http://www.ted.com/talks/tali_sharot_the_optimism_bias.html

Because I am an extreme optimist, during the talk I could relate to a lot of what the woman was saying. It made me realize throughout my life that I have been looking up and haven’t been planning for pitfalls, negative outcomes and mistakes. However by learning from this talk I would like to make a great change and prepare much more for the downsides of anything that could happen along the path of life.

Prior to watching this talk, I’ve always believed that I am just an extremely lucky person, however now I understand that I’m just have an extremely optimistic view and have a high success rate for the things I do. I am extremely glad I was born with this perspective on life because I believe I am able to shed light on those who do not always look on the bright side. For example, growing up I’ve realized that for the most part I’ve always made good friends with pessimist, I believe this is most likely because opposites attract but also because we need each other to keep a proper balance emotionally in certain situations.

I’m also beginning to believe a lot of has to do with the environment I’ve grown up in. Knowing that Toronto is an extremely multicultural place might have a big factor in having a very optimistic view. I believe having this multicultural environment allows you to believe the fact that despite the fact that people come from different places all over the world, a society is still able to fully function. Or the fact that I have a relatively big family and have learned that sharing not only helps, but benefits everyone else.

I write this post mainly because throughout my experiences of being abroad, I’ve found for the most part, a lot of people are very pessimistic and unsatisfied with their currently life. While at the same time, I have constantly been complimented on my perkiness and positive energy. Some people have said “That’s just how Canadian’s are” to describe it.

yeah!

this is the link, check it out.
Anyway and it got me thinking that having that type of furniture in dormitory rooms would make the room so much more space efficient and comfortable to live in. I’m actually really surprised something like this hasn’t exploded and gone viral, however I think it could be slightly annoying and inconvinent to actually live with some of that furniture. Maybe it’s just a great idea but the application of it kinda sucks. Regardless the dude who designed it was definitely on to something big and I have respect for people who think outside the box like this.

Anyway I dedicate this post to the game, you want you lose. If you see anything you remotely want in this post, then you’ve lost.

More very interesting furniture. To a certain extent, Ryan’s dormitory room is like this, but on a much smaller scale. It’s too bad our rooms over here don’t have this, but I actually believe one day things like this will catch on.

I also found this picture and thought it was an amazing idea, however I realized that it would be impossible to keep this dry or even clean. The only way to enter it would be to swim unless there some way of swaying it closer to land or something. Nonetheless it would be extremely comfortable to hang out in that thing during the summer, the breeze of the water would make it perfect. Great idea

The reason I have this picture is actually because I really want to purchase it. I think it has a very space efficient way of storing itself and would be really easy to transport. I wish I could put this in my backyard back at home.

I think this should defintely be the modern standard for ever single electrical outlet, it better catch on soon.

I think if you knew you were going to a bad neighbourhood this would definitely be good to carry around. It’s concealed very well and it seems more or less purely defensive. However I do see a big problem of trying to take it out and opening it if you were in a bad situation.

This shower is awesome because you could easily turn a closet into a shower stall with this installed. Too bad the design hasn’t caught on, I think it’s actually a really good idea.

I first started to look into these pictures because I’m living in a small, cramped dorm room. I am constantly looking for ways to make more room and from that train of thought I began to think deeper and deeper into bigger ideas.
So anyway what do all of these things have in common? I believe that they’re all extremely innovative. They took a very simple everyday idea and put a twist on it. I believe that constantly having ideas like this, or having this way of thinking is what will set you apart from the general public. If everybody thought in this manner, the whole world would be a different place.
I’ve realized the majority of people are just happy sitting and staying in they’re own comfortable bubble and following the rest of the world, not that there’s anything wrong with that of course. However, I plan on going down a different path in life by trying to really do something new and fresh that people can appreciate. I plan on doing that and applying it to every aspect of my life, whether it be the way I walk, run, dance, communicate, etc.
Having the right mindset is a big part of the puzzle.

one love, peace.

So it’s been 8 weeks since my injury occured (ruptured my achilies tendon aka the muscle on the back of your calf that allows you to walk) and I have to say it’s been really hard, but thanks to all support my friends and family have shown me out here, I’ve been managing to keep a positive attitude.
Basically how I believe it occured was due to the shoes I was wearing while dancing. I went from wearing a very well supported shoe with a thick sole and good support to practising in some old shoes that are flat soled (on a shitty marble floor), and when I jumped and landed on one foot, I heard a pop and was unable to walk on my right foot.
I was lead to believe it wasn’t very serious, perhaps just a strain because the pain was actually very minimal.
At the time I was injured, I was actually in the best shape of my life, I was dancing at least 3 hours a day, minimal 5 times a week, getting 8-10 hours of sleep and on an extremely good schedule. And It all happened so quickly I really couldn’t believe that it was something so serious. yeah so after the swollening went down and I realized it was pretty rough for me to walk normally, I went to the hospital to get it checked out.

yeah the wheel chair was kind’ve unnecessary at the hospital so I ended up buying crutches for 69 RMB.
Pretty good price considering they’re the only way I am able to walk around, at all.

