Hong Kong part 2

One of my favorite professors, Darrin Duber-Smith, informed me that he would be giving a presentation in Hong Kong, on April 22nd. Being close to HK (relative to the flight he had to take) I decided to make an appearance at the conference.

The conference was for Global Sources and Darrin was asked to speak about his area of expertise: Green Marketing. Altogether, he spoke for an hour. The presentation was very interesting and informative. The bulk of the attendees were English speakers (some foreigners, others from Hong Kong where English is one of their main languages anyhow) but the powerpoint slideshow had Chinese translations added for clarity.

For dinner we had exquisite food at a very nice restaurant. The pasta was better than anything I've had back home, and the desserts were great! Darrin's wife made the trip as well. They both liked what they had seen of the city in the previous day when they arrived. I was expecting to have to play tour guide (my 2nd time to HK) but these two are professional travelers and they actually did most of the leading!

Also got to see my real good friend here, Panda, who was in HK for his visa. He is my former roommate who recently moved closer to Beijing to run an upscale foreign restaurant. He is very happy now! I got out of the subway after dinner, called his phone, got in a taxi, only to drive around the block. He told the driver my location in Cantonese (the main language in HK that he speaks) but the driver didn't say I was so close! I walked into the restaurant and there was Panda doing his thing: ordering too much food and instructing the wait staff about their business. It didn't matter that I had already ate great food for dinner, he always has to see to it that the people he cares about are taken care of and well-fed!

The next day was full of sight-seeing with the professor and his wife, but the weather was not cooperating. The fog was so thick! We went up to a temple and giant Buddha statue but could hardly see. Darrin is in the red/black shirt.

The trip to this temple was exciting: a cable car over the hills and across the channel!

The hilly nature of HK, surrounded by ocean water, makes it a scenic place. But there are lots of crowded skyscrapers that you have to ignore!

Special treat in HK: two servings of Ben and Jerry's ice cream! I can't get that on the mainland but its quiet popular on the island!

I stayed one more day after my professor's flight left. That day was fairly casual: good local food with Panda and a workout in the park!

Then back to Nanjing the next morning.

胜利 Victory!

Since arriving in China, I have been very fortunate to have made great friends and training partners with the coach, Fred Greenall, and athletes at Frontier Asia http://kunaifightwear.com/frontierasiabjj/
I've been having a lot of fun with it, but I know it makes my mother worry :-(

So when I learned that the 2012 BJJ China Open was to be held in Shanghai on May 19, of course I signed up!

I competed in the blue belt 65kg division. Three matches and done: winner! I won each match by submission (my opponent's gave up) rather than points.

I also competed in the blue belt open weight category, in which I won two matches. The first was by a technicality because my opponent did an illegal technique. The referee disqualified him, but I didn't want to win that way. So I teamed up with my opponent and we both argued with the ref to let the match continue for the remaining minute to determine the winner. But the ref did not capitulate.
I won the next match by a submission, but I lost my next match by points to a man who outweighed me by maybe 15kg. I hate losing by points, but I wasn't able to submit him.

I was really proud of the Frontier Asia BJJ team. Some were competing for the first time, like Sarah, who fought admirably! Overall, we won the team prize for the most individual first-place finishes and medals. Fred has done a great job training us and helping to develop these champions!

The majority of competitors were Chinese people, which is great to see as this sport is still growing in the country. And with such a large population, there is huge potential for the sport to do big things here! I know Frontier Asia BJJ will be at the forefront of any such movement!

Also gotta give respect and thanks to Michael Sullivan and the coaches at FusBoxe where I received the bulk of my training. http://www.fusboxe.com/

Suzhou

The Chinese have a saying: “above us, there is paradise. On earth, there is Suzhou and Hangzhou.” With the celebration of Labor Day on May 1^st here, I decided to put that saying to the test and made a trip to Suzhou with my roommate, Paul. You may be wondering: “what did Sean do to end up behind bars in paradise?” Don’t worry- that’s just me in a taxi!

Suzhou is about an hour away from Nanjing on the bullet train. The two cities are similar in many ways: big, Chinese city with big buildings, and a development focus on including trees and a nature mix within the city. 

Because of the big city feel, I never felt like I was really, “getting away from it all” to explore a wonderful, natural, and secluded paradise. Granted, I’m a bit spoiled coming from Colorado and having just visited home but three weeks prior to this trip.

Despite the Colorado-nature-snob in me, Suzhou did prove to be quite pleasant. We took a tour bus to four different spots and enjoyed a variety of different sights. The first stop was something of a palace or estate of old with nice flowers.

Another stop was a large rock garden, and I mean large. The paths were made of rocks and you climbed up some of the big ones to walk along rock bridges to other parts of the garden. In the center was a nice lake surrounded by some traditional pagodas. Some of the rocks formed together to make small caves that were big enough to walk inside.

We took a river boat along the canals of Suzhou and saw some traditional houses and traditional lifestyle living. Another stop took us up a twelve story (or taller) temple for a 360 view of the city, as well as a large Buddha statue.

After lunch consisting of some yummy Suzhou local food (every region in China has its own variety of Chinese food), we were taken to a silk store and pitched by many different sales agents to buy the silk.

The last stop featured another, larger part of the canal and some more pagodas. The canal was spanned by a large bridge where many of the tourists went to take pictures. By this time, I was pretty burned out from standing in front of canals, bridges, or pagodas, and didn’t really take any more photos.

The trip was fun and well-worth the time and money. Even though the city was similar to my big city, Nanjing, it was nice to go somewhere different and the various tour stops were a small relief from city life. Next stop: Hangzhou!