Well, a lot has happened in the last 6/7 months. I am still in Korea and still at the same school. My plans have changed numerous times and they will still probably still change numerous times before I finally leave.

So what have I done, well I have only had my hair cut once since the last time making it twice in almost a year and I have to tell you my hair is longer than it has ever been. EO you would be proud.

January saw me getting together with my girlfriend Emma Doubble, we are still together. We travelled together on a ski trip and go to know each other quite well. Three new teachers came to my school. My friend Heidi, who is sisters with Brendan Sweeney's girlfriend Emily, Michael Slater a crazy South African and Jim Dykmen a fellow Canadian. These three and me got into quite a bit of drinking and good times out during out first couple months together.

February was Lunar New Years or Chinese New Year for westerners. I had almost a week off and again went snowboarding with some friends at YongPyong Ski resort in Korea. This place made it to the final two in competition for the 2014 winter Olympics, they lost to Russia. Either way it was a great time and had some good snow and a little too much soju. February is also Emma's birthday on the 11th. We had a quite day in after a big night of partying.

These are only a few of the people we were with. This photo was taken at the top of the black diamond slopes.

March. What can I say about March? It started getting warmer and I continued to drink more than I should have. I bought a scooter. A 100 cc silver Honda scooter. It is great. Having a scooter in this country is like having a VIP pass in traffic. You go to the front of the line every time and if you can't do it on the road then you go on the sidewalk. There are bikes and scooters everywhere in this country and people drive them like maniacs. High school kids ride them with no license of insurance and will put three or four people on the backs of their bikes.

Red lights are a mere suggestions to bikes/scooters and buses and lets be honest who would win in that contest. I haven't seen any bad accidents yet but I have heard horror stories. For all the parents who might be reading this I always wear a helmet and obey the traffic rules.

This scooter does afford me the ability to get to Emma's house very quickly and easily rather than taking buses. It also gets me around town much faster and I feel that I know the city better now that I have a scooter. I will be sad to part with it when I leave.

April. warmer still and Emma and I went on some very nice days in Seoul to different temples and sites. The secret garden was my favorite because we snuck away from the tour and made our own tour through the forest and I think got to see some and experience a much better time then with the tour.

Korea is an incredibly cramped place and it is very hard to find personal space here. Living in a city the size of Kingston with almost a million people makes it exceedingly difficult to get away from it all and when you have a chance to walk through a forest in the middle of the city and not hear cars you really Cherish those days.

May was a beautiful month. Everything came into bloom in Korea and there were some incredible cherry blossoms all over the island in the middle of Seoul. Rugby started up again and we played a couple good games against Shanghai and an islander team from Beijing. These were some big boys that came out strong but couldn't hold out for the whole game. Grant got some nice stitches in his chin and we all had a good time at the beer up.

The Sharks lost the super 14 to the Blues in a rather disappointing match in which I got really drunk and slept in for work the next day.

We began bbqing on the roof of my building and we went to the Seoul DJ festival. This was a free event and needless to say I had to poor Grant into a cab at midnight because he could no longer stand under his own power. Poor guy just can't handle his liquor sometimes.

This was also the point at which my facial hair was the most serious, see attached picture.

I am sure there was some more stuff that happened in May but I don't remember it right now.

June was nice. We went to a beach about an hour away on the coast for a weekend and had a great time swimming and playing in the sand. We all got a little too much sun but that's alright from time to time.

Michael and Grant both decided that they were leaving in a month to go traveling, which sucked for us staying but they had their reasons.

July Heide left my school to find other work and Michael left to travel and our new teacher Todd arrived from Florida. He is a good guy who seems to enjoying most of the same shit we do, i.e. drinking and having fun.

In July I also got to go to a Korean water park called Carri bean bay. This was a another strange experience in the land of the morning calm. It is 65.00 dollars to enter and you have to get there around 8 am or you won't get in. There are several thousand Koreans in speedo's and bathing caps, yes that is right you have to wear a bathing cap at all times in Korea pools/water slides etc... the exception is that you can wear a hat or visor as well meaning that as long as you have something on your head they don't care but you have to wear something on your head. Don't ask me why this makes sense to them.

