Interlude Part 2

Last weekend Rachel and I participated in a karate Tournament. We both managed to come home with some chunks of plastic! I got 4th in weapons (I was competing against super good black belts!), 3rd in bunkai (forms with people punching in), 3rd in kempos (short techniques), 2nd in forms, and then 1st in sparring. Rachel got 2nd in weapons (she was in a different division than me...) and 4rth in sparring.

If you are interested there are pictures that were professionally taken at this link. You can view any of the pictures. I'm in adults weapons, and red belt divisions. Also some random pictures of me in the kids photos, where I was helping judge. From this link you can also purchase any pictures that you like. So mom, you can update those photos I gave you if you like!

After the tournament Rachel and I went to see Les Miserables at the Kennedy Center, which was pretty awesome. I don't see too many musicals, but for some reason hearing dialog sang took some getting used to...

Cliffs of Shaolin

Here is where things got interesting. You see, we were supposed to go from Xi'an to some other city that I can't spell or remember really. Namely because we didn't end up making it. Supposedly there was a monsoon, meaning our flight was canceled. The result was that we got the chance to go to the Shoalin Temple a day or two early. The total time was 4 days of training at the temple, which was awesome! The training at the temple I"ll most likely talk about a bit later. But basically it was we got there at about 8:30, trained for a couple hours, broke for lunch, and then came back around 2:30ish to train for a few more hours every day. In between we had about 4 hours. The first day we decided to go to the cliffs of Shaolin.

To get there, we picked up a random man with a van that just happened to be willing to drive us where ever we could manage to explain to him using mainly hand gestures. The trick was, there was 8 of us going, and, the van wasn't really that big.
The results were amusing. Nevertheless we managed to get where we intended to go, and it was a gondola. We took the gondola up the cliffs and mountains to the top, where there was a trail. The trail was supposedly 12 miles long, one way, at the end was another Buddhist temple. Sadly we didn't have time to make it all the way there, but we did marvel at the beauty of the area.

According to Master Williams, the one who led us here, there are warrior monks from the Shaolin Temple that *run* to the temple and back every morning. Yes, 24 miles, pretty much a marathon, in some pretty hilly (pretty sure uphill both ways) path along the side of a cliff. I'm not sure I believe it, but I want to.

Anyways, not much more to say about these cliffs, besides that they were amazing, and 2 of our group members was afraid of heights lol. I hope you enjoy the pictures! There are a lot of them, because they were pretty cool.

Xi'an and Terra Cotta

Today's Update is going to cover Xi'an. In Xi'an was the Terra Cotta warriors.... but I'll get back to that.

Xi'an was the capital of the first Chinese dynasty. So the history there was pretty massive. It was an ancient city, even still having city walls and a moat! How cool is that? DC needs a moat. I digress. Here we visited a Buddhist temple, stopped by some artist shops, where I got Rachel's gift. And had a brief lesson on Chinese calligraphy. Ultimatly it was a pretty cool city. Lots of construction going on there.


While in Xi'an we went to see the Terra Cotta Warriors.
As I mentioned Earlier, Xi'an was the capital of China's first dynasty (as seen in the movie Hero with Jet Li). The terra cotta warriors then were built for the burial of China's first emperor. He built an entire army and then burried it underground guarding his tomb. Facing East, towards his enemies. The name Terra Cotta is actually latin for "baked earth", and perhaps shows the Western influence on China. It was definently pretty cool to see though. The increadible detail in the soldiers. The horses, which you may or may not be able to see how tiny they are. No wonder the larger western horses were so valuable in China. There were two sections that we saw. The first had the army open for us to see in all the detail. Then at some point they realized that the army was held under a wooden overhang, protecting them from the earth. And that hey, this is an archaeological dig and we should keep it in tact.... So yeah, the second section is a view of..... dirt mounds /facepalm. Anyways Terra Cotta warriors? Pretty cool stuff.

In related news, evidently they know where the main part of this emperors tomb is, but China refuses to let them access it until they can prove that they can preserve it. Also, it is rumored to have rivers of mercury. That sounds like a pretty cool looking river to me!

Interlude

I interrupt these pictures from China to provide an update.

The end of the fiscal year, came, and then went. I managed to survive! The good news now though, is that I have advanced far enough at work that today I moved into an outer office. So you know what that means! Sunlight! My office is pretty good. Just looking outside my window I can see kinda an overhang which is a bummer. But. When I stand up I look East into DC and I can see the Potomac river. So overall I say its pretty cool.


Sorry the picture sucks so much.... too much sun!

Also last weekend both Rachel and I tested for new belts. Rachel is now a Blue Stripe, and I am a Second degree brown belt. For those who are keeping track, that means there is only one more belt between me and black.