Almost As Bad As Jack Johnson

This weekend I let my friends convince me that going to a radiohead-influenced Chinese band's concert would be a good experience.

Yeah that was a terrible idea.

BLACK POWDER

My workouts have just been rejuvenated. One of my friends gave me some Black Powder, telling me a friend had given it to them when leaving China but they didn't want to use it. I have taken this as a sign from God as a reward for my good deeds and a mandate to workout and blow everyone's minds, and thus today I did just that. I am so excited, I have enough left for about 14 days, which is oddly the amount of workout days I have left. Tell me this isn't a sign from a higher power.

To prepare my body for the punishment I went and had my first massage since being in Hangzhou. I sprung the extra 50 RMB for the swedish style massage with oil and oh dear lord. No regrets there, I am so relaxed right now, I am really going to miss the massages when back in America.

I am sad that my computer is dead for good until I can return to America and replace the mother board, but not having the internet has been pretty good for my free time. As a result I've found some cool underground markets to explore for gifts and goodies for myself. Seriously awesome markets, you enter this 5 foot by 5 foot building in the middle of nowhere and go down the staircase into this giant underground multi-level market complete with an underground Korea Town. It blows my mind and will require several days to fully map out and buy things from.

The new infusion of Black Powder made me miss Bob and JJ and thus I had to watch (and by watch, I mean force my friends to watch for the first time as well) the Powerthirsts, Brawndos, NFL Crunchtime, and Superbingo on youtube. Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to go watch the Big Lebowski with them. PERFECT DAY.

Also, Texas beat OU.

Technology Continues To Betray

My computer has died. Randomly, without caust, it refuses to turn on. I have taken it in to a Toshiba certified shop, and as we have eliminated most other causes we believe it to be a motherboard problem. Hooray.

That news put me in a foul mood, and the only way to cure foul moods is to go to the gym. In this case, I needed an epic gym trip. I decided to channel the spirit of JJ and Bob, the two gym partners I have been missing dearly since our parting of ways in Hangzhou.

I haven't taken preworkout drinks in a little over a month, and I finished my last cycle of Creatine before returning to America around that time as well. Thus my workouts, while excellent, don't have that epic Bob-insanity level that they had before. I decided that only through the power of Bob's beloved Red Bull could I do that.

As I explained to my friends, for a balanced and truly epic workout you must combine the 5 elements, much like when forming the Power Rangers or Captain Planet. There has to be five:

JJ is the power of smoldering rage, you simply take whatever is bothering you at the time (girlfriend, homework, bowel problems, China) and turn it into sheer willpower. Give homage to the spirit of JJ before working out, and your rage fueled workout will leave you happy and carefree after the workout. Side effects include epic hair.

Dan is the power of epic metal, only through harnessing the power of a well stocked ipod and focusing ones inner spirit can one truly find harmony with the epic gods of metal and have a fulfilling destructive workout. Only through him can you find the power to do 10 sets of pullups and call it a warm up.

Stevo is the power of competition. Oh, you lifted that much last week? Well the Bear Spirit of Stevo will not only add 20 pounds, but he will do 3 more reps than you did with the lighter weight. It shouldn't be humanly possible, but since when is the bear spirit Stevo confined to logic. Pussy.

I bring with me the power of excess. Yes, that weight is dangerously heavy. No, it is not necessary for me to do that many sets of bench press. I'm not sure what you mean by 'rest day' but the concept sounds silly. Embracing the power of Chris requires moderation, it can bring great gains, but within this power also lies the path to overtraining, one of the great sins against the workout gods.

Bob brings the power of insanity. Not controlled insanity, not refined insanity, simply insanity. Embracing the spirit of Bob is what leads people to mix red bull, noxplode, and instant coffee in a nalgene before working out. Bob is the reason 24 hour fitness has a coffee station in the middle of the gym. Bob is a strong man, and he dares any of you to take a run at him.