In addition to the bathing cap you have to wear a life jacket at all times. Despite Korea essentially being an island no one knows how to swim and most people are afraid of the water. So when you arrive at Carri bean bay you have to rent a life jacket to wear in the water at all times.

It was also an enjoyable day because I was the only white person there and therefore the only one with hair on my chest. I am honest surprised they didn't try and make me wear a t-shirt. Needless to say I was something of an attraction and I was the only one there who knew how to dive so I was razel dazzling them with dives and cannon balls and getting standing ovations from crowds of Koreans who would gather to watch the foreigner.

Well that is all I feel like writing for now. I will post later about our trip to the mountains.

THAILAND

I mean what more do I really have to say. This is the place where western have been perfecting the elicit sex trade for the past 40 years. This place is like Disney World, Zimbabewey and Stockholm combined with a generous helping of Constitutional Monarchy and pingpong balls.

For those of you who haven't been there you have to go in order to understand the last paragraphs hidden jokes or at least have an open mind and realize that Sweden had the highest casualty rate after the 2004 Tsunami outside of Asia with almost 20,000 vacationers there every season. For a country of only nine million that is a fucking lot.

But anyways I must digress this is getting off topic. The point on this entry is to tell you all how much fun and how interesting and disturbingly fucked Thailand is. This place is one of the most geographically breath taking places on earth. Thailand won the jackpot when it came to beautiful places, it however also won when it came to millions of tourists coming and fucking you over.

So I bought my ticket last minute not knowing what I would do or where I would go. On a map Thailand may not look that big, especially when compared to a place like Canada but you try and walk across that peninsula and see how long it takes you. Actually there is quite a lot of territory covered by this 514,000 sq km country. But I managed to figure out that I wanted to see a beach and enjoy some sunshine.

So I landed in Bangkok after having spent a great flight in the company of a fellow canuck who grew up in Kiwi land and now lives in Bangkok. She was able to hook me up with a taxi that wouldn't steal all my money and take me where I wanted to go. I am hoping that she will email me seeing as she lived in Seoul for five years and had some great music connections in Seoul.

So I went to meet my friend Joe's girlfriend at this hostel called the shanty lodge. Don't let the name fool you it was quite nice and the people were friendly. I spent the night with Monica and the next day we walked around Bangkok and took in some of the sights and sounds. Now don't get me wrong it is a cool city but I really didn't get a good feeling from it. Granted I was only there a day but it just seemed dirty, noisy and full of to many fat white people with tiny Thai wives/mistress's. I mean I would recommend anyone to go there but I really didn't like the tourist trap that is Konsan rd. And honestly I expected more. Pingpong and darts aside I have been to more exciting areas in Seoul.

But my attitude soon changed when we met up with Joe and went down to a place called Krabi. This is a city of aprox 80-100 thousand down on the Indian ocean. It is just inland a little bit up a small river so it was not completely destroyed by the Tsunami but it was still pretty hard hit. We stayed at a little guesthouse and ate some amazing Thai food for a dollar. Food is really cheap and so fresh.

That night Joe and Monica headed in early (which was a common theme throughout the trip but I loved it cause I got to go out on my own and experience some crazy shit). That night I got drunk with a Frenchman, Irishman, POMY, and 6 Thai people. We spent the better part of three hours discussing colonialism and it's effects on South East Asia while consuming Gin and tonics at a speed that would make even her majesty a little tipsy.

The next morning, dawning the previous night cloths (I will let you know that I wore the same pair of boardshorts for the entire trip and only changed them for the flights. I only brought my backpack with limited cloths and it was the best decision I made on the trip), I awoke and we got on a ferry for Phi Phi Island. This ferry was 4 hours late departing and was full of tourists and some Thai families with chickens. All in all a nice ride on which I met my friend Colin Innes and his wife Elky who are from Greenwich U.K. We drank a few Singha's and had a few laughs on deck.

