update

hey all,
things have definetly slowed down here for the most part. i work four days a week, from 2pm till 8pm. work is not hard, but kids do start to wear you thin.
Me and a couple others were treated to a day out by the owner of a club we frequent, the dame guy who had greg sing with the band last wekk and made me sing "with or without you" with them last saturday. he took us to some mountain that we climbed. it was nice, they dont like to actually climb mountains here, so they put steps up them. i figured it would be a cake walk, but alas it was almost 3000 steps to the top, and some sets of stairs looked pretty much vertical. i would show pictures but when we got near the top ut started to pour down rain. and after2 hours of climbing we got to the top and could only see 3 feet in front of hands. not a good picture opportunity.
we then went to some crazy restaurant. all wet and soggy, i was actually given ( he does not want it back apparently) some Ralph Lauren sweater to wear because i was soggy. But we have some fancy meal that consisted of Alligator (yummy) wild pig, and other various things. I also ate some pig felopian tube, which was as horrible tasting as you could ever imagine. and of course all of this was on his tab and he did not fail to mention to us how expensive this was and flaunt his fat cash. but he was nice guy.
other than that things are a bit more normal. i dont know if i have changed or if i just avoid shit that is different.

Oww yeah. my blog has been blocked by the chinese government, apparently the chinese word for democracy is not supposed to be spoken. They must not get the joke. i can post but i can not see what actually shows up. so keep me posted if stuff looks wac for whatever reason. that is if anybody actually reads this stuff.

here are some more pictures. I am trying to amass all th photos from other people as well, so i will put some up in waves. the internet is also slow as dirt here.

rokcin from 9-5 ( not the 5 that ends in p.m)

so we had a crazy ass saturday. it started at 9 a.m with a trip to a temple in shekou ( an area of shenzhen close to the water). this temple was a shrine to the water gods basically. People also pray ang give fruit and food sacrafices in hopes of good fortune to the shrines their. There are these really cool pots that if you rub the sides just right water sprays out of them, that kept us busy for hours. then it was 25 minute walk tot he tomb of the last emporer of the Song dynasty. He is the baby on the guys back. He obviously did not do much as a ruler, the guy whose back he was on drowned both of them rather than let the mongol hoard get them. we then went to a fortress about thirty minutes away and looked at some dope cannons and shot some toy guns. This was all over soon and then the real fun started.
we then went to a KTV ( kareokee) and got nice and wasted. It was fun to go out with everyone we work with, both foreign and chinese. the place we went was nuts. very big and very plush. but only 80 yuan (10 dollars) an hour. So we had fun there and sang our little hearts out for a couple hours.
we then went on to a bar. and for un known reasons we got free wine and some free beer brought to us. Not totally unusual, but still odd. Then to take the cake a guy came up and said that we would get a free bottle of booze if someone went on stage and sang with the band. which seemed odd, but whatevs. So greg went and sang "summer of 69" for a couple hundred chinese dudes and dudettes. we then got a 900 yuan (125$) bottle of hennessey for free. needless to say the rest of the night is foggy at best.

pay the cost to be the boss

sometimes you have to pay the price to have places like this to skate. and yes that is marble. They must have some huge mining area around here cause everything, and i am not joking, everything is made of polish granite or marble. Its nuts but awesome

Smog and skateboards

These photos are of a place called ling ji. its a public area near where i live and we skate there without any hassel form security, which pretty amazing considering what you go through to skate in the US. The other photos are of a skatepark that we go to run by a guy named johnson. People here get the make their oun english names so you get some pretty good ones. like Thrasher, and one kid i know is named Janoski ( after the pro skater stefan janoski). you will also notice that it looks like an over cast day out. Nope, it was really hot actually. But somedays the winds just dont work to your advantage and all the smog just stays around the area. When it got dark you could really tell how bad it was. There are some buildings being constructed by where we live and they had lights on top of them for what ever reason. But the lights were reflecting off the smog and you could not see the actual source of the lights, and the building cant be taller then 10 - 12 stories. Now that just aint right. I think i am getting the black lung just sitting here. Please take time today to take a breath of fresh air for me!

the END

the spring festival has reached an end, and not a minute too soon.
today was basically chinese valentines day. people write wishes and love notes on paper and hang them up everywhere. not sure what its all about but it was cool. every china dude and dudette came out of the wood works for this one.
Here are some more random photos i have taken over the festival and some of the city. Enjoy.

More new years stuff

here are two more photos from the new year festival. i am still working on getting this blog to let me put up my panaramic stuff. so cool your jets

This is me shredding at a very epic building. it is the new city council type building. It goes on a lot longer than it looks in this photo. I am at a football arena size open are where they probably have very intense Chinese Nationalism pep rallies.
I also have a good panaramic photo that i need to peice together and put up. More photos soon, i think