Tag: adventuring

The Dancing Ladies

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Location: Jian’ou, Fujian Province, China

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e22fKN1Ht8

When we were living in China, one of the greatest things we noticed were the different forms of exercise. Not having widespread affordable healthcare available to the entire population makes keeping one’s body fit (even into old age!) a huge priority. It was so admirable to see how active elderly people in our community were. They would do play ping pong, pool, or badminton. They would also wake up early to perform Tai Chi sequences on their roofs and climb mountains (often times backwards, as is the tradition in China). They would take advantage of the local terrain whenever possible- living in a mountainous region made it easier- and it was oftentimes a community effort. The best part was, they would always find new ways to make it fun.

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Markets and Temples: A Thai Retrospective

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Happy holiday season, all! V and I were sick for a week, so we lost the momentum of putting stuff out there. Sorry about that.

Specifically, the reason I haven’t put together a video in a while is because I thought I lost the footage from the second half of the trip. I erased my computer a couple times this year, and was convinced that several things disappeared in the migration. Thankfully, this is not the case!

I managed to put together a quick recap of some of the things we did in Thailand. The first two parts of the video are from a train market, and a floating market. The final section includes some shots from temples around the city. Bangkok is famous primarily because there are hundreds (thousands?) of temples in the municipality, so I showcased a few of those.

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Tokyo- City of the Future

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Location: Tokyo, Japan

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Let me just begin by saying: Japan is more than an interesting place. It is like nowhere else in the world, not exclusively because it was at the forefront of technological innovation for several years, but also because it is one of few places to become successful without embracing all of the tenants of Western culture. Japan is extremely insular. Even its largest city, Tokyo, after having been rebuilt after World War II, managed to retain some of these specifically Japanese elements.

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Siem Reap- The Spiritual Place

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Location: Siem Reap, Kingdom of Cambodia

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Siem Reap greets you with an assembly line visa service. There’s a line of ten or eleven functionaries. Each of them has a rubber stamp, signature, and necessary paperwork. For just $35, your passport can progress down the line, and you gain entrance to a country that only 20 years ago was life threateningly dangerous to visit. It’s quite the different story today.

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Kampuchea

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Location: Angkor Wat, Kingdom of Cambodia

Even though it’s been a few months, our memory of Cambodia has yet to fade. The other young people we met at the hostel were kind, generous with their time, and great to talk to. They were some of the first people we spoke to in English after leaving China, and our eagerness to make friends showed. But our experience there wasn’t just about cheap beer, swimming pools, and markets.

Cambodia is home to the Angkor temple complex, an astounding relic known the world over. One can easily spend a week going from ruin to ruin and seeing the testament to human engineering and spirituality. People make pilgrimages to the place for good reason, especially Angkor Wat.

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Hello, Toyko

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As you know, V and I have been very busy these past weeks. We have left our post in China and moved to other points west, finally settling down in familiar Columbus, Ohio. And as I am sure you have assumed, dear readers, I’ve taken some time to put together a few videos from our time in Southeast Asia. I’m still solidifying the projects, but each of them provides a brief window into our experiences. We saw some crazy, amazing, beautiful things, and I’m really excited to share all of it with you.

However, we’re going to try this a little bit different. Instead of doing the video sequences in the order of our travels, I won’t. These ones are a little more poetic and a bit more varied than the previous ones. As a result, I’ll just release them as they’re done. Maybe they’re short, or long, or about a brick in the wall of a monastery, or an entire city in macrocosm.

I’m also working out a documentary. I’m not entirely sure if it will come to fruition, but I’m scripting it a little bit now. It’s going to focus exclusively on our China experience. Stay tuned.

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China 101: Taking the Train

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http://youtu.be/bvo-4BRp0p8

Taking the train in China is serious business. Especially during the holidays, they are often jam packed with weary travelers. However, they can also be one of the most fascinating ways to transport you on your voyage. You can see a great deal of China’s incredibly vast landscape through the massive train windows. While on our latest adventure, we took many different types of trains (soft sleepers, hard sleepers, sitting, standing, etc.), as well as the high-speed train from Xi’an to Shanghai. We took these trains through many different types of climates, from frigid Harbin to sub-tropical Fuzhou. K made this video to give you a quick sneak peak into our experiences!

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Home Sweet Jiā

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Location: Jian’ou, Fujian Province, China

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Mid-Autumn Festival is coming up this week. We have 3 days off of school! I know that will bring numerous tales to report, so we thought we would get another update out before then. Despite the fact that the harvest is coming, it feels no nearer to fall in China and we have been seeking solace in different forms to escape the heat. The eclectic lifeways we see each day has us snapping photos and taking videos faster than we can even share them with you all. This photo set was almost painful to choose; between the beauteous views from high-rise apartments and mountain tops and the colors springing from the earth and from calligraphy brushes, there was far too much to take in.

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