For those of you who are interested Phi Phi is the island where the film the beach was shot. Not in the hotel area on the island but one of the surrounding islands and needless to say the place was breath taking. Mangroves, beaches lush rainforest and clear, clear water(let also not forget the hundreds of topless Sweedish sunbaithers, all of whom had the most perfect bronze skin. For a country with 9 months of winter they were all very nicely tanned).

Upon arrival we set out finding accommodations that would not break our budget, which proved to be rather difficult seeing as it was high season. So we consulted our guide book and found out about this little spot called long beach which is a 35-40 minute walk along the beach/jungle to an area with cheaper accommodations. (now there is no road going to this beach because they want you to take water taxi's or long boats. These are not expensive but they weren't cheap either so we elected to walk which I decided to do later and I will tell you about it in more detail later). Once we made it to long beach we found a place to stay for 20 bucks a night. Joe had a nap and I had some beers on the beach and watched the sun set, which was magnificent and I strongly recommend it to anyone.

Around 9ish Joe Monica and I took a longtail boat back to the main beach and had some spectacular dinner for a dollar and then started drinking beers on the beach under the stars. We thought this was a great idea and was dirt cheap. As it turns out it was a great idea, no one else was on the beach and we must have sat there for two hours just having a jawl (good time in south African).

Upon completing several large beers we ventured in the bar district were upon we stumbled head long into a Thai kickboxing /reggae bar (for future reference every bar in Thailand is a reaggae bar and you can imagine what that entails). So there were these two guys going at in the ring that looked like to really tanned Dave Pottickers. They were jumping and flailing limbs wildly and it was all quite entertaining but after they finished the ref started walking around asking people if they wanted to volunteer. The prize for volunteering was a plastic bucked full of booze so I figured what's the worst that can happen that booze can't heal, so I put up my hand and got ready to fight some other drunk foreigner. Ha Ha, welcome to Thailand my son, I get in the ring to find that I will be fighting a young man from Spain I believe. He weighed in at 110 kg's and stood around 6,4 and lets not forget to mention that he had been kickboxing for almost 10 years. Hmmmmm I guess I should have asked but he didn't speak English, I found all this information out after the fight from his buddies.

So I get in the ring. Drago (I will call him Drago because he was massive and didn't speak English) was doing the splits in the corner Van Dam style and I walked around the right working the crowd and thinking I am going to fucking die. At this point I asked the ref what the rules were and how long did he expect me to do this. His reply was and I quote "no elbows" thats it. The only rule he could come up with was no elbows and the fight was supposed to last three rounds of 2 minutes each. My response was "I'll give you 30 seconds". The most embarrassing part was that Drago didn't even put his head gear on. I mean I couldn't have reached his head anyway but he could have at least humoured me. I guess he figured I couldn't reach his head anyways so why mess up his hair.

Ding! Ding! We started circling and I thought, "maybe I can get a few shots in and just wrap him up a couple times and I might make it out of this thing with a couple hits taken. So I threw a punch and a kick, which landed on his side and really hurt my foot, I don't think he felt it. He threw a punch and I actually blocked it and the just went for the waist and wrapped him up. The ref broke us up and we circled again. This time I tried another kick and he moved and I think I got him on the inner thie. The ref said I couldn't do that and would call the fight if I did it again (I should have just kicked the fucker in the balls but I didn't). The next melee was the most destructive and this is were my memory is fuzzy. All I know is that he came at me like Elninio, which in spanish means "The Ninio". He had surgical accurracy with his punches and hit me three times right in the face and then I was on the ground. It wasn't until after the fight that Joe asked me, "did the kick hurt?" My response, "what kick?" So he preceded to inform me that after the three punches to the face, which resulted in a nice little shinener, that Drago had kicked me in the side of the head which had momentarily knocked me unconscious.