So after going to the three hospitals and seeing several doctors, one of them finally did something and put my leg in a full leg cast. That’s right, full leg cast, up to the thigh, so my entire leg was immobile. They gave me a full leg cast to immobilize any movement in my leg so my tendon could grow back in the right direction. At the moment I didn’t realize how much this would change my life, but god I must say it really sucked. hard. excuse my language but it fucking sucked really fucking badly, and I’m sure anyone who has ever had a cast can relate to the way I felt.

After four weeks a full leg cast, they shortened it (which was a giant relief but still sucks) to a below the knee cast. My casted leg has slimmed out and become super weak, which totally sucks, but atleast its a lot lighter and I can get around.

This is a picture of a noodle cup tin foil top turned into a bowl, man it’s actually so much more efficient to eat ramen noodles like this. They should put this on the noodle cup label.
Anyways what does this picture have to do with anything? Well not anything directly but it represents convenience.

If you’ve ever had any type of leg injury, you will completely understand what I’m talking about when I say it completely hinders your life and restrains you from doing even the most simple task. For instance showering is a giant bitch,  going to the washroom takes triple the normal time, you can’t walk and hold anything because your using crutches, sleeping is super uncomfortable, putting on any pants, underwearing etc is a giant hassle, the list goes on forever. With this being said, it brings me back to the noodle cup. When you’re put into a position like mine, and I know that mine is barely even serious compared to people who are actually physically missing a body part, but compared to the general public, everything is more convinent for you to do. Whether a handicap person ask for help or not, I believe that you should still go out of your way to help them, no matter what. However with this being said, luckily I’ve had friends help me on a daily basis and I am so grateful to them. I’m pretty sure if I didn’t have people to support me, I would’ve definitely broken down and become an alcoholic or something.

I can solidly say that this is the most difficult thing I’ve had to deal with in my entire life and that I have learned so much from this one experience. It has taught me so many lessons and to appreciate and cherish things in a completely different light. You know when you common hear the term saying “you could die at any moment, a car could hit  you when you walk onto the street, a meteor could strike your house at any time, etc etc, so enjoy what you have blah blah”. Well I’ve learned that this is really true, and it has taught me a giant lesson on health. For instance I actually think now, what if you were to smoke one cigerate, and next day go to the doctor and realize you have lung cancer. Or if you were to drink a beer and get alcohol poisioning. Now I’m not against people who drink, smoke, do drugs or anything of that matter but this experience has opened my eyes that if you are to do something that puts your health at risk, or to do anything with harmful consequences, its best if you really think twice about the repercussions.  I feel that society has lead  the youth to believe that because you are young, you are able to withstand such harm to your body and that when you’re older you can worry about your “health” more, but I’ve realized the best time to start caring is actually now. Maybe because you haven’t had an injury in the past (and I hope you never will have one) you can’t relate on the same level as me, but I can safely say I understand that health should be everybody’s top priority. I’m sure many know this, but do not understand it. Also on a side note, the term YOLO (You only live once) is very applicable to what I’m talking about.

Now for if some reason you had no idea that I had this injury, it’s because I went out of my way not to tell you. I personally believe I am a very optimistic person and I can feel the vibe I give to certain people as soon as I show up somewhere on crutches (and it’s not a good vibe). Unless the person has had an injury this serious them self, it’s actually extremely hard to comprehend what the injured person is going through. It’s like they can see the problem but not understand the struggle. Or like an iceberg, you can see 10% of it, but 90% of it is deep underwater. You have an idea of how hard it is, but actually it’s waaaaayyyyyyy harder to live it.
The reason I actually decided to write about this is so that in the future I could reflect it if I was ever in a bad mood or have a negative mindset. At the moment I’ve been in this leg cast for 6 weeks and I can say that it has taken a giant toll on my mindset of things and it has impeded my ability to be productive. For almost 2 months of my life, I have needed help doing so many things and it does not feel good to constantly have to ask people to help you. However I’m extremely grateful for having such support from friends and it has allowed me to re-evaluate my personal definition of a friend and friendship.

Well enough of my rant, I’ve done a lot of reading and understand that there are people who are way more messed up than me, so that is my way of staying optimistic. And afterall, there’s only two more weeks left in this cast and until I start learning to walk again, so I have a lot to look forward to.
And on that note, I leave you this song

peace, one love.

Just a picture of what people smoke tobacco out of.

This is a chart of the yearly basketball tournament, local area vs local area. We got to finals, but unfortunately lost this year. First time losing, ever, and whats funny is a fight broke out after. Pride is a serious thing.

This is a picture of a very famous garden owned by an ABC. The dude came back to China and built an entire garden all just for himself.

This is a nearby city which is very famous because more than a handful of movies have been shot here, it has a really amazing atmosphere.

Just an example of the things they were selling in the stands, in that city.

I was so happy once I was able to taste real Guangdong food for the first time since last year. My cousin said I should open a business and cook it the traditional way like this.

