Month 1 Down

Hey all.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I'm not good with keeping things like this up to date ... especially with a bunch of stuff going on. So here's what's making news in China.

Past few weeks have been ... well kinda slow (at least for me anyway). Everyone has pretty much fallen in to the work routine here. Like I've mentioned, we don't have a set schedule so we don't perform at the same time every day or even every week, although it's looking a bit more stable now. The shows have been going well and more and more people are talking about it so that's cool. We're getting more used to the schedule so we're just meeting up at work, performing, and then peacing out afterwards. We don't do the big group travel together thing anymore like tourists. I was talking to Carl and we've even found it hard to talk about stuff because we're so accustomed to things here. It's completely normal to get up and have to take an elevator 16 floors downstairs and walk through an enormous casino to get my breakfast. Eating in a room full of hundreds of chinese people staring at me ... completely normal. Unfortunately, not buying groceries or cooking or doing my own laundry is getting very normal too haha! :P

This last week was hard though. Carl hurt himself and hasn't been able to perform for the past 2 days so we've had to adjust the show around him being missing ... and I've been covering a lot of his parts so I'm really really tired this week. I spent all day today sleeping. I'm hoping I'm wrong but I think I might be getting sick from over working myself this past while and my sleep being off. He should be better soon and walking so things can get back to normal.

The weather here is still smoggy and humid. Nights have been kind of cool now though and I've been spending a lot of nights out walking. I'll need to get my next batch of pictures up. I haven't been out with anyone so I'm still not in any of the pictures (which might be a good thing depending on how you look at it) but I'll get those up in the next little while.

So now that I'm used to our work and where to go etc I've been hanging around to watch the other acts that perform on stage with us and getting to know people. I've met my boy Philip, a black guy that's been living in Hong Kong for 11 years and sings on stage in chinese. People love him here. He's been updating me on all the things I can go and see and do. He's a funy guy ... lots of fun to talk to during the day.

There's a live band here called Fever and their set consists of playing requested songs by the audience ... both english and chinese songs. They're really good too. Depending on when our last show is for the day I usually stay back to watch one of their sets. I've been talking to their trumpet player and he's going to let me practice with his trumpet (I used to play years ago) and in exchange I need to get a room at the fitness center we have access to and teach them to flip haha.

It's been cool meeting new people and hearing their stories about how their shows and groups came together. We're one of the only groups that has come to this contract as a group and known each other and what we're going to be doing. Most of the other groups met here a few weeks before their contracts began ... met their team members and learned their shows. I can't imagine having to do that.

Like I said, I've been out walking around a lot while everyone else does their thing at the end of the day. I've walked for hours in each direction from our hotel and gotten lost all over the place checking out Macau. It's really interesting to see all the differences and similarities between here and home ... which brings me to the Oddities of China List ... things I've noticed that I don't understand.

1) There are signs everywhere with this malnutritioned children from Africa eating food off the group telling us not to waste food. Every meal however is a buffet and sometimes there are chefs behind the stalls handing out portions of food. There are McDonalds restuarants all over the place ... no bins for donations or anything however.

2) Apparnetly toilets (at least men's toilets) are also to be doubled as sitting and horking stalls. I must not be peeing right because everyone that walks in to the public bathroom horks up and spits in the stall before going to the bathroom ... sometimes even *while* they're going to the bathroom. I will never get used to that ... it's gross.

3) We're asked to always be aware of our energy consumption. To turn the lights on in our hotel room we need to put our key in to the wall or else the lights will turn off in order to save energy. This is coming from the hotel with the largest casino in the world running slot machines and flat screen tvs 24/7 ... they have tvs out by the pools ... there are so many spot lights pointing up at the building itself that I can't see the ground if I look out my window at night because it's too bright ... the airconditioning is on full blast all day long ...

4) Same thing with water ... we're supposed to be conserving water as well. They wash the floors here every day (normal I guess with the amount of people in this place) but they wash with a hose and just spray everything and let it drip ... then run over it with huge soap machines. There are fountains ... everywhere.