To my surprise the ref asked if I would like to stop the fight and I asked him what he thought? He called the fight. This whole exchange lasted almost 35-40 seconds after which Drago helped me up and I bowed to the crowd and everyone cheered. Everyone was pretty pissed that he had just beat the shit out of me. They wanted to see some action not a little boy get beaten like a rented mule for 30 seconds. (I should point out that I do not fight, have never been in a ring before and I was drunk) . It was fun though because I met up with a group of girls from Nova Scotia, they actually live in Wolfsville and knew of a little place called Three Pools. (Tim and Erica I hope you get this). A couple of them are working in Seoul teaching and we are going to meet up soon I hope. But anyways they were very impressed with my falling down skills and bought me a drink. One of the girls who teaches in Seoul got in the ring and beat the shit out of a little Thai woman. It was really funny because every time she knocked this Thai woman down she would apologize and then knock her down again, Priceless.

After this embarrassing but fun incident I met up with my friend Colin from the boat ride to the Island and told him of my bout with death to which his response in a perfect south London accent, "Birds love a fighter" and bought me several bucks of booze. (These are literally small plastic beach buckets that they fill with alcohol and some mix and you drink them until you forget you are in Thailand.) After consuming and lethal amount of bucket alcohol I proceeded to loose track of everyone I was with (Joe and Monica had left several hours earlier) and having spent all my money (again not really sure how since Colin was buying me drinks) decided it would be a good idea to get back to 'Long Beach', which in the day time is a simple task, it was however the middle of the night. So I started walking and this is where the story gets hazy. I only have vague memories of this period in time but from all accounts the bars close around 3 or 4 and I didn't make it back to the shack until 6:00 - 6:30. What I do remember is that I wandered down some really dark jungle paths with my arms outstretched in front of me hoping to hit trees with my hands first. I also remember trying to break into someone else's shack with a broom I found to try and light it on fire to use as a torch. When I finally crashed through the cabin door, Joe jumped out of bed in a ninja stance ready to juddo chop me. I laughed quite hard at this gesture and informed the two of them that "do I have a story for you" and proceeded to pass out until 11:30 that morning.

The next day we went back to Krabi and had a relaxing night with a couple drinks and a movie on HBO (all the guest houses have big screen tv's with HBO).

From Krabi we made our way out again to Rally Beach which is a 40 mins boat taxi ride. The ride was quite interesting as we shared it with two Canadians and one American. The one Canadian grew up in Kingston and is cousins with a certain Mr. David (Slippy) Jarrel. We had quite the time recounting stories about good old Slippy and ended up partying with them a little bit during the next couple of days.

Rally Beach, just like Phi Phi has an expensive part and a cheap part. The cheap part was a place only accessible by boat taxi and it is called Ah Nang beach (I know I probably spelled it wrong so if you are really keen then edit this and change it smart guy). This beach was much more what I was looking for. It was full of reggae bars and really cheap restaurants. This is one of the more beautiful places I have ever seen. It is full of rock climbers and burn outs. Everyone sits around all day or rock climbs or both.

Of course the first night we were there I befriended some of the local barmen and met the whitest girl I have ever seen from Winnipeg. She had been on this beach for the past nine months and was dating one of the blackest Thai people I had ever met, quite a couple. Either way I ended up drinking with these characters for the next two nights and jamming with their band. They wanted me on lead vocals because I could speak English. They weren't bad but I was really holding them back I feel. I also got to play a bit of harp which was really cool. I actually spent hours just sitting on the beach or on the porch of our shack playing.

After Ah Nang (which, I was informed was being demolished to make way for a luxury hotel. This is a god damn shame as this beach was so incredibly relaxed and laid back) we man our way up to Saritany. Well we were actually two hours away from Saritany in a National park checking out some rainforests and shit. We stayed in a sleepy little town for two nights were nothing was going on. Absolutely nothing happened after ten o'clock, so I was just find a comfy place to sit and play the harp and chat with anyone who was interested. (I usually had a couple beers with me as well but that is only because it was so hot and I needed to stay hydrated.) The rainforest was really cool and we got to see some beautiful waterfalls and get a nice massage (no happy ending though).