Setting heaps of grass on fire to refertalize the land, it’s amazing to see it in real life.

After the whole going back to the roots experiences, I decided to go to the most southern point in China and meet up with Ryan and Jerry. Weather everyday there is 25 degrees, truly a tropical paradise.

The view from the hotel room.

Went to a island where monkeys roam freely, sometimes they go crazy and steal peoples stuff.

Also got to see quite a few tropical rain forest, they’re actually very lush and beautiful.

Then traveled all the way back to Beijing with Ryan. Got stuck sleeping in a resturant waiting for our train to arrive.
You know what they say, any place is good with good company.
I’ve learned a lot from going back to my roots and I feel it’s changed my perspective of everything. If you were able to see exactly where you came from, you would probably be moved too.
PEACE!
 

so in the summer I went to Guangzhou, beautiful city. Truly going back to my roots.

The architecture in Guangzhou has a lot of different European countries influences

Then we took a train from Guangzhou to Hong Kong

The room we stayed in was luxuriously big, welcome to Hong Kong, the city of business

1 metre washroom steez

shopping there makes you feel boss

markets are next level, but stuff is quite expensive anyway

that right, thats some chick breaking off the shells of individual pieces of shrimp, man I’ll never forget HK seafood

This is what Hong Kong island looks like most of the time, sometimes it felt like we were in a different country all together

Ate pho at the top of Victora peak

With this view, high as hell.

course gotta hit up my WESC stores ha ha, didn’t buy anything though

billy told me to go here to shop…… I don’t think we even bought anything. billy man when i get back we gotta talk. haha

getting an idea of how busy it is there?

also took a boat over to Macau, its like a mini Las Vegas, it had an MGM, Wynn, Bellagio, etc etc

Also hit up HK’s Disney Land, it really is a small world isn’t it?

CANADA REPRESENT!!!!

Went to a shaolin temple, pretty bad ass performance. They really have every animal style, saw them all. frog style is nasty!!

At the top of a mountain chillin next to a huge statue in some sick temple.

and of course, can’t forget the bars made of ice. it was FROSTY in there.

PEACE!

Finally back in beijing from UB (Mongolia), had an amazing trip thanks to this man, big ups, mad respects bro.

thinking back, almost at every jam they had fireworks. work mongolia’s live

but at the same time they maintain nature so beautifully, Mongolia’s country side is a definitely a place of peace

they even wrestle cows haha jokes

known for the beautiful sky and enviroment, it’s always beautiful after rainfall

really breathe taking stuff guys =P

can’t forget naaaaaaadim festival (I have no idea actually how to spell it haha)

nothing like watching 100′s of warriors running in and preparing for battle.

yeaaaah

seen more than just one performance, they give away their instruments after to the people in the crowd

can’t forget the legendary man himself.

yes yes

mongolia BBQ with the mountains

hope all my friends and family are doing well too

peace

one love

yeah so I’m done exams! SOOOO me and this mongolian dude are taking a 30 hour train ride back to Ulaanbaatar(Ulan-bator). I’ll be there for like a month chillin with him and his family soooo…

peace!

one love

also peep the footage

http://vimeo.com/24675292

Start off a while ago, at a sea port in TangGu. It`s only like a 30 minute train ride from Beijing. Went with Andre to see what type of work he does.

Just a picture of what those crates carry. These crates could have been anywhere in the world

Tianjin is really close to TangGu so we ended up taking the subway to get there. It`s quite nice, also only 30 minutes from Beijing

They have a ferris wheel that looks over all of Tianjin. Pretty interesting except for when we went, it was closed.

Pretty cool random clock they have too

Also started visiting parks a lot more often. I really miss how in Toronto we have like over 10 parks in our district. This one is called purple bamboo park, has a nice body of water you can pedal boat around in.

me and Fernando playin in some arcade after eating hotpot. Dude is Brazilian Chinese, probably my future roommate.

This was during Mars birthday. We drove to these mountains which has a giant Laser Tag camp set up. They banned paint balling in China because they don`t want people to have the guns.

So here are some pictures of the shirts that me and Andre decided to make. We thought RUC had such shitty shirts so we decided to make about 50 by paying Mars to do the design and making a couple phone calls. We sold them door to door in the dormitories, easy as pie. I NEED A DOLLAR

They both have the Renmin University symbol on the back.

Fast forward all the way to yi he yuan, aka Summer Palace. This is my favourite tourist attraction in all of Beijing, however I ended up going too much and now I am a little sick of it.

Me chillin at the Great wall with Aunt Tracy and Ryan

In the end the great wall is kind of boring, but whatever its one of the world wonders

People get married on it! dope stuff

Yea I forgot to mention, you can ride a slide all the way from the wall back down to the ground, pretty fun stuff.

Forbidden city, also hella boring. It`s really big though.

There`s a small prank war going on on my floor.

I missed eating bread so much. For a couple days, all I ate was just pure bread, jam, tuna, honey, etc

Fast forward to my first meal in Shanghai. Me and a bunch of friends went to Shanghai to compete in Bboy in Shanghai Vol. 5.

