So I can't believe it's been over a year since I've been in a play or musical!!!!

Last Wed. I auditioned for a production of The Taming of the Shrew. It wasn't until callbacks that I realized this was a production unlike any other that I've done. The play is a CHINESE OPERA, based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. So, chinese dance, movement, music, costumes, etc. It also meant that guys could play girls parts, and girls could play guys. At callbacks I read for two roles, Lion Dog, who wants to marry the older sister, and I also read for Little Sister, the one who can't get married until her elder sister, named Rogue Tigress, gets married. So after waiting patiently over labor day weekend, I checked the call board on Tues. to discover I had been selected for the role of LITTLE SISTER! I couldn't believe it, one I had made it into the main stage production, two, that I was playing a GIRL?! I'm actually really excited for rehersals, which start on Oct. 13th, because I've never had a role like this ever. I'm excited to see what my costumes look like, and what kind of choreography I'll have, needless to say, this will be an interesting production for me.

May 2007.

Day 1
nothing exciting today, i spent it all on a plane, a 15 hour flight to Hong Kong, and on top of that, i lost a day! we got to the hotel around 9 30 local time, and soon after i discovered i had internet (that made me very happy) i crashed.

Day 2
i was rudely awaken by my mom at 7 30 am we went down to the restaurant to have Dim Sum with the other person i was traveling with (my mom's boss). After breakfast i got to experience my first taste of the world of international business. We met with one of the suppliers, Aurient, for the company my mom works for, Creativity For Kids. After a long morning discussing supplies products, quality, and pricing, we went to lunch at some local restaurant, no one there spoke english, and the menus were all in chinese as well. So we let our hosts do all the talking. After lunch it was back to work, more discussions, but hey its worth the trip ^_^. We decided to take a break from chinese and went to eat italian for dinner, ughh not one of the greatest meals ive ever eaten. After dinner my mom and her boss went back to the hotel, while i went out with 2 Aurient employees, Alice, and Moon. Alice is from Taiwan, but she speaks mandarin, and english. She went to college at OSU. Moon has lived in Hong Kong her entire life, and she speaks very little english, but we still had fun. They took me on a ferry over to downtown Hong Kong (we were staying in Kowloon). There we snapped some photos together, and i took some video for my documentary. We walked around downtown for a while, and eventually ended up where all the clubs and bars are, yay ^_^ (the drinking age in China is 18). Sooo we sat down in one of the bars and ordered some drinks, my first alcohol purchase and i didnt even get carded XP, so we got our drinks and sat in the bar talking for a good hour or so. Both Alice and Moon are very interesting women, (they're in their mid 20s btw). So after talking and walking around for a while it was time to take me back to the hotel because we all needed to be back at Aurient the next morning X_X. I got back to my room said good night to them, and thanked them (they wouldnt let me pay for anything), and said id see them tomorrow morning. Ok well id better wrap this up b/c i only have a few more minutes of paid internet left, ill add photos, and more tomorrow. Good night all!

