Although it is a mild winter everyone still wishes they were some where nice like Hawaii, but have you seen the weather forcast for Hawaii lately…. Hawaiian Weather Forcast.
Archive for December, 2005
Merry Christamas
from the thirteen Santas of
The Santa Project
The first rule of Santa Project is you don’t talk about The Santa Project. The second rule of Santa Project is YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT SANTA PROJECT. The third rule of Santa project is if you’re in Santa Project you have to be a Santa.
It was Jon’s first Christmas away from Iceland and he really felt like he needed to do something big for the season. Especialy since after he left us on the tricycles he’d ended up back in Beijing and the hostle was becoming his own personal Hotel California. He bought t
hirteen Santa suits for the thirteen Icelandic Santas of yor and we all agreed to met up in ZhengZhou. Jon recruited some more Santas in Beijing, so the crew was13 strong.
I arrived in ZhengZhou on the 22nd but, I located them late on the 23rd. Before I got there they bought loads of candy and small gifts. We celebrated the Christmas reunionin of everyone dancing in the hotel that night and planned where we were headed the next day: to the nearby village DengFeng.
On Christmas Eve we danced down the street handing out preasents and candy on our way to the bus station. We passed a stage that was having some sort of promotional show and one of the organizers grabbed us and asked if we would throw some gifts for them. To a hard techno beat we got jiggy with it on the stage and threw out little key chains with the stores name. We wished them a merry Christmas, ‘Cheng Deng Quia La’ and continued off to the bus station.
When we got to DengFeng we gave out what we had to any passing child. There were a few terrified kids that couldn’t compute the mad seen in frontof them: 13 people with big white beards and red suits running over to them with maniacal smiles. There were also some really appreciative kids that just stared at their new ball or stuffed dog. We found the town park and the seen slowly degenerated into bedlem. Everyone realized what was going on and we started to get mobbed. After some group pictures we split up to try and give stuff without getting trampled by grabby kids and their even more gr
abby parents. Once everything was given away we still had a huge crowd and so we started singing christmas songs, but even our group didn’t know all the words. I started teaching the kids in the circle head and shoulders knees and toes. It’s the easiestEnglish song there is. It was like I was leading excersize time at school again. The hoeky-poeky really took off and then the Chinese Santas lead the kids in some Chinese versions of the songs we were singing. After, we climbed the park hill to a pagoda that over looked the town for a few group pictures and to escape our fans.
On our way back to the bus station the guys gave even their costumes away.
We returned to the city we had our Christmas dinner in Pizza Hut. Which is quite a fancy affair, like when in Demolition Man Stalone gets invited for dinner and dancing atTaco Bell. We stayed in the hotel for the evening with our Christmas tree. We had two people from Iceland, two English, TwoDutch, One German, four Chinese, one Israeli and one Canadian. On Christmas day we cuddled and watched dvds for most of the day.
Tomorrow we’re splitting up. I’m going to keep on heading south to warmer and warmer weather. I want to be in Vietnamin a few weeks.
My Christmas is never as good as when sitting with Mom, Dad, Jer, Dan and Keith in the living room and eating chocolate. I miss you a lot and love you tones, Merry Christmas, I hope you get the most out of the next year =)
love,
Steve
It has been pretty exciting so far. Lots of food at least. We are missing all of you that aren’t here today…. Steve, Dan, Nicole, … other family. 🙂
Jer & Keith
I’m groving to Hot Hot Heat on the computer headphones, so cool. download.com is deffinatly my favorite websight of the day.
My wandering continues, but I’ve parted ways from the tricycle crew. I had considered doing it for a couple days then one morning in the mountains, as I was fixing a flat tire (I had just changed it. I guess my patch was no good) the other went falt, I had a sinister impulse, I picked a large stone that providence just happened to place beside me, lifted high above my head and let it fly. It destroied the entire headlight pannel. I let all my guilty beating fanatasies out on it. I threw the stone again and again, brought heel down on the seat, ripped the arm rests off, kicked the passanger seat in half, stomped the engine casing to peices, then started it up (still ran!) drove the slanty handlebared wreck of a ride off a jump (debatable air) and down the other side where it finaly stopped, but just wait, I ran back to grab a long handled sledge hammer from the little roadside mechanic (providence again, life always provides) to beat the frame appart and wrap the wheels around themselfs. The four of us formed a joyous circle, arms around eachothers shoulders as we stomped the waste of my poor soft shelled tortous, I was giddy as I twisted the handle bars off, set them up as grave stone, took my left over gas, douced the slow-ass green turtle and finnaly set it alight. We opened our sole bottle of wine to toast it’s ashes.