I can definitely say Shanghai is a lot better looking then Beijing, but there`s not as much to do. The weathers also nicer.

Like check this architecture, it doesn`t even look like we were in China.

And this nice wonderful river that runs through Shanghai makes the weather so much better.

Random park next to a subway station. That made my day nicely =)

This is Caster dance studio, the one where we signed up. Man chinese bboys don`t cypher at all.

Nice shopping street near our hostel, quite a beauty =)

So this is where the event was held. It was actually an amazing building, really high class.

It was also right next to Old Shanghai.

Ate there and chilled out

So this is how the venue looked. Almost like a mini Redbull BC one huh

This is what inside the building looked like, man infact, I loved this venue

had this real cool cafe right below too

thats fresh!

After the event we ate at this shanghai restaurant. tasty stuff. I`m liking china the more and more south we go. The food is also more to my liking.

and that is the train we came back in. It was only like a 13 hour ride so it was no biggy, just talked a lot of shit about the event with the other bboys and passed out. Woke back up in Beijing that day, too dope.

so now I found myself all the way at Summer Palace once again. This is the 17 arch bridge. Pretty cool stuff

and all of us chilling in a pedal boat!  great memories

This entire palace was just built for one emperor.

This is probably how you imagined china to look everywhere. GODDAMN ITS BEAUTIFUL

PIZZA IN BEIJING OMG

BREAKFAST IN MY ROOM OH YEAH

798 art district

I LOVE TEH ART

Breakin in this bar. dope white boy on stage

photographer tattoo`s at this amusement park breaking event

THIS PARK ROCKS

I`m an all star breakin on stage

REPPING  DA FAM ALL DAY EVERYDAY

YEYEYE

alright so thats my last two months and if you wanna see some footage of me in shanghai check this out

peace

Don’t feel like saying much so I’ll just post some random pictures

haha this is my floormates room, me and my friend decided to turn everything upside down as a prank

Found this awesome new dance studio. It’s quite small but everyone who practise there is at a high level. I found it through one of my ABC friends and he introduced me to one of his ABC friends who runs the practise there. This ABC dude who runs the place is from Boston. Cool dude, he lives in Beijing now.

The only down side to this studio is its all the way in Sanlitun so it’s like 45 minute subway ride to get there. The practise are defintely worth it though, they just cypher for the whole 3 hours we have. It’s also not as frequent so I started practising in this crappy study rooms in the dormitories. I’ll post footage soon enough.

Not the best picture but as you can see this dance studio has a lobby (which is also a clothing store) and the dance studio right next to it. It’s really nice but not the biggest in comparison to the others I’ve found.

Yeah so any bboy would know what this picture means. Long story short, the first time I went to this dance studio, I happened to bump into a Toronto bboy there. Bboy Bridge SNC. He came back for chinese new year and was in Beijing to take the plane back to Toronto. The timing and coincidence was huge, I was trippin out when I saw him for the first time like… no way that can’t be him. When he saw me he couldn’t believe it either haha. This is the definition of why people say the world is a small place.

So now I’m just kind’ve chilling out, meeting a lot of new classmates and language students. I’ve becoming one of those dudes who has an idea of what is going on so I’ve been helping a few of the new language students. I’m really locked down in studying solid each day now because learning chinese is so interesting. So, I guess …

PEACE

one love. =)

So I left Beijing on January 27th, and came back on February 11th. My journey starts on a train from Beijing to Haerbin. If you’re already lost with it, seriously just google maps it. We then arrived at Haerbin and went to Qiqihaer. This is where the adventure starts, because originally I always thought I was staying in Haerbin. I was following around one of my Dongbei dancer buddies and he let me live at his house. So people always talk about Chinese new year being the worst and busiest time to travel around china, one because train tickets are scarces and two, china just has way too many people.

Yea these are what the tickets look like. Apparently also they often get faked, and if you have one, you’re in deep doo doo. They don’t even really scan them when checking them cause its so busy, so they just make a small knick or pen mark.

So going to Haerbin, we used one of the best, fastest trains. It was 8 hours long, super clean, not allowed to smoke, stuff like that. Very good first train experience. Especially because in Canada I’ve also never used a train, so this really was my first train experience

However, going from Haerbin to Qiqihaer, was a whole another story. We didn’t manage to buy a good ticket, so we had some 20 kuai ticket. This train was full of people, I am sitting on my suitcase in this picture, with like tons of people surrounding me. You can see the excitement on my face. Also tons of people tried to talk to me cause I was a foreigner, but I was super tired at that point and could barely understand their accents.

Aight just because I’m too lazy I’m not gonna do this is chronological order either. So when we arrived at Qiqihaer, I ended up staying at this dudes house. We slept in the same bed, blah blah. It was a nice clean apartment, but didn’t always have hot water and stuff like that. Don’t really feel like going into details. This is a picture of some what they call “bing deng” or “ice lights” exhibition in Qiqhaer.

