China
What an experience it was!!
I don't really know where to start so I'll just go chronologically. heh. Leaving town was harder than I expected it to be. Kellan tried so hard to be brave for me. It was obviously bothering him, but he was doing his absolute best to not show it to me. Only at the very end as he and Mariah were leaving the hotel did it come out. That part sucked ballz, but it was to be expected. The flights over there were actually great, except I was not able to sleep really at all in the 20+ hours of travel. So instead I watched Battlestar Gallactica Season one which Mariah had bought for me for just that reason. Really really like that show. I am in the middle of season two now (I watched some of season two on the plane ride home). Upon Landing in Beijing things again went pretty smoothly. Customs was a breeze. I got a few questions about the baritone saxophone (the beast :) ) but they waved me right on through.
We had to head directly to our hotel and change into concert attire and then right over to the first venue. We played a communications college within about 2 twos of getting off the plane. I think concentrating was the biggest problem I had. By the second half of the concert I had been awake for over 27 hours, so keeping any kind of mental focus was hard. We were litterally mobbed by the audience when we were done. Autographs and pictures. As it turns out this happened at all but one of the concerts. Some of them had literally a couple hundred people advancing on the stage for them. We had to make a game plan to get the horns away from the people so that they would not get damaged. Insane. I am not certain that I will ever get to experience that in my life cycle again, so I decided to just enjoy it.
Dinner after the concert was at a nearby restaurant and paid by the sponsors. What excellent food! Again, throughout the trip the food was awesome. I enjoyed vegetables far more than I have in my entire life. I have to find a way to continue to eat them now that I am at home. Eggplant. I must have had it 6 different ways and every one of them was awesome. By the end of the 2 weeks we were getting pretty good with the chopsticks as well. All the presenters and sponsors got the biggest kick out of how well we were using them.
We stayed for another night in Beijing and went to the Great Wall, The Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, and Tienanmen Square. What amazing sights these all were. I have tons of pictures too. Almost forgot to link to them. haha. I put them up on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/capitalsax/sets/72157594440612605/ Good times. It was freakin cold in a lot of those places though. man.
After Beijing we went to Xining for the nexr concert. It was a 22 hour train ride to Xining, which was not a hell of a lot of fun, but we made it. Xining is very close to Tibet and you could tell by the landscape. Of all the cities we went to it was by far the least westernized. I think because of that it will sort of be my favorite. The concert there went pretty well, and like I said we were more or less mobbed again. The presenter was very happy. At the dinner there was an ehru player and a pianist who got up and started playing which was awesome.
We made our way to Zhoushan for our next concert. It was like planes trains and automobiles getting there though. heh. We drove from Xining 5 hours to the airport in Loushan, flew to ShangHai and spent the night. Caught a train the next morning to Hanghou, rode a charter to Hengji (I think) port and took a ferry to Zoushan. It was a long bit of travel. We got there with about 4 hours before the concert to we tried to rest once we were there. Zhoushan is a port city. It had a more youthful vibrant feel to it. We played really well on stage but this audience was a little cool. The sponsor said that their audience was generally very subdued about these sorts of things. This was the only time we didn't get mobbed, but the sponsor was very happy with our performance and toasted us at dinner hoping that we could come back.
We backtracked the next day back to Hangzhou and spent a night there. There was a beautiful lake we went to see, but we thought we were just going to mill around and shop so none of us had out camera. Oops. I grabbed a couple snaps with my camera, but don't have bluetooth on my computer, so I haven't put them up yet. After Hangzhou we went to ShangHai for a night. We went shopping in an old temple and got to see some sights. ShangHai was the most westernized city we went to. It was very comfortable feeling, but I really enjoyed how the other places were different. That was the whole point of the thing, I think.
The last three concerts are a bit of a blur. It was three concerts in three days. In Guiyang we had the best audience response I have ever had. Abraham (the guy who brought us over there) came back at intermission and said that he had never seen anything like that at a serious concert. It was awesome. For me it was typified by our last encore. We had just played our best concert yet. The crowd had really dug it. We had played two encores and were about to leave the stage again. The Announcer asked in Chinese if the audience wanted one more, but obviously we didn't understand that. The crowd said yes so the announcer stopped us. The four of us raised our hands, asking one more and the crowd literally roared. This was a the city that had a 3 story billboard of us and a sold out hall. It was like when you were a kid and you pretended to hear the roar of the crowd at a baseball game. Fucking awesome.
The next day we went to Chengdu played another concert, ate and left right after that to Leshan. In Leshan we got to see the Grand Buddha. That was truly amazing. Huge and built in like 1200 or something like that. wow. We played that night in Leshan and left that night to go bakc to Chengdu so we could catch our flight to Beijing to return home. The flight from Chengdo to Beijing was super crowded so I had to check the beast. That made me pretty damn nervous, but it came out alright.
The flights home went pretty well also, just delayed. We got home at about 100 am on Wed the 20th and were ever so happy. I got to surprise Kellan by picking him up from school that afternoon. What a great smile and hug he had for me. That is also something I will remember forever.
The trip was truly wonderful. I am a changed man for having gone there. The condition of the people. The way they lived. The outright poverty, and yet they were all so happy. Just walking around they would engage in conversation with us or with each other. At home, it seems the goal is to get where you are going without really any interruption, I really enjoyed how people just interracted. I also, am so thankful for everything I have. My family, my life. The fact that I could go over there to be a saxophonist, to go over there because I am a saxophonist. I don't really know how to quantify it. I am lucky.
