Brett & Megan

China

September 11th, 2009 · 2 Comments · On the Web

OK,  here it is:  my trip to China. Where do I begin? How about a list of our activities:

  • Tai Chi with two masters at the Temple of Heaven
  • Forbidden City/ Tiananmen square
  • Ping Pong lesson with the coach of several Olympians
  • Hutongs (the old small alleys of Beijing)– riding rickshaws, cooking our own lunch in Mongolian hotpots (yummmmmm), learning calligraphy & Feng Shui with local families in their houses
  • cooking class with a top chef at Du Wong restaurant
  • Bird’s Nest & Water Cube Olympic venues
  • toured an old factory town turned into a collection of art galleries
  • camped at Gubekoi village (fan dancing, serious karaoke, dinner in a ‘Mongolian yert’)
  • hiked about 10K of the Great Wall
  • explored emperor’s Summer palace, little Buddah temple
  • Longmen’s Grotto
  • Shaolin Tagou Martial Art School & Temple – taught history of kung fu by the head monk
  • Little Dragon Kung Fu school
  • Morning prayer/silent breakfast/sweeping courtyard with straw brooms/ tour Pagoda forest
  • Grand Musical Zen Performance – a nighttime show in an outdoor theater at the base of a canyon – dance, Kung Fu, music, drums
  • Kung Fu routine

This seriously was two weeks packed with activities. What was my favorite part? I would have to say hiking the Great Wall was truly spectacular. It was surreal being able to touch history with our hands. We hiked (and I mean a real hike) about 10K of a section of the Wall that fewer than 5,000 people (including Chinese) have ever been on. We needed permits, and Communist hats which our guides provided so we appear friendly to the soldiers who patrol the restricted military zone we passed through. The landscape was beautiful and shrouded in a fog that set the mystique of the wall’s ancient past. It was exhilarating.

This trip was also full of unique experiences. Like attending morning prayer with the Buddhist monks at the Shaolin temple and joining them after in silent breakfast (they eat this way everyday). In Beijing, we got to visit the houses of local families in the Hutongs:  old, small alleys that remain from the ancient city. I think if I lived in Beijing, this is where I would want to live – kind of a cool, courtyard design and you’re right in the city, yet it was quiet in the alleys – no cars can go through.  One woman showed us how her house was designed around principles of Feng Shui. It’s basically a courtyard with several rooms around it and about 10 of their relatives live in various rooms. As many as 4 families may share one property. In another house, a gentleman who practices calligraphy spent about an hour teaching us how to write on rice paper with traditional ink brushes (which he gave to us as gifts). You couldn’t get this kind of experience on a regular vacation.

Kung Fu school was also incredible. I thought I was in shape before got a serious workout from these hardcore 17yr-olds who taught us a routine. It was the kind of thing where we felt completely like foreigners trying out this exercise we weren’t built for. The routine we learned was basic hand & arm moves and kicks; they told us it was you first learn if you know nothing about kung fu – yeah, that was us. One day they let us try learning a weapon routine. I was excited to be divided up into the sword group. They make it look so much easier than it is. I wish we had more time with it but it was fun even for just a half hour. Maybe Megan will get me a sword for Christmas.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photos.DSA/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmharvey/sets/ click on China

Videos: in Facebook, search Discovery Student Adventures

Our experience truly was an amazing adventure. The students totally engaged in every activity and were curious to learn and experience everything. I loved traveling with them and was really proud of the way they represented our school. Here they are talking about their experiences:

Details (why I did this):

Discovery Student Adventures is a new partnership between Discovery and Ambassadors Group student travel. They are launching trips right now where teachers gather a group of interested students to explore other countries. Typically, about 5-6 students pay for a trip and a teacher chaperons for free.

As DSA is new, they wanted to host some pilot trips – where both teachers & students traveled free. I was fortunate enough to be one of nine teachers they selected from 170 members of the Discovery Educator Network who applied. Of the eight destinations they offer, the pilot trips included Australia, South Africa and China. On each pilot trip, three teachers brought four students each (3 teachers, 12 student). On our trip, I, along with my four students, met up with a group from Wisconsin and one from New Jersey.  We also had 4 other adults from DSA and a photographer and videographer.

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So far, not burned

August 31st, 2009 · 3 Comments · Outside the classroom

Hey everyone. I was planning on updating our neglected blog with a report on my China trip (got back a couple weeks ago). However, jet-lag hoarded my body and mind for several days and I’m just getting around to it. Unfortunately, more pressing topics need attention, so I’ll postpone a China post (but stay tuned).