5) Men like to hold hands ... and poke and look at other men. Uncomfortable yes. 'Nuff said. Eric walking around the pool or walking outside with a tank top on is a no no.

6) Smoking is apparently the best way to lose weight and the best thing for you here. You can buy cigarettes any and everywhere and smoke wherever you want. Is this normal at home? I dunno 'cause I'm not usually around smokers. It's gross though. For while I was wondering how everyone here ate so much and stayed so thin. On the one hand yes they're used to it ... but smoking 25 packs of cigarettes a day is also normal here so that counters it easily.

7) Massage parlors are as normal as 7/11 convenience stores. A lot of them I've passed by scare me though. I'm gonna leave that one alone.

8) I think there are too many cleaning staff. They stand at tables and clean while I'm eating. It's like they're waiting for me to drop a grain of rice ... they move my tray and grab it and then put my stuff back. It's weird. Everything around is kept very clean though.

9) Anyone here can become a pop star. Talent not neccessary. Just put on a tin foil costume and run around on stage with a bunch of people dressed equally as weird and people here will love you.

There's more ... but my brain is stalling on my from lack of food.

Hope everyone is doing well back home. If there's anything people want to know then it would be easier to ask than wait to see if I'll mention it because like I said, I'm already desensitized to it all. I'll be getting another round of pictures up soon. Speaking of which for those of you that don't have me on facebook my first round of pictures was there:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=161995&l=0fd4f&id=628240306

Alright all. Out for now. Peace!

25% DONE!

Alright ... so I've been told my last post was way too long haha. I was trying to catch up as much as I could. For those of you who made it through ... congratulations! Today won't be as long ... my body is hurting and I just want to lie down.

So today officially marks our 3rd week done in Macau ... 72 shows complete ... and my body is definately feeling it now. Tomorrow is going to be the first day off that I'm literally going to do nothing. I want to see some sights, I want to explore and experience China ... but I also want to be able to walk on Wednesday so sleep wins.

Today was a pretty regular day at work. Nothing crazy happened. We did have this group of 4 friends watching our show today though and they were going nuts through out the entire thing. It's rare here to have people clap and cheer at the end of a performance much less during it. These 4 were clapping after every flip and trick. It was refreshing to be honest ... especially when we're this tired.

We finished our shows and came home, I went to the gym and did a mini hour long workout (yes I'm crazy considering I'm hurting everywhere ... but I want to keep the habit going) and then went to eat. When I got down to the dining lounge I piled up my usual food mountain and sat down and realized I had sat down right beside the same lady that was staring at me the last time I ate! ANd so once again ... I had an audience as I finished the equivalent of 2 people's meals.

Now I'm just chillin in the cafe again catching up on some emails and relaxing until I'm ready for bed. I won't do any more catch up today on days past. I'll leave that for another day.

One funny thing did happen though. I have to walk through the casino to get to the elevator that takes me to my floor. So I go walking through yesterday with my do-rag on my pant legs rolled up and my backpack on and I'm listening to my mp3 player completely oblivious to everything ... I'm bouncing and gliding all over the place without realizing that all these people playing slots are watching me and laughing. I finally spun around to the exit and looked up and had this mini audience laughing and pointing at me. It was pretty funny. Normally once we hit the casino floor to walk through we do it as discretely as possible (we're not supposed to be in the casino as performers) and normally I am. I was just so tired and out of it in my own world that I didn't even realize what I did. Obviously there were no issues or problems. Even the security guard was watching. (he finds me to say hi to me now haha) Good times.

Anyway ... I'm falling asleep. More news later!

Hello Back Pain

Yes ... it's finally happened. We have one more day until our 3rd week is offically over and so far I've been feeling pretty good. I won't play like my body isn't tired ... but nothing pulled or sore other than overuse. Today was the day though ... my back muscles have had enough impact haha. I'm up on stage for the 1st show by the time the show is over my back muscles decide they're not going to relax. I just lay down on the floor back stage to try and relax them ... but as of this very minute they're still not relaxed. I feel like I have a solid piece of board as a back. It's not fun. Thankfully ou day ended a little earlier today so we'll all have more time to rest up for tomorrow. I've never looked forward to a Tuesday more than I am right now.