Day 3

Another early start, and more dim sum, yaaay! except i learned a valuable lesson, chinese food and grapefruit juice dont mix >_<. Anyhow today was a lot of fun, i spent the morning in the office filming meetings etc, and then decided to start my self taught crash course in Cantonese. I figured since moon speaks little english i could impress her with my knowledge of her language. So moving on, we went out for lunch again, this time for japanese, and to my surprise hong kong has the BEST japanese food ive tasted so far, cant wait till i go to japan ^_^. After lunch moon and alice took me around the city again. Today we took the subway over to central hong kong, and took a tram to Victoria Peak. I got some good footage overlooking the city, and after that we went to this really cool wax museum. Now normally id find this pretty boring, but when you see the pictures, you'll get why it was fun. So after some time spent playing the latest video games, sightseeing, and picture taking, we met up with the rest of the group for dinner at a Thai restaurant, the food was really good, but i unfortunately didnt have much of an appetite, oh well. So after dinner we said good night to the Aurient employees who met us for dinner, and me and my mom went walking around the 8 FLOOR MALL that the restaurant was located in. Most of the shops were brand name stores weve got here, but there was some cool stuff at toys r us that you cant get in the us very easily, and there was this cool japanese jean company, unfortunately, their jeans cost about $140 US a pair, so i decided not to buy them, even though they were the coolest looking jeans ive ever seen...moving on, by this point i was completely exhausted, i feel bad for Alice and Moon because they had to be even more tired than me, (as Hosts in an asian country they will not stop entertaining you unless you are ready to stop, even if they are tired) so after dinner i told them i was going to bed so that they wouldnt feel obligated to stay up any later. Ive now determined that sleep has become optional for me, if there's something cool to do, even if its 4 in the morning, im gonna go do it, unfortunately it takes its toll on me during the day. So i finally got back to my room, and felt like sleeping for 2 days, but i decided to update my blog instead ^_^. So today was great, ive never eaten so much in my life, nor have i ever been this sleep deprived, so with that im going off to bed, and im sorry i havent posted any pictures yet but im exhausted, i promise ill do it tomorrow morning (tomorrow night Cleveland time).

note: cantonese is very very very very difficult to pronounce, gave up and switched to mandarin chinese :-P moon and alice both speak it, so i probably should have learned this from the beginning ^_^ but its proving to be easier since i have a slight prerequesite on pronunciation thanks to Dynasty Warriors :-P

Day 4

no breakfast today, i decided to sleep in until Alice and Moon came to pick me up. Today they took me to Ocean Park, one of Hong Kong's amusement parks. Throughout the day whenever we had down time or were waiting in line i asked them questions about their work, and they even spent a good hour helping me with my mandarin. They said to practice so next time i visit i can speak in chinese with them. i said ill try ^_^. Later that day we went back to Aurient for a surprise birthday party for my mom, after we all had a piece of cake we went to dinner at a place famous for its Peking Duck. This is the place where i had a lot of interesting experiences. 1. i've never had Peking Duck, it turned out to be very delicious. 2. I decided to eat jelly fish, it tasted all right, but i wouldnt go out of my way to get it, the problem was the texture, try chewing on a rubber band thats been diped in slime, thats what jellyfish is like >_< 3. On top of that i ate some sea cucumber, so by now my stomach wanted to kill me, but i was fine, just felt a little sick. After dinner Alice Moon and I went to the Night Market, its an open air market lined with tons and tons of shops, people selling EVERYTHING, cheap too. So after walking around looking for anything interesting to buy, i decided now would be a good time to get my mom a birthday card, so after an hour of searching i found one that was in english, and i took it to a tea shop to sign. I used my 'vast' skills in chinese to write happy birthday in it, (alice wrote it on a recipt for me to copy :-P), and then we ordered something called bubble tea, its made from black, or green tea, milk, and tapioca, it was really good. So by now i was completely exhausted, and still not feeling too well, so i decided to head back to the hotel. Alice and Moon got me back safely, and we said goodnight, and sadly i think tonight was the last time ill get to see Moon until i come back to Hong Kong. I'd love to write more but i cant keep my eyes open, ive uploaded some more photos onto the computer but havent had a chance to put them on photobucket yet. well, Good Night!


