Well, after a sustained period of relaxing meditation, the silent one speaks once again.

As some of you may well be aware, we are currently residing somewhere in the foothills of one of the most famous collection of mountains in China. Within China, Song Shan is most famous for becoming the birth place of Zen Buddhism. However, perhaps a far more exciting prospect for 4 young TripRoasters, the area is renowned as being the birth place of Shaolin Kung Fu!

As I type (perhaps the least painful exercise I could be doing), my head hurts and my body aches and every menial task has now become a struggle after two full days of 6 hours a day training with real Kung Fu masters!

That’s right, Dirty Dog, Pesky and Jaytona could not under any circumstances come to the birthplace of Kung Fu and not have a go themselves! So that brings us to where we are now….in the oldest, largest (20000 students) Kung Fu school in the area training to become the BEST….as long as it takes less than 5 days!

It is very difficult to express in words how exciting being here is! After a three week period away filled with continous Bruce Lee quotes courtesy of yours truly, finally a setting where I can use them and not get funny looks - or rolled eyes from the other guys!

After a head-shaving session by Pesky and Jaytona to fit the profile and the purchase of some rather cheap but necessary training outfits, we were thrown in at the deep-end! So far we have learned two essential Kung Fu ‘routines’, flying kicks and how to use a staff, as well as doing some of the most grulleing of stretches you have ever seen! All of these are a breeze for our teacher much to our amazement and a struggle for us much to his amusement!

Yesterday, during our ‘lunch break’, we took a stroll down the road to one of the other schools where a half-hour Shaolin Kung Fu performance takes place every day. A true spectacle of the wonders of the art - iron rods broken with ease on monks’ skulls, two-finger zens and the like - was eclipsed when Jaytona got invited onstage for some of the action! I had to follow a routine set out by one of the monks much to the crowd’s amusement! A stirling effort if I do say so myself, as I got the loudest cheer from the crowd and with it the prize of a bead bracelet and a CD of traditional music, even if I did pussy out of the free-standing back flip! AND despite what Pesky may say, they did not pronounce me the winner purely because I was the only foreigner competing….honest!

So today, well, it’s our day of rest….kind of! We decided that it wouldn’t hurt to give the training a day off and take on something less gruelling. How about an 8 hour mountain hike to a 782-step rope bridge over a bottomless pit of a gorge? Yeah OK, that sounds do-able! So after a hearty breakfast we are off on another adventure of a lifetime to precisely that!

Pictures of all of the above to follow!

Despite the pain, I am enjoying every moment of it. Sure there are con artists and rogue cab drivers everywhere you go, but it’s all been worth it and now we have some skills to deal with them!

Uncle Gil & Aunt Rilla thanks very much for the post on the messageboard - it’s great to hear from you both and to know that you’re enjoying following us on the site! Bearing in mind where we are currently, I think the ‘don’t poke your eyes out with sharp objects’ advice is the most relevant for the time being as there aren’t many girls around here! Thanks again for the offer of the place to stay and keep in touch!

Mom - I hope your trip to Canada went well and you’re back safely now. Leave a message on here or send me an e-mail please.

Dad, I hope everything’s going well at home, again leave me a message on here.

Scott, hope Glasto was an event to remember! I hear it was as wet as ever so no disappointment there! Was it good and which bands were the best?

Well that’s all for now. Everyone keep in touch and remember….

….we need emotional content….it is like a finger, pointing away to the moon….but don’t concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all that heavenly glory.

Que Le, signing off.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2007 at 3:44 am and is filed under On the move, Hong Kong and China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.