Here's something else weird that keeps happening to me here. People keep poking me. Yes that's right ... poking me. I stand at the side of the stage waiting to go on and people will randomly come up to me and poke my arms or my chest or my abs and then either laugh or smile, or say something to me in chinese that I obviously don't understand. It's not happening every single day ... but it happened a few times in the first few weeks and then again today. The guys are all standing by the side of the stage, we're in cargo pants and black vests. These two men come walking up beside us ... they look at us ... then at me ... and then poke my arm O_o; They turn to each other and say ... something ... then turn back to me and one of them is holding his hands out in front of his chest. I turn to Carl and I'm like "Um ... is he trying to tell me something about breasts? Do I have breasts? What's going on?" We all start laughing and I turn back to them and they give me a thumbs up and walk away. I don't think I'm ever going to get used to that one.

I think I'm also getting known down in the eating hall too. I went down to have dinner last night with my usual mountain of food and this table of women watched me as I piled all my food up and ate. Now when I say watched me eat I don't mean glanced over their shoulders every now and again discreetly to peek. One lady fully turned around and was just flat out staring at me. They were all laughing and talking in chinese while I was eating so I guess it was some kind of show? I dunno. I guess they're not used to seeing someone walk back with 2 plates of food at a time and then pile them both together to make a food mountain. I'm really enjoying being able to eat so much without having to buy grocceries though, but I'm gonna have to start watching it 'cause I've put on a bit of weight since I've been here. Usually for people it ends up being the opposite. Because of the long travel and the new environment and foods people tend to lose some weight when they travel. Not for me haha! I'm not concerned that I'm getting fat obviously ... but still. If anything drastic in that realm occurs I'm sure someone on the team will let me know.

Not too much else happened today so as promised I'm going to start on the catch up from the last two weeks. I'll do it in sections ... but I warn you ... it's a pretty long read so if you're interested ... go grab a snack and get comfortable. Here it comes:

Day 1: Everyone including me decided that it would be a good idea to stay up all night and try and exhaust ourselves so that we'd be able to sleep away most of the dreaded 15 hour flight to Hong Kong. I don't know about the others ... but I was pretty excited so it wasn't hard for me to stay awake. I did nap for 2 hours though right before I left my house. (not to mention I was a bit groggy from the numerous shots my doctor gave me for the trip for all sorts of weird diseases and stuff just a few hours prior)

So we all meet up at the airport at 7am getting ready for our 9am flight. Our flight was booked electronically so we had printed copies of our itinerary that we would use to check in. We've all done this before so we figured it would be no problem. We get in line to get our boarding passes and check in our luggage but the guy at the counter won't let us check in with the itinerary we have because the return flight is just a dummy. To be honest, I don't know what the problem was because a lot of people fly that way when they're not sure when they're coming back, but for whatever reason this was unacceptable and we couldn't get through. So now we had to wait while James made a bunch of calls to try and sort everything out. The best part is that Adrienne had a separate booking so she was already checked in and set to fly out to Hong Kong alone. She ... wasn't too happy about having to be in Hong Kong by herself. Here's a bit of video commentary I made about that:

The next 2 hours went a little something like this: Lucy sat on one of her bags napping on the airport floor, Christian sat on the floor staring at ... something, James was running back and forth making calls and trying to figure out what was happening and get us on a plane, Carl and I had a mini break dance battle in the middle of the terminal and then watched videos on his laptop, Adrienne sat around trying to figure out what she was going to do in Hong Kong alone for a day, and the people that came to see us off stood around talking. We were an interesting crew.