Fast forward a couple days, I ended up going to Haerbin and staying at this other dudes house. Me and him ended up being really good friends. He’s super cool dude, and his family is pretty well off, so staying with him was really really nice. The dude is like 17 and a really dope bboy as well. He also happens to be a professional singer, and his sister apparently immigrated to Toronto and is attending university, but for some reason their family didn’t know which university it was.

Alright so this is a picture of Haerbin’s ice exhibition. This year was Haerbin had the world largest ice Exhibition, so the admition fee was almost triple the normal cost. BUT at this place, they had crazy stuff like a super small skiing hill, a zipline, some amusement ride, you can ride a horse, this type of stuff. Ye. We more or less ended up doing every single one of those activities, because they were all free.

Now you have an idea of really how big it was. That giant kingdom is all made of ice. Pretty neato eh bob.

They also had these awesome ice slides everywhere. We probably tried every single ice slide in the entire park. hao waner ha ha

Haerbin is also one of the coolest places in all of Dongbei, because it has a super strong Russian influence. So as you can see, this area of town doesn’t even look like its in China. Being there was really beautiful, had a lot of foreigners and was just overall super interesting.

So again fast forward a few days, and here I am, living in a nongcun (rural area). I was there for a while. It wasn’t the most interesting thing, they didn’t have hot water at all other then boiling it, no washrooms…. I don’t want to continue. Anyways.

Heres the type of bed we slept on. So basically theres a furnace under this bed, and at night they heat it using wood. Cool stuff brah.

One of my last meals in Dongbei, possibly for the rest of my life. The chuaner in Dongbei is suppose to be the best in China. It was pretty good I must say, but I am totally sick of it now.

Probably the only thing that kept me sane out there, was the dance studio. The dude I was following around had a best friend who opened up his own dance studio. I danced everyday and really improved.

This is a picture I’ll never forget. It’s funny because I did my birthday rounds in Dongbei. I battled every single bboyin this picture until they gave up. I went 40+ rounds. Thank god I’ve never smoken a ciggerate in my life, and quit drinking.

This is just some random door that happened to have the company name FAM. After taking this picture, I realized I really miss my crew, and would kill for the chance to cypher or battle with them again. I realized after leaving that dance studio having smoked every single bboy in there, I felt like I really represented canada and FAM as a bboy. Really miss you guys! Believe it or not, I remember almost every piece of advice you guys have ever given me, and it will not be taken for granted. Also big ups to MEC, and IMS.

yet another picture of a door. The quality of the doors are really strong, and the locks are even crazier. I always get super lost trying to open these doors.

This is what I did for atleast 5 days of having fun. Play with fireworks. Out here people don’t give a rats ass if you shoot fireworks 5 metres from them. They we’re also super cheap. But too much of anything is a bad thing, and I ended up getting a headache from all the loud noises and hurting my ears a lot. Even though I wore earplugs, it only helped a little.

As you can see they’re really convenient to buy.

So now you’re probably wondering why this is titled toughness +5. Well for one, I was following around a not too good chinese friend and really had no idea what was going on but managed to live ha ha. Throughout the 15 days of travel, I met all of his family pretty much, learned a lot about chinese culture and was really thrown out of my comfort zone. But for the most part I became used to all of it and I was okay with it in the end. At some points I didn’t have a shower for like a week, and had to wash my face with boiled + cold water together everyday to stay clean. It’s all good though, I think I’ve toughened up my city boy body and slowly learning to take things more maturely

So coming back to Beijing, I ended up taking a 24 hour train. On this train ride, you are given a super small bed. It was atleast clean and you we’rent allowed to smoke in it. Anyways, I bought a bunch of noodle cups, and other convinent foods. But of course, as I started to eat it I realized that all of the food expired last year, so I threw it all out. By the time I arrived back at Renmin, it was like 1 in the morning so there was also no hot water. I took a cold shower and went to bed. This is when I realized I really like Beijing. I could write a whole list of things that went badly on that trip, but I rather not waste my time lingering on the past. Overall it was an awesome trip, I learned a crap load of chinese because almost no one there could speak english and ton of others things. Everybody lives a different life style, their’s just happened to be the completely opposite of mine. Oh yeah advice for anyone who plans to travel. NEVER, EVER forget your music, and music charger.

peace, one love.

Can you guess what this is? Well basically its my home made humidifier. Every couple days I fill it with tap water, and this is why you can not drink chinese tap water. It’s not very clean and has a shit load of calcium in it. The calcium in the water also slowly destroys your tooth brushes, combs, etc.

I put it under my “heater”. The Heater is actually an Airconditioner that can go up to 30 degrees celcius, pretty ghetto eh? GO CHINA!

Now welcome to my new room. 909. I’m actually right below Leo, he always makes jokes like “HEY NOAH IF I STOMP ON THE FLOOR CAN YOU HEAR IT?” Well now I can. Also cool fact, Burundi people speak French and English, and my roommate is also fluent in Chinese. Hopefully I can come back fluent in all three…. =)

So this is my room at a first glance. I’m also on an all guys floor so theres constantly something going on. Such as music constantly blasting from atleast one room at a time.

