Monday morning: very misty Clear skies on Tuesday morning
The training however was the same as usual, Monday and Tuesday were extremely grueling. Besides the usual sprints, frog jumps, duck walks etc. we also had to "run" up and down as fast as possible on all fours and keep our stomachs as close as possible. However the piece de resistance was the push up jumps, basically doing a push up and on the way up using our legs and hands we had to leap forward and do a jump. After about three sets I had blisters on my palms and those on my already sandpaper like hands.
Wednesday too was exciting, not really but it was less bad. At the end of our morning session we had to do the thing I used to think was the worst thing in the world, but somehow it doesn't seem that bad anymore. We had to hold up our leg for 2 minutes each side for 5 sets. It looks simple but just try hold your leg up for 30 seconds and you will see what I mean.
After a few sets it's almost impossible to keep the leg parallel to the ground
On Thursday things were a bit more relaxed, we trained hard in the morning and had the afternoon off because the academy was being painted. I have never smelled such toxic paint in my life before. The kids had to help paint the training hall and they all had droopy eyes, the training hall was filled with a grey cloud of toxic fumes. I went for a short walk and down the stairs to the lake, the colours of Autumn are slowly appearing.
Friday we ran our usual 10km run, my knees starting hurting after the first few hundred meters but I continued anyway. As we got back we had to do two 1:30 minute handstands against the wall, after a long run it's a terrible feeling but apparently it's good to drain the blood from the legs after a long run. Next we had to do the usual power stretching, the splits etc. This was followed by sprints, duck walks, frog jumps and other exercises.
After lunch we went to Siping because Dan had to exchange some money which can only be done on week days. After the bank we headed to the train station and bought tickets to go to Baihe (closest city to Changbaishan North Peak). The train station was amazingly quiet and we got the tickets we wanted, soft sleeper carriage for 145RMB, not bad considering the 14 hour journey. After doing some shopping we headed back to the Academy and saw some interesting things on the way back.
Motorcycle with some minor modifications A minivan with (im not joking) about 30 kids in it
Yehe farmer transporting corn Colours of Autumn
The weekend was pretty un-eventful, the hallways outside our rooms got painted so our rooms had some terrible fumes in them. Other than that I just watched some old movies like Scarface and The great escape with Steve McQueen, 2010 is such a bad year for movies I end up watching movies from the 60s and 80s. On Sunday 10/10/10 there were 10 couples that got married at the ancient castle, the Chinese are very superstitious with numbers, hence the 10 couples getting married at 10am on 10/10/10.
Because this post was so short I decided to also add a picture of a Chinese train ticket. It's pretty straight forward. Just the cart (Che 车）and seat/bed can be confusing because it's all characters and you don't know if it's up or down. Up is easy to remember because its Shang 上 like Shanghai and down is Xia 下 which is almost the same thing just upside down. Either way it's not that important because there is a waiting room and the staff is very helpful, when they see a foreigner they always make sure they get on the right train and find their seat.
The Changbaishan post next week will be a lot more interesting, with many great photos.
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