I combined these elements and had one heck of an epic workout yesterday. I embraced the raging fury within me, bought two red bulls (the non carbonated Chinese version), and with Through The Fire And Flames blaring loudly downed the first in remembrance of JJ in Hangzhou and his love for the occasional single preworkout red bull. I looked at the second, and with a thought of remembrance for Bob and his reckless abandon seen in the concoctions made preworkout in Hangzhou, downed the second Red Bull. My ipod seemed to know that this was not a normal workout, and the shuffle seemed to switch perfectly from Dimmu Borgir to Ayreon to Blind Guardian to Iron Maiden, keeping me supplied with fresh epic workout fueling metal. I began with Dan style pull ups, pushups, and dips to get into the mood, then pointed out the trainer that likes to think he can compete with me to come and be my spotter, loaded 225 onto the squat bar, and the rest became a blur as the 5 elements combined to form whatever we combine to form. I like to think its a gundam or megazord or something.

Man, now I want to workout. CHINAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Andrew Jackson

Me: Any ideas on what my presentation should be about?

Mother: OK --just brainstorming here -- skyscrapers, what we eat for breakfast, Andrew Jackson, Chinatowns in America, OU UT game.







Andrew Jackson.

America in 5 Minutes

This week has been simultaneously eventful and yet not much of mention.

I have a new partner my friend introduced me to at the gym. And since I'm me, there is obviously a story attached. She wants to practice her English, which is decent already, and since I already ended my dedicated language pledge with speaking to my mother I decided why not. Turns out this girl is, in the Chinese sense of beauty, an absolute knockout model of perfection. I wouldn't quite echo this sentiment, but after I spoke with her the first time at the gym all the male trainers found me in the locker room and asked me what I thought, what we talked about, if I could introduce them to her, etc. I was the cool kid before due to being white, large, and powerful with my use of the Chinese language, but now I have achieved superstar status after becoming this girls tutor. These people are fascinating sometimes.

Speaking of, the topic is America in 5 minutes. I have been wracking my brain all week trying to think of my topic for my end of semester presentation. At the end of the semester we head to a rural school and give our 5 minute presentation to a class of students using Chinese to introduce something about America. Last year it took me a long time to think of something and finally decide upon football, and this year is just as difficult. Other students are doing Christmas, Thanksgiving, or the NBA, but I feel these topics aren't unique and engaging enough. So far my list has cowboys and barbeque as the top contenders, but I still haven't decided and must do so soon. Just can't think of what to tell them about.

My technology jynx continues. My camera, gameboy, external hard drive, and computer (fan) all continue to betray me at random points and either not load, not charge, or malfunction randomly. However, I still do not trust the mechanics in China to not break my things: America hurry!

I kept starting a topic this week about the things I miss most, but I just couldn't bring myself to go through it all. I wanted to commemorate that I had under a month to go and start getting myself excited about America, but it is still too soon to start doing so without getting too homesick. The majority of the things I missed revolved around Bob and JJ and all the things that I used to do in Hangzhou for fun. I still do some of them in Beijing, but no one understands me.

And perhaps the best news for last, I found and bought the ultimate Christmas gift for myself and the other members of the workout team. I can't say what it is since I don't want to ruin the surprise in case they read this, but I can say it involved long dealings, shady transactions, and possible bribery. Epic gifts are epic.

To The Korea(s)

I originally sent this as an e-mail to Gloria and Sinae, then realized that my non Korean friends may enjoy this, as well.

Dear Koreans I Hold So Dear,

I have begun a trend in China.

I have explained to them that Korea is China's Canada, and that Korea should thusly be blamed in any and all situations with the shaking of the fist and the simple angered yelling of "Hanguoooooo!~". We have translated the "Blame Canada" song into Chinese with the lyrics "Blame Korea", and on the trip to Harbin this previous weekend the trend spread out of our class and into the mainstream like wildfire.

Currently all our teachers, students, and Chinese roommates make daily hand shakings with blaming of Korea ranging from a speaking mistake to a student forgetting homework to stubbing one's toe. When I arbitrarily chose Korea as the country to become "China's Santa Cap" and subject of China's blame I never thought I would make such a big movement.