For those of you who don’t know or weren’t sure, we live in La Crescenta. We just bought a house here this summer. La Crescenta is in the middle of the biggest wildfire in California right now. It started out as a ranger station fire in La Canada (our neighbors but no real physical boundary). It has spread to Tujunga to the west and now caught us in the middle.

We are OK. We bought next to the freeway, which didn’t seem like a perfect place as it has noise, but luckily the freeway is at the bottom of the small valley, so we’re far down from the fires up the hill. My dad’s house however, where I grew up and where my brother lives with his wife and four kids, is in serious danger. Yesterday my sister-in-law Becki brought carloads of valuables over to store in our garage (which was surprisingly close to being emptied out) and later brought the four kids down. My brother and father stayed to weather it out. At about 3:30am, Ryan called to tell me he was in my driveway – the police had just evacuated them. They used the loudspeaker from the patrol car as well as the reverse 911 phone system. My dad, decided to camp it out somewhere in in his shag-carpeted pickup truck – don’t worry, he loves that kind of stuff. We were just fortunate with the timing of our house (& size) to be able to fit everyone in.

So far the fire has not been contained much and tonight is creeping closer to the top of the house-line where my dad’s house is. We’re holding all the kids pets as well. School was supposed to start tomorrow but the whole district has cancelled school tomorrow. Yeah – another day to get ready. Actually we’re heading to my mom’s at the beach in Oxnard where Ryan and family went for the night. Here’s a few photos I took last night of what’s going on:

Megan is doing fine and we are looking forward to the birth of our daughter in another week. No signs of labor yet. She’s been a trooper.We’ve got our hospital plan in place and ready for it whenever it happens.

We’ll keep you updated. In the meantime I’ve posted a few of the photos I took last night and today. You can see more in my Facebook album at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033336&id=1402600995&l=43396719a4

Brett

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China Summer

August 10th, 2009 · 1 Comment · travel

I’ve been travelling through Chinafor over a week now and the adventures continue. With little time to blog and slow, spotty internet connections I’ve only had time to fulfill the duty to keep the Discovery Student Adventures blog, but wanted to give a brief summary of my journey.

After spending about 4 touring Beijing we’ve left thef city for a more rural setting. We camped overnight in the village of Gubekoi where we woke up at 5am to hike the Great Wall. This is the most fantastic hike I’ve done (the Materhorn is close). We went through parts that required special permits, but we still had to get off the wall in the military zone and hiked through thick brush. The views were amazing as we hiked in the mist of the mountains. The up & down terrain kept our pace fast. Cliche as it sounds, it was an amazing experience.

We arrived yesterday in Shaolin, the birthplace of kung fu. Yesterday we went to the Shaolin temple where the students are taught by Buddist monks. The head monk spoke to us about the history of how both Buddism and kung fu was brought to China from India. We can see a monument way up on a hill where an Indian named Bodhidharma came and spent 9 years living in a cave, meditating. Sounds like creative torture to me. We have morning prayer and breakfast with him tomorrow, 4am.

We spent today at a newer kung fu school less than a mile from the temple. I’d seen video footage of these schools on a screen before but you have no idea just how ridiculous it is until you’re there with 6,000 boys (and about 5 girls) running around in red shirts and black track pants, shouting and doing drills in unison.

We spent the morning getting instructed by a group of scary-looking 19yr-olds you would not want to be on the other end of a bar fight. We learned a drill routine that takes about 20  seconds to run through if you’re fast. It took us 2 hours and enough sweat to fill up a swimming p0ol to learn. It was tough like yoga but they would stop and perfect our technique by moving our hands or feet or knees, holding a lunge the whole time.

Hot and humid understate the weather. I estimate that I’ve drunk about 50-60 water bottles (0.5L)  in one week. Luckily they’ve got the perfect refreshment at every meal: tea and hot soup. I am going to come back and make my first million in this country with icemakers. Nothing is cold – not even the refrigerators.

The kids have been phenomenal on this trip. Kids from Wisconsin & New Jersey along with my CA kids have bonded like I’ve never seen before. They have formed one mass, dissolving the state lines and miles that separate them back home. Here, they’re all Westerners. I would travel with this group of kids again. We’ve fully enjoyed our journey and will be leaving China on Saturday.

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