I never really considered destroying it other than in jokes, but after a month it felt good to rid of it. I wanted to get moving and it was always such a hassel to motivate everyone to get on the tricycles, drive in the cold, break down, and only make it another 40 kms down the road. I had a great time watching countryside slowly slip by, singing out to big ol’ China, meeting small town folks, partying with the boys in truck stops and what not, but all good things…
I set off walking the next day, something I’ve always wanted to do. It was a sweet day. I picked a great place and a good day to start walking. There was a cool little village with cave dwellings that slopped along the side of the hills, empty corn feilds with farmers stacking the dead stalks and a big blue sky, but as the sun was starting to set I lost faith in finding seeing another village where I could ask to stay the night, so I flagged down a ride. We took off and promptly passed the perfect town to find a place in, sigh, should have believed, oh well next time. The people who picked me up took me a town of moderate substance. I found my cheapest hotel yet, less than a dollar a bed.
I met some out of town workers who were staying there and a guy from the hotel showed me around the town the next day. Small streets, a temple on the hill and a museum of revolutionary war photos. I gave him the last of my camping gear to lighten my pack and hopped a few busses south to where I am now. On the way we passed a stretch of road that snaked down around jagged limestone ravine peaks with a nearly full moon overhead. Maybe I smashed the bike a few days early… nah
It’s much warmer here. I spent yesterday sitting in the park reading good ol’ Sophies World and writing humanist thoughts influenced both by the book and the people around me. As I was leaving the park and felt like I should head back in. What is there out there in the streets? I may as well wander a grassy place with people relaxing in it. I checked out a statue and found a small stairway that lead down to an underground market of traditional stuff: old stylie paintings, paper cuts, wood carvings along with all the Mao memoriablia, chinese nickacks and dusty books you could want. I was really suppriesed I didn’t see the stairs before, the grassy hill I was sitting on was right beside them.
I took some photos of painters, and a paper cutter doing their thing, a few gave me some of there stuff and we sipped tea. Today I found a photo devloper and returned the guys there photos. There were more trades, sips of tea and smiles all around. I didn’t make it to the caves I planned for today, but tomorrow I’ll head down.
As it turrned out the rest of the boys also got rid of their bikes. Two went as flaiming recks down a ravine and one was given to beautiful girl working in a truckstop. I’ll be meeting back up with the boys for Christmas, but first I’m headed to Shaolin Temple (the birth place of Kung Fu) for a while.
p.s. I’m onto groving to Spoon now. I love this websight
Now I know that many of you do not have kids yet and some of you think you may never will, but we did and one of the big phases of having your first kid is the stroller purchase. At first I thought what’s the big deal a chair with some wheels. Maybe a seatbelt. Boy was I wrong. There are so many “features” that you don’t even know, which way is up and they make you think you are a bad parent if you don’t get the best. It is kind of like getting attacked by bunch of used car sales men, but it is actually crazy ladies in the bay who love their strollers. Needless to say… I bought the best one, but at least the Bay had 40% worth of discounts… that are probably available everyday, but we wont think about that.
Well, we had one more day in Wu Tai Shan. I took off before the boys got themselfs outta bed and into the cool morning. It was so nice to wander the town and hillside by myself. I like travelling with people, but I need to be alone too take my time making pictures and musing. 
I headed through some temples and found the path we would need to take up the mountain. I met a few road workers and snapped pics, till I went back and found the guys in a reasturnat.
We did get one white mountain that morning. We hiked up the mountain to the sounds of Cigaros (sp?) playing off Yaya’s ipod speakers. They’re an icelandic band which has added itself to the list of reasons I should visit Iceland. You can spot Ziggy through the doors here. He’s the one that gave me the first listen to the band.
We had to rush down the mountain to make it to the bus, but we did it with minuets to spare, got back to the bikes and the next day made it here to the capital, Taiyuan.
Hope you’re feeling great today. Why not, eh?
Cheers!
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