Thursday, May 13, 2004

china fun, soccer bum...

China was mad fun... I so did not want to come back to the real world..

Anyhow, it was quite stressful until about day 3 of the trip. The Friday before i left, i was at work until 1am.. fun stuff.. then proceeded to my apt. to move more stuff out and pack up the rest... after I arrived in Beijing, I had to select my top 7 choices for my next job rotation, and type up all this crap about them... yeah.. forgot to take into account that accessing certain url's from China is often not as easy as it is here... hehe.. slight problem.. oh well, it all ended up alright. but China was awesome!!

1st stop: Beijing... it was nice to be back in the polluted, dusty and dirty capital of China. I went to practice with the university softball team that I was a member of... brought back nice memories. we had an alumni vs. students scrimmage.. and we won of course.. hehe.. I was a little worried that I'd forgotten how to play... after all, the last time I hit a ball or caught one was probably when I was playing for that team in China.. I guess I got lucky with a double.. pop fly the 2nd batting.. and of course the trip would not be complete without a biking down the streets of beijing, rubbing up against dirty xiali cars (which are not being manufactured anymore by the way... replaced by some anhui car which looks quite nice actually)... anyhow, grace, her bro, and i rode down to the temple of heaven...twas quite fun.

then off to shanghai, dropped my crap off at my bro.'s apt.. which is ridiculously nice... in american standards!! spoiled child... had ribsat tony roma's with my uncle on business from taiwan... then headed to the 15 hour train ride to Huangshan.. translated yellow mountains i guess.. it's the really pretty ones that you see in all the chinese paintings.. it's really, really nice there, but the hike up and down.. is ridiculously difficult. we were dead tired, sore for a good week after that.

then another 15 hour train ride back to shanghai.. spent some time there just hanging out.. getting to know the city.. met up with some old church friends.. lyndon, rossana, jeremy, hannah.. didn't see the baby though.. they seem to be having quite a time there.. chilling with the bigwigs and all.. fun stuff.
then, to hong kong. first time there for me. now that place is fun.. i only wish i could understand the language and speak it! it's a cool, fun city, with pretty mountains and surrounding waters nearby as well.. i had authentic dimsum, which to be honest was good, but not anything outstandingly better than what we can get in chinatown... walked around teh city a bit, had afternoon tea in some bay.. very nice btw., and went for a boat cruise... went wakeboarding, swam to shore, played some version of touch football on the beach... quite a nice time.. had some good bonding time with my bro's gf too.. that was good. one major annoyance.. everywhere i went, i was reminded of how much i look like my brother... argh...

anywyas, back to the real world i guess.. i got back last sunday, was back at work on monday morning. surprisingly and thankfully not too jetlagged... had my first full week of commuting last week.. not too bad i guess.. so far at least.

was a little stressed about these soccer tryouts held this past weekend cuz minus the hike up huangshan, all i did the past 2 weeks was eat and sleep... geez.. haven't had to tryout for soccer since who knows when...anyhow, so i go to the tryout... doing well... 30 minutes into the tryout, i go and slide-tackle this girl for the ball..., collide with the girl.. and somehow mess up my knee.. sucks.. anyways, i'm not sure what this means.. i wanted to play in this league so badly... but it's doubtful now.. i was going to go watch practice today, but ended up getting horribly lost... ended up near the shore somehow.. frustrated, found the turnpike and headed home. maybe it just wasn't meant to be.. maybe God doesn't want me to commit myself to this team this year.. i don't know.. whatever... learning to let go.. there are always other opportunities i guess.. and there's always next year..
gotta finish up some other work for our group project.. presenting some crap to each other tomorrow.. then we have our cocktail networking party and interviews tomorrow and friday for our next job rotation.. definitely quite ill-prepared.. oh well.. whatever.. not sure what to do with my life anyways.. would love to go back to chian.. or find a job that i woudl be able to travel to china frequently.. any connections anyone?

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