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Fast Summer, Warrior Dash, Song Writing, & China

// October 7th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // China, Chinese, Shanghai, Travel

Tomorrow is my last day in Montana, and it is insane to sit here and realize just how much time has past since I first started working out here. I came here the last week of May for training, and now it’s the first week of October. So much has happened in between – road trip to Montreal, Hot Mess in Philly, family road trip to Tennessee, Southern Belle Swing Bash in Atlanta, trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, and two-week trip to DC to hang out with friends one last time before leaving for Asia. It’s been one amazing summer – one full of incredible landscapes (Niagara Falls, Montana, and Yellowstone), incredible dancing, crazy amounts of traveling, and a great time off-loading in Hummers. Now there’s just one more thing to do before flying to Asia…

WARRIOR DASH! That’s right – getting ready to spend this weekend in Quarryville, PN, racing in the most ridiculous race I’ve ever seen. It’s basically a big tailgate with a 5k obstacle course in the middle. I’ve been training all summer as I usually do, but I’m hoping it will pay off at the race. I even made a training video over the past weekend which you can view at my videos page or on Facebook. I fly out Friday and the race starts Saturday morning – so excited!

On a completely different note, song writing has been a rather recent hobby of mine. With every new life experience I encounter, I find myself reflecting upon them through music, and constantly come up with instrumentals that express certain feelings. I’ve come up with several full songs, but am always struggling to find matching lyrics for them. I was recently inspired, however, by fellow lindy hopper and singer-song writer Carsie Blanton (visit her website or her myspace). I briefly met Carsie at Hot Mess in Philadelphia this past July, but only as a dancer, and I had no idea how talented she is as a musician. However, I recently listened to her performance at Mountain Stage on NPR and was totally blown away by her fantastically witty lyrics and soft, gentle, and pure voice. Such a refreshing combination of poetry and music really inspired me to continue exploring songs I have written over the years. So thanks Carsie for really helping me with a fresh, new, inspiring sound, and hopefully someday I will finish these tunes and write them down as works of art.

Next Tuesday, October 12, I fly to Shanghai, China, where I will once again begin another adventure in Asia. This time, since I’ve graduated, I have more freedom to do whatever comes across my plate, so I’m pretty excited to see what I can find. I’m hoping to do some traveling in mainland China first (Nanjin, Three Gorges Dam, Xian, Guilin, Yangshuo) and then I’ll be at National Taiwan University for the winter studying mandarin. After that, who knows. I will be looking for work opportunities the whole time I am there, so if something comes up I will probably take it. Plans are pretty flexible for now. Next time I post something, I’ll probably be in China!

Montreal Road Trip, 2010

// July 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // Dancing, Travel

I’m back! Wow what an amazing trip! I returned from my Montreal road trip about a month ago and only just now have had the time to write about it. My last post was right at the beginning of my trip in DC after dancing at Jam Cellar.  From there the plan changed quite a bit – here’s the rundown:

• June 1-3: DC – Jam Cellar Tuesday night (June 1) and stayed with Soo Clark until June 3. Left for NYC in the afternoon June 3.
• June 3: NYC – Arrived in NYC at around 12:15 am and went straight to Frim Fram. Danced for about 45 minutes then ended up staying with Big George in the city. Had to park on the street, so I took a 3 hour nap then got up at 6:30 am, got in my car, and started the drive to Montreal.
• June 4 – 9: Montreal – Arrived in Montreal Friday night. Met up with Amanda and went straight to the dance at Cat’s Corner. Went to a club the next night, then explored the city with Amanda on Sunday. Monday I explored more hanging out with Jason Zwolak, then stayed for the dance Tuesday night at Le Petite Medley. Left Montreal for Rochester the next morning, June 9th.
• June 9 – 12: Rochester – Arrived in Rochester on the evening of June 9 and went to the Wed. night dance after meeting up with Joy at her blues lesson.  Went to Niagara Falls the next day, then came back and went blues dancing that night back in Rochester.  Explored some of the city on Friday then stayed for the opening of the Rochester International Jazz Festival.  Stayed with Lindsay then left for DC June 12th.
• June 10: Niagara Falls – Stopped by Niagara Falls with Joy Arico.  Unbelievable place and a major highlight of the trip.
• June 12 – 14: DC – Arrived in DC on June 12th and stayed with Amber Smith for a couple nights. Got to visit friends and spend Saturday and Sunday night in DC before heading home on June 14th. Flew back to MT the next morning, June 15th.

Map of my roadtrip

During those 2 weeks, I visited DC, NYC, Montreal, Rochester, and Niagara Falls…and went dancing in every city (often more than once!). As awesome as it was to visit and dance in such amazing cities, gettingto meet and spend time with so many wonderful people truly made the trip an unforgettable experience.  I also wanted to especially thank the following friends for opening their homes to me along the way, without whom the trip would have never happened:

Soo Clark
Big George Henrik
Amanda Fong
Putra Manggala (Angga)
Joy Arico
Lindsay Crawford
Amber Smith

Thank you all so much for being part of my road trip and for all the memories!