After the part I departed Joe and Monica's company and made my way back to Bangkok. I had an early morning flight on new years day so I figured I would spend New Years Eve in Bangkok. I mean you would think it would be a cool place to spent the holiday.

When I landed in Bangkok I had to decide if I wanted to go into the city and party or just stay close to the airport. I decided to go into the city, I fuck, you only live once. I went back to the hostel that I stayed in the first night and got a 2.50 room sleeping in the bunk room at the back. They had a free New Years dinner for all guests and I met this tall leggy American bird who was traveling on her own as well. We started talking and decided to go downtown and have a party.

In retrospect this was a good idea and a very very bad idea. Just like in Phi Phi they serve buckets of alcohol in Bangkok as well. And as you can imagine these buckets were once again my undoing. We started off light and met up with tons of other foreigners and chatted and drank etc... I did notice that there was an awful lot of security around but I figured it was New Years in Bangkok.

Well as it turns out I ran into the same Canadian girls that watched me get pumulled in the ring were also in Bangkok for new years. The only reason I know this and remember meeting up with them is because they were on the same flight as me the next morning. This next part is the really scary part so mom, nanna, aunt donna etc... skip this.


I didn't even know that bombs had gone off. I am pretty sure I recall New Years but I can't be entirely certain. There were a lot of balloons which was nice and then the army came in and everyone left. I woke up in my bed with all my possessions, my liver and both kidneys. I was lacking a little self respect and my dignity as you can guess got left in Phi Phi on the ring floor so at least I didn't lose them both at the same time.

But I made the plane and got back to Korea around 9:00 pm fell asleep and went to work the next day to find my new teacher Jim had arrived.

That was Thailand. Needless to say there are certain things that I have left out of this blog as it is rated pg 13 however, I am safe and sound and have no permanent damage resulting from the trip. It was incredible and I recommed it to anyone but be prepared for tourist central. Thailand is not remote nor does it have much of its own culture thanks to tourism. The best part is that you can show up with no plans and have the time of your life.

Well this was a long one hope you enjoyed it and I will be writhing more soon. I plan on going to Japan and hopefully back to china.

Well it is 2:08 am on Friday December 8 2006.

So far so good. I am not really sure what to write about? I mean things have been going really well and I am doing some cool shit like going to soccer games which in Korea are quite entertaining. You can get seats for 10$ and sit anywhere you want. You bring in your own booze and get drunk and yell at the teams until all the Koreans around you leave because they can't stand to sit near you anymore. Most of the time the guys on the field have no idea what you are saying even if they could hear you but the heckling is more for personal enjoyment then anything else. The Korean fans love soccer and they love the idea of soccer fans but they do it in a very orderly and safe way.

Example: Western soccer fans are striped searched at the gate by large security personnel who don't let you in with a pair of nail clippers.

Korean soccer fans are politely invited into the stadium with whatever they can carry by three very small and very young girls who giggle when you speak to them.

Western Stadiums have security personnel who are constantly on guard, looking for trouble because they know it is coming.





Koreans, see accompanying picture. (this isn't break time, this is what they did during the entire game and these were the only security people I saw.)





Western soccer fans wave flags and banners that actually mean something.


Koreans wave flags and banners that they think look cool but mean relatively nothing other than they think they look cool. Their banners are also written in very poor English. This is one of my favorites for obvious reasons.

Westerners will drink until vomiting and comatosis occurs.

Koreans, well I guess they do this too but they are really polite about it.









Anyways the soccer was pretty fun and I hope to get to see some more games next season. They also have a baseball league with Korean superstars and washed up minor league players from the states. It is pretty funny to watch that shit.

Well what else is new? I am trying to find a place to go for Christmas. So far the options are Thailand, hongkong and Shanghai. those are the cheap places to go. I have a whole week off and I really need to find something to do because if I stay here I will drink myself into a comma. And it would be really great to get to see some more of asia while I am here. If anyone has any suggestions on places to go or people to stay with somewhere in Asia let me know.