8:40am hits (our flight takes off at 9am by the way) we already figured we weren't going to make it ... but now it was obvious that we weren't getting on our flight. James had been trying to get us on another flight during the day ... but to no avail. Thankfully Adrienne managed to get her stuff off the plane so she didn't end up getting sent off alone ... but now we had to reschedule our flight and travel arrangements until the next day HA! So ... we all went home.

I was super productive during the day since I now had an extra day in Toronto ... as you'll see in the next video:

Okay maybe not so productive. The day I should've been flying out to China was spent doing some last minute shopping, watching tv, and napping. It was a bit frustrating ... but really funny at the same time.

Day 2: So we're back at the airport at 7am ... ready to try this entire ordeal again. This time, with return tickets ... and on a different airline haha! Thankfully everything works out fine this time and we're ready to go.

We say our goodbyes and head through to our gate. Nothing eventful happened here ... we bought and ate ridiculously overpriced airport food ... we waited ... we boarded the plane.

We're now flying Cathay Pacific rather than Air Canada, which I've never flown before, and from what I looked up online the day before (my productive day), the planes looked really comfortable. Overall, it was ... my only gripe was that they have this system where they give you more space around your seat by having all the seats recline by sliding down rather than moving back. This way it doesn't take up room for the person behind you ... but at the same time ... you don't actually get to lie back either. I just kind of rolls your body down so that you're slouching. So I slouched ... for 15 hours. My back loved it! Okay one more small thing ... they also decided that rather than have a big space to put a backpack or carry on under the seat they would use that space for a huge box (I'm assuming it's your lifejacket etc) so the row that Christian, Carl, and I sat in was completely full with our bags and we barely had room to put our feet down. Now this is a small issue because I can't blame an airline for the fact that Carl, Christian, and I wrecked up the place like slobs as soon as we sat down haha. (There's a video fo that so you'll see what I mean). The only real reason there are any complaints at all is just because of the length of the flight. Nothing can make a 15 hour flight good except the plane landing. They treated us well and it was as comfortable as I'm sure it possibly could be ... I'm just so glad that isn't happening again for a long time.

Now, I'm not sure how the others did on the flight, but I didn't manage to actually get any real sleep. I half passed out for 30 minutes or so every now and again but that's about it. I'm not good with sleeping in vehicles of any kind so I don't fall in to a deep sleep. I spent a lot of time looking outside my window though and it was cool because we flew pretty far north, so the sun never actually went down even though it was technically night time. As the sun went down we ended up following it as we flew north, it made it to the horizon and then as we flew in to Asia is started coming back up again. There were time where the cloud cover was thin and we could see glaciers and mountains too. The only other person I know for sure that didn't sleep was Christian. His flight was spent watching every single movie in the tv system(including Sex in the City .... no comment).

Anyway, after 15 hours of movies, music, quick naps, rice and chicken and pork, instant noodles , and back aches ... the plane finally landed in Hong Kong! We got our luggage and headed out to ... tada! Nowhere! Well since the day before got messed up we needed to wait while James arranged a hotel for us now that we were a day later. We got some quick snacks while we waited (and felt like millionaires because when you convert $1 to Hong Kong dollars you get $7 ... but then it was also weird to see a $20 price tag on a bottle of juice) and sat around the airport for a while James did his thing. I went out and bought a Hong Kong SIM card for my phone. My phone number is now 8 digits long.

It took a while to sort out, but soon we finally piled into some cabs and off to the Ramada Hong Kong.

First observation I made, everything is packed together very tightly and is a whole lot smaller in Asia. The roads are nowhere near as simple and straight as back home either. I have come to very much appreciate our nice, clean cut blocks going north, south, east, and west ... this here was just a maze of criss crossing random turning roads and bridges and highways. As we were driving I swear we passed by the same places like 4 or 5 times and we were driving in circles ... but we got to the hotel in good time.