This is my side of the room, I didn’t take a picture of his side just to be respectful, just incase. However this guy has like 20 speakers and an amp. He plays guitar really really well, so I often watch him practise.

We also have a TV and a nice view… of Beijing. Thats my plant. Apparently its one of the best indoor plants to have.

Just another view of my room, I just got back when I took these pictures so my bed is in a wreck and stuff, aw whatever.

Check my table. No too messy is it =)?

Can’t forget my shoes. Aw very lovely =).

And last but not least, I finally ended up buying a real humidifier. Work’s like a charm.

Yea well incase you’re too lazy to google maps, Burundi is in D.R. Congo. It’s a very very small country in Africa that has a population of 8 million. Their originally a french colony but because of government stuff they are forced to learn english as well. That’s all I’ve really learned so far. Also I’m travelling to Dongbei, Harbin on the 27th by some nice train I found, so if I don’t blog by March, I’m lost and possibly gone. Haha just kidding, sorry Mom. I’ll be staying with Dongbei locals so I’ll be perfectly fine. They also have internet and I’m living in a city so I’ll probably blog while I’m over there if anything. I’m getting excited to go into -30 degree Celsius weather again. Thank god I’m Canadian. hahhaa

one LOVE

peace

It’s called IDK dance studio, stands for I AM DANCE KING…. hahaha I like surprise more =)

Theres the 16 year old kid, he’s mad cool and dresses fresh, which is why I thought he said 26

It’s funny also this dance studio is not as big or popular as Surprise so they actually have some other company just working in one of the rooms.

The dude in the picture is a full time bboy, he teaches at this studio so me and him are sessioning pretty hard together

sometimes you gotta be ghetto na mean, instant noodles are super fangbian. haha fangbian shi fangbian  =)

random…. chinese.. snack. I can barely describe it, do you guys realize how hard it is for me to constantly be describing food?
well.. uhh its sweet and kind’ve like a sponge?

Alright guys so this is some next level food. These instant noodles; you cook the noodles with hot water, pour the hot water out and add all these chemicals. The hotdog thing is more or less a hotdog, everybody in china eats them. And yes, that looks digustingly unhealthy, it is a shrink wrapped chicken leg. Preservatives are great!

Yeah so I’m actually travelling to Dongbei (Harbin) pretty soon, around the 20th. I’m gonna be staying there for a week or two, maybe three if I’m loving it. Right now I’m just riding it out and chilling, getting dope, studying ,etc. Everybody at Renmin right now is actually out travelling or at home, so I think I’m one of the few who stayed. I must say its quite lonely. Oh yeah also a personal message to stickz. I”M GONNA SMOKE YOU SON

Oh yeah also I went to the Beijing olympic place. One of my friends brothers is in town and its his first time in Beijing so their doing a lot of site seeing, so I joined them. However I forgot my camera that day so it’s all on my buddys camera. It’s pretty awesome I must say.

we got it from carrefour. Which is kind’ve in a way like loblaws i guess, if you want to compare to canadian stores.

so of course we used a knife, grabbing it with your bare hands is a manly thing to do, but not smart

so he tried another approach

kinda hard to see through all the spikes but we did make a cut

then we decided to use a towel which made things slightly more easy. The spikes hurt either way

it looks like were breaking open an alien egg or something

progress…

and rip that stuff open with your bare hands. hardcore

it didn’t smell too much, but i think we ate it prematurely ripe. delicious nonetheless.

i just realized it looks kinda nasty..

but as they say, its the inside that counts =)

then we invited over a korean dude and had durian feast.

as you can see it was delicious and we finished all of its meat

look at this wonderful incense box i bought, =)

here some random chinese snacks. Surprisingly I think this is my first time buying a bunch at once. thing on the right is beef jerky put into candy wrappers… its very interesting

everyone loves jay chou, he even has his own drink.

now isn’t this something. pink.

can’t forget about these hotdog things. this was my first one ever. man I’ve been in beijing and haven’t tried half the things tourist normally do.

random picture of eating at some dudes apartment. He’s one of my dancer co workers. He shares the apartment with another dancer and his girlfriend, and they cleared the whole living room and put up a mirror, so basically they have an always ready dance studio. It’s such a dancer life style, haha.

just a random picture of a dance class in progress.. kinda blurry but this is one of the beginner hip hop classes. I think all of these kids are class mates hence the uniform they all wear. I really like that kids are starting dance so early now and days =)

peace

one L

look at this delicious egg. Its uncooked and I sucked it straight out. delicious quail egg.

yeah so I took a picture of this yam powder cause it was lol.

check out this dealthy chaunr. it`s just a grilled pepper. perfect for indigestion

looks familiar huh? well it`s made the same way gyros are made I think… but it`s super chinese, and its also street food. tasty stuff, I must say, sauce is completely different though.

just some generic looking soup, stuff is delicious though =)

so this is yet another korean restaurants free appetizers. thats some delicious pumpkin soup, orange is always good

yeah so with the appetizers, they gave us a pepper. I was just lolìng at the fact they give you such a giant pepper, who would ever eat this? I actually know who would love this =P.