You are all welcome for me bringing fame to your country.

Love,

Chris Marco
Korean (HANGUOOO) Expert

P.S. Don't forget to turn off your fans before sleeping and avoid fan death.

Seriously, though, the whole Korea thing is getting crazily popular. It is pretty much hilarious.

Harbin Is Far Too Cold

That city was terrifyingly cold. If the weather is that cold I expect to see snow, and there was only bitter chilly wind.

The train ride there was annoying, the guy across from me snored louder than anyone I've ever heard. I had my ipod going on max and could still make out parts of his snoring. The ride back was much better, though I was a bit too wide for the beds on the train.

The city itself is beautiful, the architecture is interesting because it is Russia meets China. We went to a few different cathedrals, mosques, and landmarks like the 731 Germ Warfare Museum and the Harbin Jewish History Museum, but for the most part I didn't really care or have interest in the different places we went. The good news is they at least had some good food. I think the weirdest thing was eating this large bird leg, and then after eating the meat you were supposed to take a straw and suck...something...out of the leg bone (I'm guessing marrow?). It wasn't particularly tasty, nor was it bad, the experience was pretty crazy though.

I am a bit retarded, I managed to lose one of my gloves and my cell phone in the back of a cab. I am in the process of figuring out how to get my phone number back, but I get to spend money buying a new phone as punishment for being dumb.

I am waiting for my friends to post pictures. I took some picturse, but quickly realized that every time I turned on my camera that it was having a problem with the memory card, and that my camera is effectively broken. Trying to figure it out and fix that, but until then I'll just have to steal pictures from friends' facebooks to post here.

Harbin 哈尔滨

I am heading out tonight to Harbin, the capital city of ice and snow and all things miserably cold in the world. It is also coincidentally the capital of the Heilongjiang province, but that comes second.

I am nervous about the cold, but I have prepared well with many layers. There is a tiger park there, apparently if you pay money you can feed chickens, lambs, or even cows to the lions. We are currently planning on pooling some money to put a whole petting zoo of animals in there for the lions to chase around. Only in China.

The election was a point of interest. The students were going crazy all afternoon (your midnight) when the results were coming in favoring Obama. I've never seen people so excited about an election. More intriguing, though, was that the election was called for Obama by the Chinese media hours before CNN or anyone in America dared to call it. It was called suspiciously early, perhaps China got to vote in this election, too?

Oh snap time is here gotta run and get on the train!

Go Bad Walls

I love the spam I get in e-mails. I keep track of the best ones and Dan and I use the best of the excellent engrish phrases in every day speech, but there has long been one that has dominated. I got one spam message that simply stated, "Invaried beanboles, undeported seaboards." and nothing more. No link, no picture, simply the cryptic phrase.

A year has passed since that fateful spam email, and today I finally got another link free pictureless cryptic message. "Late wings spoke, go bad walls." I think someone from the future is telling me something through these random spam emails. I must figure out what it is.

On the China front, I spent the weekend revisiting some of the places I went with the mother and aunt for shopping. Most of the time spent revisiting was all done on one big stretch of road spotted with excellent shops and cafes. Aside from that, I had plans to go to the trophy row until UT lost, and then I just decided to go to the gym and work out instead.

But Chris, what is Trophy Row? Thank you for your curiosity. Last week when we were riding a bus to the forbidden city we passed stopped at a light, and I looked out to see a shop filled with trophies. All they did was engrave and sell trophies, which didn't a bad business model until the bus began moving and you saw that the next 10 or 15 stores on both sides of the street did nothing but sell trophies. It was mind blowing. I need to go take pictures of this phenomenon, and then perhaps get some excellent trophies made for those who deserve them. For example, "Dan - Slayer of Dragons and Savior of Mankind" engraved in Chinese and English on a trophy with a female golfer on top. Or perhaps a, "JJ - Master of the Seven Swords of Salishar and Keeper of the Sacred Flame" in Chinese and English on a race car trophy. The combinations are endless and excellent.