We checked in got up to our rooms and they were really nice ... but again ... really small. I'm not a huge guy, but I barely fit on the bed! The bathroom had a shower that was like a futuristic tube. I wasn't able to turn 360 degrees around in the thing without my shoulders hitting something. (video of the room) We all needed some rest but we wanted to adjust to the new time as soon as possible so we took a quick 2 hour nap and then forced ourselves to get up and go out. We walked around the hotel area a bit and went out to eat ... more rice and meat. Food is really cheap though (once you convert it back to Canadian dollars) I got my dinner meal for $5 ... a full plate of fried rice. I asked for water though and the waitress seemed to get really upset at me for some reason. No idea why. I've been told though that drinking cold water around here isn't normal though ... it's all hot water so maybe that's why? Sigh ... so much to learn.

After dinner we explored a little more ... jumped on the subway (which is a million times cleaner and faster than ours back home) and went to a few stores just to check everything out. I didn't have my camera charged at this point because I thought that the hotel would have the converter for the plugs ... but it didn't. I took a few pictures on my phone though. At this point I was completely exhuasted ... we got back to the hotel and I passed out in my midget bed in about 5 seconds.

The next day was exploring and shopping day ... and it was my birthday YAY! It was funny though because I woke up and forgot it was my birthday because we're 12 hours ahead and I didn't switch my phone or my watch. About an hour after we got up it hit me and I looked at James and went ... hey dude ... it's my birthday today. Everyone got a good laugh at it. Maybe I'm just losing my mind in my old age. I didn't technically do anything special for my birthday, but then again I was in Hong Kong so that's pretty cool.

The girls got up early somehow and took off before us ... the guys slept in and then went out to eat. We jumped on the subway again (which we found out was connected to Disney Land haha) and went to this huge shopping mall. Now I'm not a mall or shopping person, but it was cool to walk around and see all the stuff they have. James had to head out to meet up with Giulia (who I didn't mention before had to go to a wedding before coming to China so she was meeting us later). I can't say much about the shopping or the mall other than it was big, because I don't shop and don't remember anything about stores no matter where I am. We say these projector tv glasses that you can hook up to an iPod or something of that nature and watch video as if you were looking at a huge tv. I've seen them around before and tested a few at some video game conferences I've been too ... but Christian was going nuts for them. I think every other sentence that came out of his mouth had something to do with video glasses haha.

I did go outside to try and get some pictures but it's so smoggy and so humid outside that I couldn't really see much. It's actually really gross most of the time ... but I'm kind of used to it now.

We walked around checking things out until we got a call from James to meet up after he picked up Giulia from the airport. We meet them at the subway station in the mall ... and Giulia has nothing in her hands except a small bag. They airline lost her luggage. We're all kind of laughing because ... well it's funny ... and we assume that it was just misplaced considering there aren't a lot of flights from Canada to China anyway. (we weren't laughing much later because her luggage didn't end up showing up for days ... but it's funny again now). Now what you have to understand about Giulia is that she's allergic to ... pretty everything on the planet earth ... so all of her medicine was in her luggage (because you can't take bags and bottles of pills on the plane) AND all of her costumes for the show were in her luggage because there were too many to fit in a carry on bag. So she had nothing! An interesting situation to say the least. (again ... not so funny at the time as she rolled around in bed with no medicine and having to do shows in clothing that wasn't her size ... but funny now)

We met back up with the rest of the group and walked and ate ... did the whole tourist thing. Not that it wasn't exciting to be in a new place ... but at this point we're all still tired and want to rest. Okay ... well *I* was really tired and wanted to rest.

The next day we took off for Macau on a ferry so we could get to The Venetian ... our new home for 3 months. It takes about an hour by ferry to get from Hong Kong to Macau and then took us another 20 minutes by cab to get to our area. (oh did I mention Giulia gets sea sick too? ... ya ... pills for that ... in the luggage HAHA!)

The area we're in is just packed with casinos and hotels etc ... it's crazy. I can't figure out how all of them survive with so many of them so close together. People love their gambling here.

Trying to explain the hotel won't work so I'll have a video for it instead.

We got set up in our rooms (I live on the 16th floor) and then met up to check out the rest of the hotel and get something to eat. At this point ... I still haven't seen even half of the place and I've been here for 2 weeks. I got a few pictures on my phone (which are up on facebook) while we walked around ... but didn't stay up too late because work started the next day.