Well I am off to bed hope you enjoyed this installment of Ben's adventures in Asia.

This is one of the class I teach. The kids are so cute and try so hard. From left to right starting in the back, Angel, Kevin, Steve, New Kid, Adam, Amy, Lucy. Amy is tiny and was really soft spoken but I kept talking to her in class and now she yells my name from across the school. I didn't take any pictures of the older kids because they are useless. Well not useless they just don't want to be there and don't listen. Oh well.





Sunday November 12 2006.

Well yesterday was remembrance Day in Canada and in Korea that means Peppero day. Peppero is a pretzels company who thought it would be a great idea to market chocolate pretzels sticks on the 11 day of the 11 month because the sticks look like ones. The Korean people have embraced this holiday and it is actually a civic holiday and if it had been on a weekday we would have had the day off to eat chocolate pretzels.
Honestly what kind of holiday is that. I know many of you reading this will say "we have valentines day" yes we do and it is a corporate holiday but it is not a civic holiday and it is not based on pretzels sticks that resemble the number of the day and month. Oh well, at least the kids gave me chocolate pretzels but the last thing they need is more candy 11 days after Halloween.

I also got my first Korean hair cut. The guy doing it was a huge homo so at least I knew it would be a good cut. It was the longest haircut of my life. It actually last almost 35 minutes. He used a straight razor to cut my bangs, which mystified me and he never actually used sharp Scissors . All he used was the clippers and those thinning Scissors and the straight razor. He took so long to do the side of my head and he kept looking at his work from different angles and in different lights just to make sure. It was pretty incredible looking down and the floor covered in black hair and to see some yellow hair mixed in.
He did a great job of it and at the end he gave me a head massage. The best part was that it only cost me 7 bucks and they don't accept tips.

So today I went to costco and bought a bunch of stuff I needed, like a humidifier and some groceries. There are five costco's in Seoul and if you have a costco card at home then it works here. They have most of the same stuff as back home with the notable exception of octopus and squid in the meat section here. It is exactly the same layout and minimalist approach as back home, which is quite surprising here. Everything is based on appearance in Korea. It is all about looking good even if you aren't good. A supermarket like Loblaws would have between 200-300 employees working on a Saturday to ensure that every customer had help. They would all be dressed up very nicely or really sluty, depending on the department they worked in and will stand beside you and make sure everything is alright. There is no unemployment in this country because they don't have any immigrants, kids can't/won't get part time jobs so the hire people to stand on the street and welcome you are you park your car. Then there are people in the parking lots welcoming you and showing you were to park, then there are people in the store welcoming and showing were to shop. They all bow and pretend they love their work, blows my mind.

Well, I have been in Korea for just over a month now and so far everything has gone swimmingly. The trip to China was a blast and I am planning another trip to Bali for Christmas.

So I am not really sure where to start this because there is some great stuff that has happened but I will start with the most recent and incredible story.

So I have joined the Seoul Survivors RFC and played for them against a U.S airforce team on the 28th of October and watched them lose a hard fought game against a team from Beijing. The club seems like a lot of fun and it is a great group of guys who are all pretty good at rugby.

November 4th 2006. Well last night after the game we all went out for the beer up. I am out of money right now because I don't get paid until this Friday but I figured I would go out for a beer or two with the guys and show my face. Well little did I know that Seoul beer ups are all you can drink and eat for free if you are a club member. So the two beers I thought I was going to have turned into a very large amount that I couldn't keep track of because my glass never got empty.

So all this drinking started at 7:30 so by 11 pm when I had planned to go home so that I could still take the subway, I was bloody trashed. I managed to make it to the subway but got lost after the first transfer. I did not know I was lost and thought I was headed in the right direction until this Korean guy started talking to me. He asked me where I was going and I told him to Bucheon. He looked at me with a funny look and said "you are on the wrong train." To my surprise I was and by this point it was 11:45 and I was on the last train of the night. We were halfway across Seoul and I didn't have any money to get home. This guy, Kyu Chang says to me "don't worry you can come stay at my house." I am pissed, so I figure what the hell else am I going to do? So I say "sure."