Update & Canada Road Trip

// June 2nd, 2010 // No Comments » // Dancing, Travel

Update.
A lot has happened since the last post. First, I graduated! I am now a Virginia Tech Alum with a degree in Engineering Science and Mechanics. I also have made several big decisions. I was accepted into Carnegie Mellon University to begin study for a PhD in Engineering and Public Policy.  I decided to defer my acceptance for one year so I can return to China and continue studying mandarin.  I took a job as an off-road driving instructor in Montana driving hummers, which will last until October and help fund my studies in China.  I recently received a scholarship from the Taiwanese government to study there, so it’s looking like after the job in Montana I’ll be in Taiwan instead of mainland China from around Dec-May (I really want to learn traditional characters, so here’s my chance!).

Road Trip.
The way my job works is I fly out to Montana and drive hummers for about 3 weeks and then get a week off to refresh and take a break.  My first break, however, is from June 1-14 and a little longer, so I decided to take a road trip to Canada during the time.  I am writing from DC, the first stop on the road trip, where I caught the Tuesday night dance at  Jam Cellar last night.  I am headed to NYC tomorrow to catch the Frim Fram dance on Thursday nights.  Friday I’ll be going up to Montreal to visit a friend and catch the Friday night dance there then explore the city for the weekend.  After that, it’s looking like I’ll visit Quebec for a couple days and then perhaps head to Toronto, Niagra Falls, then Cleveland to do a little Balboa at Cleveland All Bal Weekend.  That’s the current plan at least.  I’d like to be home on the 13th and that’s really my only contraint.  Other than that, I’m pretty much going where dancers are and staying with dancer friends.  I’ll make a post at the end of the trip with pics and details.

Lindy Focus VIII

// January 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // Dancing

For the third time in a row, I have finished the year at the happiest place on Earth:  Lindy Focus.  LF is truly a magical place.  I have never been somewhere where so many people from so many different places and backgrounds come together with a more united purpose: dance.  Time at this camp takes a strange form (read a few pages from Einstein’s Dreams and you’ll know what I mean).  There are times when the whole day happens in less than a minute, and other times when a half hour conversation lasts the whole week.  The synergy of music, rhythm, harmony, movement, dance, friends, and very little sleep makes for an ineffable event that can only be experienced.  I met many wonderful people this year who in just a few dances left memories that I will last a lifetime.  All the way up to New Year’s Eve, it was the most intense and exciting weeks of the year.  I wouldn’t have started 2010 any other way.

Korea is Fancy

// August 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // China, Dancing, Harbin, Korea, Travel

Wow did the last few weeks fly by or what! I’m now writing from Korea and I didn’t even have time to mention that I left China! So here’s what happened:

July 25:  Went to the Tiger Park in Harbin – got some great photos of tigers that I’ll post soon.
August 4:  Final exam in Chinese classes, closing ceremonies that afternoon/evening (I somehow got all A’s!).
August 5:  Took a train all day to Beijing, arrive at 7:30 pm and meet up with Josh (swing dancer in Beijing). Hung out with Josh and other dancers, spent the night at Josh’s.
August 6:  Flight to Seoul at 1:45 pm, arrive at 4:45 pm. Took a bus to Hapjeong station and was met by my friend Miyeoung. Stay at her place that night.
August 7:  Train to Pusan, dance in Pusan that night.
August 7 – 9:  Pusan swing festival! Dancing all night, all day.
August 9:  Train back to Seoul, dance that night in Seoul.

Now I’m back in Seoul. Even though I have been in Korea for about 4 days, today is really my first chance to go out and explore the city on my own, and I am about to go do that. So far my first impressions of Korea are that it is incredibly clean, nice, and fancy. The roads are kept in perfect shape and people actually drive inside the lanes. Seoul is one of the cleanest cities I’ve ever been to (for a city of this size). There is not one piece of trash on the road and all the buildings are spotless.
My biggest impression is simply that Korea is fancy. It’s become a running joke with my friends here that whenever I see something that surprises me they always say, “Yeah I know. It’s Korea. It’s fancy.” For example, McDonald’s uses hard plastic cups and washes them to reduce waste – it’s fancy. You can pick up a wireless internet signal just about anywhere – it’s fancy. There was a giant Starcraft gaming competition on the beach in Pusan – it’s fancy. Well, that last one maybe was not “fancy,” but I did witness it. A crowd of at least 2,000 people all sat in chairs watching two computer geeks battle it out in a Starcraft match on the beach. Two huge jumbo-trans projected the game while two announcers called the game play-by-play. It was like a football match but with computer games instead of athletes. Anyway, those are my first impressions of Korea. Now I’m going to go exploring and see what else I can find.