I don't really know where to start so I'll just go chronologically. heh. Leaving town was harder than I expected it to be. Kellan tried so hard to be brave for me. It was obviously bothering him, but he was doing his absolute best to not show it to me. Only at the very end as he and Mariah were leaving the hotel did it come out. That part sucked ballz, but it was to be expected. The flights over there were actually great, except I was not able to sleep really at all in the 20+ hours of travel. So instead I watched Battlestar Gallactica Season one which Mariah had bought for me for just that reason. Really really like that show. I am in the middle of season two now (I watched some of season two on the plane ride home). Upon Landing in Beijing things again went pretty smoothly. Customs was a breeze. I got a few questions about the baritone saxophone (the beast :) ) but they waved me right on through.
We had to head directly to our hotel and change into concert attire and then right over to the first venue. We played a communications college within about 2 twos of getting off the plane. I think concentrating was the biggest problem I had. By the second half of the concert I had been awake for over 27 hours, so keeping any kind of mental focus was hard. We were litterally mobbed by the audience when we were done. Autographs and pictures. As it turns out this happened at all but one of the concerts. Some of them had literally a couple hundred people advancing on the stage for them. We had to make a game plan to get the horns away from the people so that they would not get damaged. Insane. I am not certain that I will ever get to experience that in my life cycle again, so I decided to just enjoy it.
Dinner after the concert was at a nearby restaurant and paid by the sponsors. What excellent food! Again, throughout the trip the food was awesome. I enjoyed vegetables far more than I have in my entire life. I have to find a way to continue to eat them now that I am at home. Eggplant. I must have had it 6 different ways and every one of them was awesome. By the end of the 2 weeks we were getting pretty good with the chopsticks as well. All the presenters and sponsors got the biggest kick out of how well we were using them.
We stayed for another night in Beijing and went to the Great Wall, The Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, and Tienanmen Square. What amazing sights these all were. I have tons of pictures too. Almost forgot to link to them. haha. I put them up on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/capitalsax/sets/72157594440612605/ Good times. It was freakin cold in a lot of those places though. man.
After Beijing we went to Xining for the nexr concert. It was a 22 hour train ride to Xining, which was not a hell of a lot of fun, but we made it. Xining is very close to Tibet and you could tell by the landscape. Of all the cities we went to it was by far the least westernized. I think because of that it will sort of be my favorite. The concert there went pretty well, and like I said we were more or less mobbed again. The presenter was very happy. At the dinner there was an ehru player and a pianist who got up and started playing which was awesome.
We made our way to Zhoushan for our next concert. It was like planes trains and automobiles getting there though. heh. We drove from Xining 5 hours to the airport in Loushan, flew to ShangHai and spent the night. Caught a train the next morning to Hanghou, rode a charter to Hengji (I think) port and took a ferry to Zoushan. It was a long bit of travel. We got there with about 4 hours before the concert to we tried to rest once we were there. Zhoushan is a port city. It had a more youthful vibrant feel to it. We played really well on stage but this audience was a little cool. The sponsor said that their audience was generally very subdued about these sorts of things. This was the only time we didn't get mobbed, but the sponsor was very happy with our performance and toasted us at dinner hoping that we could come back.
We backtracked the next day back to Hangzhou and spent a night there. There was a beautiful lake we went to see, but we thought we were just going to mill around and shop so none of us had out camera. Oops. I grabbed a couple snaps with my camera, but don't have bluetooth on my computer, so I haven't put them up yet. After Hangzhou we went to ShangHai for a night. We went shopping in an old temple and got to see some sights. ShangHai was the most westernized city we went to. It was very comfortable feeling, but I really enjoyed how the other places were different. That was the whole point of the thing, I think.
The last three concerts are a bit of a blur. It was three concerts in three days. In Guiyang we had the best audience response I have ever had. Abraham (the guy who brought us over there) came back at intermission and said that he had never seen anything like that at a serious concert. It was awesome. For me it was typified by our last encore. We had just played our best concert yet. The crowd had really dug it. We had played two encores and were about to leave the stage again. The Announcer asked in Chinese if the audience wanted one more, but obviously we didn't understand that. The crowd said yes so the announcer stopped us. The four of us raised our hands, asking one more and the crowd literally roared. This was a the city that had a 3 story billboard of us and a sold out hall. It was like when you were a kid and you pretended to hear the roar of the crowd at a baseball game. Fucking awesome.
The next day we went to Chengdu played another concert, ate and left right after that to Leshan. In Leshan we got to see the Grand Buddha. That was truly amazing. Huge and built in like 1200 or something like that. wow. We played that night in Leshan and left that night to go bakc to Chengdu so we could catch our flight to Beijing to return home. The flight from Chengdo to Beijing was super crowded so I had to check the beast. That made me pretty damn nervous, but it came out alright.
The flights home went pretty well also, just delayed. We got home at about 100 am on Wed the 20th and were ever so happy. I got to surprise Kellan by picking him up from school that afternoon. What a great smile and hug he had for me. That is also something I will remember forever.
The trip was truly wonderful. I am a changed man for having gone there. The condition of the people. The way they lived. The outright poverty, and yet they were all so happy. Just walking around they would engage in conversation with us or with each other. At home, it seems the goal is to get where you are going without really any interruption, I really enjoyed how people just interracted. I also, am so thankful for everything I have. My family, my life. The fact that I could go over there to be a saxophonist, to go over there because I am a saxophonist. I don't really know how to quantify it. I am lucky.