So Kyu Chang tells me that his wife is pregnant and he has a 4 year old son named Matt. He is 42 years old and wants his son to go to Canada when he is older. He figured the best way to do this is to make friends with a Canadian. Well we get to his place and his wife is pissed off. She is not letting him in the house and I am standing in the hallway like a dummy. So he looks at me and says "lets go" so off we go to a local restaurant and get some fried chicken and beer. We shoot the shit for another hour and I tell him about Canada and he tells me hi is a freelance journalist.

So after an hour or so, I can't really remember he takes me to a hotel and pays for my room and gives me his card and asks if I will call him this week and speak English to his son. I say sure and he thanks me and leaves. I slept the night and woke up with no idea where I was and had a short panic attack and then realized everything was ok and hopped on the subway and headed home.

To be honest now that I think about it it seems so unbelievable that something like this would happen out of the blue like that. I mean I was in a bad position being on the other side of Seoul with no money and not really knowing how to get home and this guy just went completely out of his way to help me. He was a little drunk as well but still to do something like that is a testament to humanity and the kindness of strangers.

I think it is to bad that there are not more people like that but come to think of it I don't even think I am a person like that. I don't think anyone reading this is that type of person either. Just imagine you are on the subway and you speak a little Korean and you speak with a Korean and you find out he/she is lost. What would you do?

Oh well I think it is a pretty cool story and hopefully something like that will happen to you as well.

Trip to Beijing China October 3-9 2006

Well Bruno and I were finally reunited after two and half years of separation. The girl on the right side is Janna a mutual friend from Queen's who organized the whole trip. This joyous celebration of friendship however didn't last long and we were soon again at one another's throats. As you can clearly see Bruno is using the ancient Chinese martial arts technique known in the west as "chokin a bitch". He mastered this technique in the north west province of china where his family is believed to have originated from. Luckily for me Janna is also well versed in the deadly martial arts and was able to save me from Bruno's deadly grip with her own brand of Korean Konfu known as the "Pouncing pretend Punch". Luckily for us the military was not threatened by our behavior and we were able to stay clear of any Chinese prisons.

Despite the rocky start to the trip the remainder went on without incident. The first night we were there we went drinking with some of Bruno's former teaching buddy's and had a great time. His one buddy Sol told me about his first experience with Dr. John, over forty years ago and was amazed to hear me talking about my experience in Manchester and how it was life changing. He just turned 60 and is an entrepreneur extroadinaire. We also met Bruno's recording buddy Oscar. Oscar is a mid 40's 6 ft 4 black dude from Compton California. Him and Bruno have written a song for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and it has a good chance of making it. They are still under consideration but they are in the top three.

Day one we went to the Forbidden City, known now as the Imperial Palace. In my opinion Forbidden City sounds way cooler. Either way you could spend days walking around that place. We only spent the afternoon but still got to see quite a bit. The only problem was the three major buildings right in the centre were under construction to get ready for the Olympics.

Following this Janna and I hiked up a hill behind the city and took some great sunset shots. This was followed by our trip to the Silk Market. This is the classy market in China were you can get all the cheap Chinese rip off stuff for a ridiculous price. There is also the Pearl Market, which we also went to, which is more of the local market where Chinese people go to get ridiculous deals.

But it really didn't seem to matter since Bruno spoke Chinese and loved to barter with these people. They would offer us one price, lets say 1000 rmb (100 rmb is equal to 13 U.S) we would end up paying 165 rmb, which is like 20 U.S. Needless to say I bought a whole bunch of cool shit including a $35 Armani pinstripe suit.