yea so I started playing with this pepper, cause it was ridiculously big.

infact I brought it all the way to another restaurant where we ate some delicious japanese curry.

looks good eh =P we put a can of tuna we randomly bought to add some extra protein. It was super filling

can`t ever get sick of this cafeteria bread. It`s freshly made, and has a light tomato sauce ontop of it. I think its muslim but I`m not too sure. Anyways, super filling, super tasty =D

doesn`t this look straight out of anime? Eat this pretty regularly at this japanese restaurant really close to campus. has ramen noodles. it`s sometimes not too filling so I throw a bowl of rice in there. tehehe

this is just some random meats and vegetables thrown into whatever type of stock. Kind`ve a lame soup if you ask me

now this is some awesome meat. It taste exactly like chaunr without all the extra oilyness and stuff like that. Whatever coating they use is god like. its super salty though

love coffee? well you`ll love all the coffee flavoured snacks they have here =)

look at the brocolli to pepper ratio. welcome to beijing

this was crispy galore, tasted like a salt mine in my mouth

now if you`ve been to beijing, I know you were waiting for me to post this. this is pretty much like caramel apples, accept they use a local beijing fruit. it`s AWESOME but super sugary

this snack was the most suck snack i`ve had in all of china. this was a corn flavoured `sandwich` for some reason I thought it was apple flavoured, turns , the filling is corn.

I don`t know why but when i think of chinese restaurants,  i always think of white people order spring rolls. well these are the first spring rolls i`ve eaten since I left canada. after three months. they`re alright. =)

so next up we have a bunch of pictures of the thanks giving we had. On thanks giving (american) an american student invited a bunch of forgien students to all celebrate thanks giving together. It was a huge success, we had dishes from all over the world. So basically me and Andre thought of buying a bunch of vegetables, because vegetables are always good, but Andre last minute had to go to shanghai, so I was left to cook by myself. Luckily some japanese girl helped me and pratically put together a nice vegetable soup using some chicken bones and stuff. It was a sucess =D

loved the hard work everyone put in. check the finnish dude.

quick picture of all the food, I sat next to an Australian dude. man they`re sense of humour is great.

we even managed to get the security guard in, and get him pretty drunk. he had a good time =)

and of course everybody ended up getting trashed and went clubbing. And what do people do when they`re drunk and have a sign? thats right make bad words.

after this event I really started to get a strong feeling of what the international student foreign community at Rendai is all about. It`s really magical. Having anything in common with anyone is automatically a reason to be friends here. Rendai, I have to say for the most part, i feel at times is a very magical place. I met another chinese dude, who was born in Japan, who came to Rendai to learn chinese. Me and him had a nice long conversation, in chinese. Me and him had a lot in common but I`m too lazy to go into detail. Well I hope you enjoyed my 8 part pictures and random facts about what i`ve been doing. Now its time for me to go back into scheduled noah mode. wake up, go to class , eat lunch, dance, eat dinner, study, sleep. repeat x5 days a week =)

one love guys, peace

going to start off, straight off the back with some seriously delicious food. This is like super protein dish. Tofu and big blogs of beef. damn good.

This is pretty ordinary, generic, yeye normal chinese food.

this is some wtf corn. it was free so whatever but wtf they put sprinkles in the corn.

this was all at some korean dudes birthday, the majority of this was delicious. I think we ate some chicken neck or something like that

Look at that, got the grill and everything, mad tasty.

now this was at the Hagendaiz or however you spell it resturant. Everything here is pretty expensive, but in the end its just an icecream resturant. good stuff

we had this joke where I should go buy some corn and eat it in this really expensive restaurant as a joke. it wasn`t pretty lol to see me eat some seriously shitty street food in such a high class resturant

didn`t you guys know I started a bunch of companys here?i`m rich biaatch

tasty fried rice, seriously oily though.

check this fake iphone, its one of my classmates. china can make fake anything.

it`s pretty hard to tell from just a picture but in RL you would lol

delicious =)

i feel like i posted this already…. I`ve eaten this several times so whatever

OH GOD LOOK AT THAT DUDES BACK WHAT HAPPENED

oh man he must`ve fell and scrapped his entire back or something

naw haha. this is apparently some massage method which takes out all the heat from your back, just like the super hot cup massage thing.
apparently it didn`t really work or help… After I saw this done, the massuese just said `dont worry, I am a professional`hahaha

1L

PZ

yeah so turns out i counted completely wrong, only had 8 =P thats okay though. these are just some fishsticks hahahaha, nothing special.

more alien looking food ahaha. nothing special at all, can’t even remember eating this.

Now isn’t this interesting? Bacon wrapped around some veggies with mushrooms and stuff.

Now when i saw this, I thought this was epic design. So we’re just walking up a more upscale mall right across from campus, and came across this water dispenser. As you can see, the cups are just like those mcdonald french frie holders. They probably have them everywhere but I just took a picture because its the first time I saw it.

