For some reason I can't load them up here and I'm getting impatient so if you want check out a few pictures from last night here. I'll probably continue to post more pictures there. That about wraps things up here. Keep on with all the keeping on you all are doing on a daily basis. Go ahead and give yourself a high five from me for being awesome (or have someone else give it to you, but remember it's from me). Until we meet again, here's something ridiculous.....ly awesome.

Latro.

-B

This just in....

It's been snowing here for the last two days. I forgot how great snow is. I'm sure all you Minnesotan folks are saying "F that. Snow needs to get the hell out". To which I say try spending winter with temperatures not quite as cold as MN without snow. In conclusion, snow is great in moderation. It makes winter seem more worth while. Also, here's this (parental advisory: explicit content. Not meant for the eyes of grandparents or family members/friends lacking an inappropriate sense of humor). Credit goes to B Golle Goob for that one.

Also, I would like to introduce you to my new favorite word: Radtarded. The origin of this word is unclear, however I give credit to Mr. Stevil Kinevil over at the fabulous blog How To Avoid The Bummer Life. This blog is one of the few things that keeps me going consistently when I'm down and reminds me how when life gives you lemons, kick some ass because there's always ass to kick and get totally rad. Anyways, the definition says it all, but if you need more clarification on what exactly it means to get Radtarted, I think this picture pretty much sums it up:


Now get out there and get rad.

Tootles

How YOU doin?

Go ahead.  Let that sink in for a minute.  Admit to yourself that you're a kind of turned on.  Just a tiny bit.  Or vomit a little in your mouth if you have to.  

Ok, back to business.  Hey.  How's it goin?  If you're reading this I hope you're well.  If you're reading it out loud to someone, tell them to stop being so damn lazy and use their own mfing eyes.  So it's been another month since I posted on this here weblog and since then quite a bit has happened in my adventurous life in Asia.  When we last left off, our hero (that's me) was nearing the end of the semester.  Tests happened, I graded them, no one failed any of my classes, so I'd say it was a positive semester.  Positive enough to make me smile.

Yeah.  Just like that.  I finished teaching health and will hopefully never have to deal with that noise ever again.  F that I said.  After the semester ended I I took a few days to relax before my trip to India.  During these 'relaxing' days I lost my wallet in a taxi.  This, to put it lightly, was mega shitty.  This meant that only a few days before I began my international travels, I had no money and no way of withdrawing any.  Again, to reiterate, mega shitty.  This put me in quite the pickle.  "What will I do?"  I thought.

Luckily I have a couple of great friends named Graham and Luke who both had some US cash on them (it's all about the benjamins) and they lent me enough to cover any expenses I should need on my trip.  I had my lovely mother send my new card to India and didn't even end up needing all the money I borrowed, which was sweet, but it's great knowing I've got friends who can take care of me over here if I ever need it.  

It took me a couple days to get too India due to a full day layover in Bangkok, Thailand.  Bangkok is a pretty cool place.  I slept in late since my flight got in around 1:30am and I didn't get to my hotel until around 3.  After I got up I started walking around and ended up in a rickshaw with a driver that promised to take me to see 4 Buddhist temples for 50 baht (about $1.50) as long as we stopped by this emporium where someone would try to get me to buy a suit.  Since I only had a limited amount of cash I knew i couldn't get suckered into anything like that and hopped in fora ride.  We made it to two temples and an emporium and after the second temple he left.  Just left me at the temple.  However, I never paid him so I guess it was his loss.  Sucka.  Not really knowing where I was I started walking and came across another temple (they were everywhere) and some dude started talking to me and telling me I could get a rickshaw to take me to these 5 great places for 20 baht (you do the math this time).  He flagged some dude down for me and sent me on my way.  This new driver was much cooler and agreed not to leave me anywhere.  Most of the places he took me were closed since it was still the new years holiday, but it was hella fun riding around in an auto rickshaw again.  I stayed in the backpacker area called Khaosan Road and ended up meeting this Norweigian musician named Magnus and we hung out most of the night drinking some beers at a restaurant while others came and went from our table.  All in all, I had a good day in Bangkok and I'd really like to go back to Thailand sometime and spend more time there.  Oh, I also ate Thai curry and Padthai.

 It was delicious.

Then it was on to India.  I was thinking I might stay a while in Chennai or travel around in the south before I made my way up the mountain to Kodai (the place I lived and worked last year).  The whole point of going back to Kodai was to go someplace familiar for vacation, to see people I know who I may not see for a while again, and to get out out of a huge stanky city.  Since Chennai IS a big stanky city I made the easy decision to move on, booked myself an overnight sleeper bus at 9pm and hit the long and windy road.  By the by, a sleeper bus is a bus that has actual beds on it.  SWEET! you may be thinking.  But what you may not realize is that the right side of the bus has two berths side by side.  I had the inside birth at the very back.  It was my own little love cove that I shared with some Indian dude.  fortunately (or unfortunately, however you want to look at it) he kept his hands to himself (and so did I).  I made it into Kodai around 6:45am on Saturday the 31st to a still sleeping Kodai.  I got some tea and an egg/cheese Paratha at Amsa's:

Also delicious. 

As Kodai started to wake up, I discovered that everyone who knew I was coming didn't think I was coming until the next day, so this meant there were quite a few surprises.  I found out that my friends Will and Neil were at Tahr Camp with a bunch of my favorite former students and some otehr staff as well.  Tahr Camp is a special weekend hiking/camping trip for the students and staff that went on at least 9 hikes in the first semester.  I got my Tahr pin last year and since they were camping at the same place as last year I decided to hit the trail and surprise them.  It was about an hour drive to a drop point and then somewhere between 3-4 hours of hiking to get to their camp, and I made it just before dusk.  There was about 45 minutes that scared me since I knew I wasn't on the right trail, but i could hear the stream that I was supposed to be hiking along, so I knew I wasn't to far off.  Since a tall, pasty white guy was the last thing the Tahr campers expected to see walking towards them out of the woods they were pretty surprised.  My decision to head straight for Kodai paid off as my second morning there was spent watching the sun rise over the plains from the top of a 1000 ft waterfall.  

I'm trying to make a better composite than that, but my computer is being a bitch.  I'll post the better one later, but for now, that should give you an idea of why camping was awesome.  On the hike away from the falls the next day I got mega sunburnt as per usual, thus starting the next three weeks of peeling. 

There isn't a whole lot to tell about the next couple of weeks in Kodai that would interest more than a handful of people.  It was really great to be back on that mountain.  I played a lot of indoor soccer, some basketball, volleyball, frisbbee, walked around the lake, ate Indian and Tibetan food, saw my ex-dog (Otis: The Dogg), and drank coffee among other things.  I never thought I'd be so happy to be back there, but as my mom has said to me, "India got it's hooks in me", whatever the hell that means.  It was really great to see old friends and make a couple really good new ones.  The weird thing about going back was that (sappy moment alert) when I woke up on the bus on my way up the mountain, it was the only other time I've felt like I was gong home other than any time I was actually going back to St. Paul.  Leaving was really difficult, especially to come back to China where there is very little color or culture, it's winter, and there's a lot of smog.  That, and less people that I care about/care about me.  

Ok, since this is quite long by now, I'll sign off here, but before I do you can go ahead and check out the new PODCAST.  It's a little mellow since I'm not exactly super psyched to be back in China right now, and it's got a few India nods in it as well.  I hope you enjoy it.  Have a great day/week/few minutes.  If you're reading this, chances are I miss you a little bit and it'd be great to hear from you.  Again, if I don't have your address, email it to me (warehamenator@gmail.com).  Ok.  Cool.  I'm out.  Here's some kittens.