Day 5

slept in again, today was my mom's and her boss's day off, so we all went out together. We spent the morning at a local chinese art museum, grabbed a quick lunch and went over to the space museum to see an imax movie. after that my mom and her boss went back to the hotel to take a nap, so that they wouldnt be tired after dinner, this gave me the freedom to go off on my own for the first time on the trip. I decided to pick a street and direction and just walk, and walk, and walk, until i found something interesting, i ended up walking about 20 blocks or so, i would have gone further, but my new converse shoes werent broken in yet so my feet were hurting. Anyhow, the purpose of this walk was just to observe the culture, and the people, or rather observe the people observing me, being an 18 year old american walking around Hong Kong by myself :-P. So after a while of walking i grabbed a quick drink (ramune ^_^) and headed back toward the hotel. I would have taken the subway back, but then i would have been left with too much down time before dinner, but not enough to take the ferry over to Central, so i walked. After a quick change of shoes, and shirt, (its like 80 degrees out and 75% humidity every day here) i went back out to kill some more time. I was lucky enough to stumble upon an arcade, YAY. So i sat around playing video games until, now, when i came back to update my blog before dinner. I'm going back to the night market tonight, and heading to mainland china tomorrow, so i dunno if i will be able to update my blog in the next few days. So for now, here's some more pictures.

Day 5 part 2

ok so we ate dinner at this really really classy restaurant up high in the peninsula hotel, called Felix. To give you an idea how fancy, the mens bathroom was featured on the Travel Channel. Anyhow after dinner we all went out to the night market again, Alice, Tiffany (a chinese girl my age who joined us for dinner), and I went off on our own to do a little shopping, we met up with Tiffany's best friend Ti Sou, who i actually ended up talking to a lot. Ti Sou was very interested in talking english, and was also fascinated by my knowledge of japanese, so after talking about western and chinese culture for a while we took turns teaching eachother cantonese and japanese. After a little time in a local arcade taking pictures in one of those photobooths that every teenager girl is craaaazy about in japan, Tiffany and her friend headed home. So after a little more shopping so did Alice and I.

Day 6

Going to mainland china was a very unique experience. 1. Almost no english is seen or spoken there, and westerners are very rare. 2. some of the places were emotionally hard for me to film and visit. Although parts of it were very interesting, and the cost of living is cheap (ill talk more on that later), the air is so polluted, the streets are extremely busy, and people work all day for virtually nothing. I got the chance to walk down into some of the factories, and see all the work these people do, and i also got to visit their "dorms". After seeing their living conditions, i will definitely never complain about my college dorm, or anywhere i may live in the future. Even the manager at the factory shares a room, no carpeting, crummy bed, the only perk she gets is a tv and a microwave in her room. Anyhow, after viewing the factory, and meeting with various companies, Melody took us all to this Hair salon, i guess thats what you would call it. But unlike a western salon, you dont go there and pay $20 for a haircut and then leave, they wash your hair thouroughly (for like 20min) with some ginger shampoo, then the give you a back massage, neck/shoulder/arm/hand massage, and then you go downstairs to get your hair cut for a total of about $2.50 US. Of course if you want it dyed you have to pay another $9. A side note: i think the guy who washed my hair thought the experience was more interesting than i did, because he had probably never touched non-asian hair, or even seen an american teenager before except on tv, lol... So after another afternoon of shopping we went to grab some dinner. Now here is probably the best idea someone has ever had, it turns out there is an authentic italian restaurant, owned by an italian family on mainland china. They're probably making a fortune off that place (the chinese seem to love italina food). So after dinner we went to our hotel to turn in for the night. Now i dont have any pictures of the hotel, but if youve ever stayed at one of the really nice hotels in disney world, this hotel was like one of them, except it only cost about $60 for the night.

Day 7

Its back to Hong Kong, my last day in China. Didn't really do anything exciting, i conducted some interviews for my movie, and said good bye to Alice and Amy. We got back to Hong Kong, and i was left on my own to go wander around until dinner, i pretty much did the same thing i did the last time i had time to myself, i wandered around watching the city move around me. We dropped Melody off at the airport, said good bye to my mom's boss and checked in to our hotel.

Day 8

Its off to JAPAN!!!!! jumped out of bed early in the morning, packed everything up and headed to the airport, cramming as much new japanese as i could into my head the whole way there, and on the plane. We landed a little late due to some bad weather, but it didnt really matter because we would have had to wait for the bus to our hotel anyway. After storing some of our baggage at the airport, we checked in to our hotel in Narita, went to dinner in the hotel and went to bed early, realllly early, dunno why, whatever, there wasnt anything to do there anyway.