Just a dorm buddies room. This is a pretty typical look for most foreign students, ahaha. That book is also apparently illegal and banned by the government. Dude laughed when I took a picture.

Doesn’t look too appetizing, its all good. They use these small thin mushrooms in a lot of things, I’m not too big of a fan.

Kinda looks like a chinese burrito, but totally isn’t even remotely similiar. It’s just some egg wrapped around rice and stuff, nice healthy plain meal.

I believe this had peanuts in it, but it tasted really good. It was one of those sweet spicy dishes.

I remember this being some seriously quality chaunr. You can tell by the sesame seeds they put on them, they normally don’t do that.

This was some awesome tradtional beijing resturant, where I had my first peking duck.

dude cuts it up nicely infront of you. It takes like an hour and a bit to prepare so we had to sit around for a while but it was worth it. Suppositvely really traditional places cut the duck up into 88 pieces, because 88 is a lucky number. but I don’t believe they do that anymore.

yum, fit for a king. =) I have to say, I had it at an amazing place and it is a lot better than in Canada, but its nothing special. If for some reason you want to come all the way to beijing just to try the duck, I have to say its definitely not worth it. aha.

more chaunr. As I said, tons of people eat it.

Yeah so I just watched lost in translation because I remember eric saying it has the same feeling that I would be, and now I can see that. But seriously, that movie has such little dialogue and is almost 2 hours long. The plot is almost nothing and there’s just small character development with small relationships. In the end I guess I want to say that movie sucked and was a kind’ve a waste of time…… I could relate to it somewhat though.

I also had a few pictures of some chinese washrooms just for LOLZ but I decided they’re just too disgusting so they’re not worth putting up.

1 L

PZ

yea so this guy rides around a bike cart with a ton of water dispenser things. I saw this guy and felt bad cause his tire broke and all of his stuff was just lying there. I don’t know how he fixed this problem, must’ve been a real hassle though.

Yeah so here’s a bunch of pictures of a local movie theater, real close to renmin, like 10 minute walk. Pretty convinent actually. Movies here for a person living in china are ridiculously expensive in my opinion. Kinda sucks if you ever have to pay for anyone.

Also sneaking in is nearly impossible, unlike in canada. You actually get assigned a seat, and if its not busy you get to pick one. It’s a pretty awesome system I like. I think this was an IMAX movie .

I thought a lot of people would be interesting in seeing what chinese movies look like. All of them have bill boards like this.

Ticket’s pretty much the same as AMC style.

Yeah anyways had to take a picture of this. This is totally lol. if you’re on the right side of the building and look out any window, you’ll see this written on the road. I’m pretty sure Eric and Adam have seen this as well, apparently some dude did this a really long time ago with paint and it’s been there ever since. It kinda looks like a super half assed job now eh?

anyways it’s a friday so i wanted to make this kinda short, got relaxin to do you know?

aight 1 L
PEACE

Once again chuanr.. for those of you who don’t what this is, beijing has a ridiculous amount of it. I thought I’d never get sick of it, but I did very quickly after a while. I have to say though, it really does taste amazing and is super addictive if made properly.

just some basic soup again, i love how they throw eggs into everything. =) Protein galore.

think this is ghetto? well it taste amazing.

Now this is awesome, it’s not made of potato as many of you would think. It’s almost impossible for me to describe the flavour/taste/texture. If you ever come to beijing, I’ll make sure you eat this. It’s actually made to fill you up. =)

one of my dancer friends bought me this meal because we had a performance together. It’s what my dad is amazing at making. As you can see this is actually a takeout, there’s a shit load of rice under it. It’s was okay =P

This is andre’s drawer full of small bills. I lol’ed so i took a picture.

This is a super common korean dish. So basically you got an egg, a shit load of kimchi and vegetables and the tiniest amount of meat, mix it all around and eat it. It’s okay… I’m not too a huge fan of korean cooking sometimes.

Random cooked meat

This is like reverse sushi, aha. naw it’s just korean sushi.

aw man this is fish is amazing, i eat it pretty often now.

can’t even remember what this is. It doesn’t look very appetizing though.

yeah so i saw a picture of this and I thought it looked amazing. It actually tasted kinda crappy. The texture of the lotus root with the random fruits in it was just overall bad

yeaaaaaaaah egg plant always win. I love this dish so much, probably eat it like 2-3 a week.

yeah random picture of a flower shop! me and andre decided to buy this girl 24 white roses for her birthday. guess how much it was? like 3 RMB a rose. I don’t even understand how in canada they charge 5 dollars canadian a rose. SERIOUSLY WTF

This is me and my buddy messing around at some show. We did an opener for a fashion show, pay was nice. anyway we were being stupid and he kept saying in english “I AM TURTLE” with the helmet on his head. I lol’ed pretty hard though

yeah so today i finally met some real dope bboys, turn’s out theres a shit load of crews in Beijing, but a lot of them aren’t too good.

this post didn’t have the craziest pictures but o well =)

peace one love