The next day, October 5th, we went to the Temple of Heaven. This was another cool place were old emperors went to pray and rock out. Literally there was a music hall there where some of the ancient Chinese music was composed. We walked around there for a couple hours and made our way to the Pearl Market. After this we went to Bruno's older brother's place. Felipe has been in Beijing for the past 4.5 years and has a wife and a beautiful baby daughter named Bruna. He has a gorgeous place and it was great to see him again.

This was followed by us going out drinking for 90 cents a drink. So we drank redbull vodka all night before I finished the night off with five dollar triples of Canadian Club at this expensive dance bar we went to. I don't remember getting home but we all woke up at 2 pm with massive hangovers.

This day, October 6th, Janna and I went to the Lama Temple, which has the worlds largest Budda statue made out of one piece of wood. The thing is 18 meters tall and painted gold. They had to build the temple around this massive thing. We took some good pictures but you have to remember we didn't get there until 4 pm due to our previous nights escapades. This was followed by a walk down some sketchy street where we found a vegetarian restaurant. Janna was so happy that she did not have to guess about what might or might not be in her food we went in. The food was actually really good and the desert was great.

After dinner we went to the Chinese Opera. This was a crazy experience. The music has no rhythm and is done mostly by symbol, drum and stringed instrument that I don't know the name of. The opera was made up of two performances, the first one was called (I will update later when I get my program back from Janna). The second one which was called (will update later) was all about the love story between a scholar and a nymph. The nymph was in love with the human scholar and wanted to marry him. The god at the time didn't want this to happen and started a fight between his army and the nymph's. Well let me tell you something, those Chinese acrobats are incredible. They were jumping and spinning and throwing spears at each other and kicking them back. The costumes were incredible as was the speaking. It was in old Chinese and so high pitched that I am sure there are no dogs within blocks of the opera house.

The next day, October the 7th, we headed off for our sleep on the Great Wall. We drove for about two and a half hours outside Beijing to a place called Simatai, which used to have all sorts of resorts and hotels catering to visitors etc... but since SARS tourism has dropped dramatically and many of them have become run down and closed completely.

So we were supposed to meet this guy on the wall somewhere and neither Janna nor Bruno were really sure where. Our driver was waiting for us in the parking lot but there was over 50 km of Great Wall to hike, streching both directions from the parking lot. Luckily Janna remembered that the name of the town this guy lived in was JinShanLing, which was to the west of were we were so we just started walking.

Once we actually got on the Great Wall we found out it is a 4 hour treck to Sinhanling over some of the most trechurous parts of the wall. Luckily for Janna and I we met a woman who was selling sovenirs who showed us a short cut through the valley that only took us 45 - 50 mins and we got to our destination with plenty of daylight to spare. I am a little upset that I didn't get to hike the whole part of the wall but I was also very afraid of never finding our lodging and getting lost. I still got some great shots of the Wall and did quite a bit of hiking regardless.

Once we found out tower, yes that is right we actually slept on a guard tower on the Great Wall of China looking into what used to be Mongolia. Once we found out place we settled down and enjoyed a couple bottles of wine and some bread and cheese (I had meat but for those paying attention Janna is a vegetarian). We sat and talked and watched the moon rise over the Great Wall and China, it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

On the wall we were joined by two girls from Ireland and their mother who was very very German. They were on vacation for a month and were touring around China. They were very nice and we got along well. When it finally came time to sleep I set my bed up on the outside of the tower and fell asleep under the Chinese moon thinking about what it must of been like 1000 years ago to be a guard up there staring into Mongolia thinking "What the F*%K am I doing here, no one is going to attack a mountain."

The next day we returned to Beijing in the morning in the pooring rain and set out for Beihai Park. Went and saw some Pogoda's and some grass, which is rare in China. Got some more Photos and met up with Bruno for some more shopping and our last meal with him. We also got so see his parents and hear his Olympic song.

Well I am sure there is some stuff I am forgeting but that was pretty much it. If you have any questions you know where to direct them.

If you don't have facebook then here are the links to my pictures.
http://queensu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2049559&id=81010263&l=ac94a
http://queensu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2049629&id=81010263&l=d8841