Day 9

Up early once again, packed everything up checked out of the hotel and hopped on a bus to the train station. So from now on the trip is basically on my shoulders, my mom left it up to me to plan out traveling in japan and most of everything we do here. We went to the counter and to my relief the ticket salesperson spoke english and she made sure i knew how to get to the right train station to board the shinkansen (bullet train). So we hopped on a train to Tokyo, and from there we got on the shinkansen to Kyoto, got a taxi to our hotel and met our personal tour guide. We spent our first day in Kyoto visitng shrines and temples and talking to our tour guide, William, who's a lot like what the future me might be like. He was born in the US studied in undergrad school in the US, and took Japanese, then, he applied for some grant by the japanese government (a scholarship basically) to live, and study in Japan for graduate school. He was accepted. The Japanese Government paid for his flight, his schooling, his apartment, and gave him a stipend to live off of. <-----what i am going to do after college. After the tour we said c ya tomorrow to William, and went back to our Ryokan (Japanese inn/guesthouse) for a Japanese bath before dinner, after the bath i put on a yukata (summer kimono) and went to dinner. Throughout the meal i spoke as little english as i possibly could, and the staff at the inn was very impressed by this, so they asked me (in english) about where and why i was studying the language. After dinner we changed into street clothes and walked around Gion (the geisha distric in Kyoto). It was one of the coolest experiences in my life, Kyoto is a lot like feudal Japan, although everything had modern conveniences, the people preserved the style, architecture, and atmosphere of old Japan. after walking around for a while and taking some video footage, we went back to our room and my mom went to sleep on her futon (japanese style bed) while i stayed up studying japanese.

Day 10

Went down to breakfast in our Ryokan, and afterwards took another bath, (if you saw/knew what one was like, you'd understand why i took so many). We went out that morning just wandering around looking for anything of interest, until it was time to meet our tour guide again. We visited some more temples of course, but today was amazing, we visited an abandoned shrine, the Rice God's mountain, and even walked through a bamboo forest. I got so many great photos/video footage, i cant wait to upload it. After this amazing cultural immersion experience, we invited our guide to dinner. I had him write down information on the scholarship as well as a few things to do the next morning. After dinner we walked around with William a little more before saying thank you and good bye, and we went back toward Gion. Tonight we decided to head over to Pontocho (a street where you may be lucky enough to see a geisha), and walk around/take some video, and to my great surprise, i saw a REAL GEISHA (people can pay money at some hotels to dress up for a few hours), but this was for real. Side note: im genreally relatively confident about my japanese speaking abilities, except around William, but as soon as i walked up to the geisha, i was more nervous than ive ever been in my life (not joking at all). I asked her, in horribly broken Japanese (i had suddenly forgotten everything i know) if i could take her picture, she nodded, and i snapped a quick photo of her. I would have really liked to have a conversation with her then, but she was surrounded by her entourage and her paying customers, she seemed to be wanting to get on her way, and i had lost the ability to talk anyway X_X. So we walked on a little more and after turning around we crossed paths with the geisha again, this time i took some candid video footage (i closed up the display and held the camera at my waist, angled upward at her), becasue i was too afraid to ask her if it was all right to take some footage. After walking around Gion some more we went back to the Ryokan, took another bath and went to bed.