I'll leave the first day of rehersals and work for another day since this has already been a very long read (I'll be surprised if anyone has even made it to this point). My fingers need a break ... my back needs a break. Time for some much needed rest before tomorrow.

Peace out!

Forgot!

Forgot to post this very important picture. My family will understand this ... for the rest ... just bare with my weirdness:

Hey everyone! Greetings from the future!

So, this blog should've been started a long long time ago ... but I didn't get everything up and running when I got here, then we got busy and working pretty much right away so I've been keeping notes telling myself that I'll catch up on the blog.

Well now it's 3 weeks later ... the blog is just getting started and I have like 3 full pages of notes written out and I *still* haven't caught up on everything. So I realized today that if I keep this up I'll never get this started because I'll always be writting for the day before. So I'm going to just go from here .... 3 weeks later and then I'll post bits and pieces of the first 3 weeks as I keep up to date from here on out. I don't think I'll have news for every single day since on routine days it's just wake up, go to work, perform, come home, but as much news as there is ... you'll get.

So let's get on with today. I didn't sleep very well last night so I slept in today until almost 11:00am. Got out of bed and checked the view out my window like I do every morning now ... changed and took the elevator downstairs to get some breakfast in the staff area. When I get my updated posts up you'll understand more about the staff area here in the Venetian, but it's not just a room or a back corner of the hotel ... it's an underground city with a mc donalds and a 7/11 convenience store .... it's huge. Our eating area holds hundreds of people and it's a buffet style ordeal every day for every meal. I have a picture of my breakfast plate on facebook for those of you that have me there. Actually ... I can just post it here:



Yes that is a plate of rice and chicken and veggies for breakfast! The eggs and bacon and breakfast food stops at 10:30am or so. I missed it.

I've been trying for the past week to go to the gym here and get some exercise in the mornings (yes even though I'm perform 4 times a day) because I don't have a workout routine at home and now I have the time and the facility. My body however ... does not so much like that with all the flipping and running around I'm doing haha. It started off great ... then slowed down a little bit ... and now ... I'm waking up at 11am :P I'll get back in to it though.

Anyway, I finished eating and then went for a walk through the store level of the hotel. I still haven't made it through the entire thing. I intended to look for a basketball (I finally found a basketball court I can play on) but I couldn't find one amongst all the name brand clothing and jewelry. I ended up seeing these clown / jesters running around though juggling and on unicycles. I didn't know they did stuff like that here so it was interesting.

I didn't stay to see if there was a performance or anything though because I couldn't find a basketball and I was pretty upset about that (haha) so I snapped a few pics and then headed back up to my room to grab my stuff for the day.

Got my stuff and went back out to grab the shuttle to work. We work at the Sands hotel which is about 15 minutes away from the Venetian where we stay. The ride is pretty uneventful for me now that I've done it every day for the past 3 weeks ... but I do have a video and some pictures for later (once I clean my camera)

I got in to work early today and watched some of the other acts. There are singers and other dance groups performing with us and we've gotten to know most of them already which is pretty cool.

I'll go over our performances etc another day ... today was not a great day to report about our show. Had a few issues that needed to be dealt with ... but hey ... that's the way it's going to happen sometimes. We go through our day and headed home. I ate dinner and then just chilled out. Today was pretty routine and relaxed.

It's hard to believe 3 weeks have passed already. A lot of things feel very normal to me here which I guess is kind of fast though. I walk through giant hallways with portaits and paintings and gold trim and chandeliers ... and I'm not phased anymore ... but I'm still looking around at show schedules and my body is still trying to adjust to running and flipping around every day. Great times though. I wouldn't trade it for anything right now. It's an amazing experience to be here.

Ok ... well I'm pretty fried. I'm pretty sure I'm just rambling at this point so I'm going to call this a night. I'll be getting pictures and videos up very soon and keep a better update on things!

I'm out!