We just finished booking all our tickets for the trip home. We had the Shanghai to home booked a few weeks ago but now we've got the Chinese leg of the trip taken care of too. We have to stay an extra night in Shanghai to save money (440 CNY each) but that's fine. Less time to pack but more time for travel should make the process a little easier, hopefully. This summer when I had to renew my passport I also realized something about Shanghai, they have good bread. Sandwiches, croissants, bagels, pizza too. Most of China has really weird imitations of western style breads, super sweet and fluffy, like crappy cake. Maybe it's due to the french influences in Shanghai but they know what real bread is.  I pretty much have a one track mind about travelling now. What to eat? That's what I want to know. Shanghai is Pete's Tex Mex, Vancouver airport I've already decided to get a bagel with cream cheese ASAP. Mom's making chili and cornbread for dinner the first night. First breakfast is pancakes with maple syrup. Oh man! Only 2 more weeks! Mel and I have already been looking up recipes for what we're going to make at home too. yum.....

One thing that I'm grateful for is that living in China has given me an iron stomach. At first eating the food here was rough, I got sick a lot and when I ate western food, I got sick again. It was a sad time. Now I can eat almost anything as long as I don't stuff myself too much. I can't drink an entire movie sized root beer with ice though. I learned that one last year! haha. There is one thing I know I won't be eating at all this break.....white rice!

We're back into training normally now. We spent the past week reviewing our forms and now we're going to start the 2nd half of the staff form. It's very long so they teach it in 2 sections. Saturday I hurt my knee a little so I've had to take it easy and wear a knee brace again. I forgot how much it sucks! It's feeling better now though and I'll be careful not to push it too quickly. I really want to be able to enjoy these last 3 weeks. Only 3 weeks until the break! Yay!!!!!

Today I had to do some filming for T.V. which I normally don't like but this time it ended up being pretty cool. We went up to the 5 dragon temple which is not a tourist spot (yet) and still has all the old original buildings. It's so beautiful and peaceful there. I was also doing the filming the our Grandmaster so I got to spend some time around him without huge crowds of people all over the place. It was really nice, he's so sweet. I'm sure his students would laugh to hear me describe him like that but in accordance with Chinese tradition we call him 'grandpa' and that's really the way I feel around him.....like maybe he'll reach into his pocket and pull out a Werther's Original!

Overall I had a great day.

Well that performance and the following Tai Chi tournament are finished, thankfully, and now I'm in the process of recovery. The experience was pretty exhausting so I'm trying to sleep as much as possible and be really gentle on myself. I caught a bit of a cold the other day but managed to keep it to just 24 hours of unpleasantness by taking really good care of myself. Half of our class is off to another tournament elsewhere in China (optional, thank god!) and so those of us who remain are mostly left to practice on our own. It's been great! I know I said it in my last post but I just love practicing alone. We don't get enough time for it, so I'm trying to make the most of it.

The weather has been nice. Very cold at night and in the morning but it gets sunny and warm during the day. Really good training weather.

I'm learning a snake form now, it's not actually a wudang form but something that was brought here by our shifu. It's an 'extra'. It's fun and challenging and, I must say, I really enjoy the animal style forms. It's so fun to try to embody an animal in your movements and get into the spirit too.