Day 11

We went down to breakfast again checked out, but left our baggage at the ryokan while we went shopping before we left for Tokyo. We found this really cool area with a lot of little shops selling authentic Japanese products for an affordable price. I bought a real Kimono ensemble (kimono, coat, tabi socks, zori sandals) all for about $65. I had a lot of fun this morning, most of the people in the shops didnt speak any english, so my mom relied on me fore everything, and everywhere we went store owners would comment on my japanese. So after a morning of interesting shopping (we were buying items of cultural influence, not name brand knock off clothing etc.), we headed to the Ryokan to pick up our luggage. Side note: Im going to live in Kyoto one day... Everything there was amazing the food, the people, it had the best of everything, hiking trails, geisha, all kinds of food, traditional style housing, modern conveniences, shopping arcades, a downtown, and a subway system, lol even the ramune was great, only 110yen a bottle, about 95c US (in the US ramune can cost as much as $3 a bottle). So by now we were running late, so after a long good bye with the ryokan staff and after thanking them for an amazing experience, we headed for kyoto station, where i got us on the shinkansen to Tokyo. When we arrived in Tokyo we still needed to get to our hotel which meant taking the subway, so after getting some more cash, i went to the ticket office (the automatic ticket machines are all in japanese) and got us tickets to Ebisu station. Side note: throughout our entire trip my mom did not trust my ability to navigate, she kept getting worried, asking questions, distracting me, wanting to ask for directions, but after she saw me take us all over Hong Kong and Japan, she took all her comments back about it, especailly the jokes about me being a "lost boy". (finally). Anyhow we unfortunately arrived too late to meet up with my friend Mari, so me and my mom went to dinner at a nearby italian place (my mom is sick of asian food, ill never be sick of it) lol,it was pretty funny, i didnt speak a word of english at the restaurant, the waiter didnt know english anyway, but what was funny/odd was ordering italian food in Japanese. I would pronounce the name of the dish the italian way, followed by a few phrases of Japanese. Anyhow, after we ate we came back to the hotel, and my mom went to bed, so after discovering there was internet here (yay) i sat down to update my blog. side note: im in the process of getting more pictures and maybe even some video up on here, i might have it up by the time you read this, but you never know, i have 230 pictures on my video camera alone, and 199 video files so it could take a while to find the ones i want. (gaaaah, nvm, im not gonna be able to get many picture up becuase i left my usb cable in my suitcase at the airport, ill see what i can do.) Oyasumi Nasai.

Day 12

Slept in..... a, yokatta.... (what a relief), went over to ebisu station to grab some food, and thne we took the subway over to asakusa to meet my friend Mari. It took us about 30 min. to find eachother, but after we did we headed over toward the temple because there was some huuuuuge festival going on, it was great, i got a lot of video footage, tried some japanese 'fair food', and got the experience of what a huge city is like, there was no room to walk anywhere...after a couple hours at the festival mari, her mom, my mom, and i, headed over to akihabara, where all the electronics anime and gadget stores are, i didnt buy anything there, i was just looking for stuff to film for my video, teenagers in costumes/street fashion mainly. After walking around until we couldnt walk anymore we all went out to dinner and afterward we said goodbye. (Mari was an exchange student from Japan that i went on a blind date with 2 years ago) We had a lot to talk about, and after some discussion she decided that she is going to stay with us for a while this summer. After saying goodbye we came back to the hotel, and my mom crashed on the bed, which i guess means were done for the night :-(. Anyhow i took this as an oppertunity to update my blog...for the last time, er well ill do a final update whein i get home, with a link to my video and all my photos, but give me some time to do that, like a week maybe. Anyhow tonight is my last night in Japan, but i wanna stay here forever, no joke....but i do miss everyone, and ive got a lot of work waiting for me back home X_X. Well, good night!

Day 13

Woke up early, checked out of the hotel, caught a train over to Harajuku (WOOOT). Harajuku...is....awesome. This is where some of the crazy Japanese fashion trends started. They had everything from J-punk, to goth, to skater, to harajuku girl, etc. There were girls dressed in lolita fashion, music stores, and more. I bought some sweet clothes there too ^_^. Unfortunately we couldn't stay for long, we had to get to the airport. So we headed back to the hotel and got our stuff. Then we headed to the airport :-(. Time to go back to boring old Ohio.