Friday the 13th MUAH HA HA!

Friday the thirteenth in Macau. Spookiest thing so far today? It's 19 deg outside. Could winter weather finally be here?

Wednesday Claire and I moved into our new apartment.
No. 2 Rua De Inacio Baptista
1 Andar D
Macau
I think it has a nice ring to it. We moved from the longest address I'd ever had to the shortest. The apartment is awesome. Better than our old place in every way. It's open and airy. We get a ton of sunlight all day long. The windows across the front of our apartment look out at St. Lawrence Church (Igreja do Sao Lorenzo). It's a beautiful, old church painted cream and white and surrounded by a garden of palm trees. What a great view and below it is a small traffic triangle that's always in movement as people go about their days. Our stuff is basically all put away and organized, we've spent two nights here, and it's feeling like home. We've taken a few walks down the street to the produce vendors. It's a two minute walk to the freshest fruits and vegetables on the peninsula. Plus any weird (read-> local) meats you need. Yesterday was Claire's first try at the new commute to work. It didn't go exactly according to plan, but today it's on. We're feeling right at home.

On another note, last night was ZAIA's 500th performance! Good work everybody! To celebrate the event, Guy Laliberte, the head honcho of Cirque, was in town for the performance. Not as tall as I expected. Nice guy though. He didn't give us any answers about the future of the show like everyone was hoping. It's OK though. As much as everybody wanted answers, no one was really expecting him to lay it all out on the table. We just have to keep on keepin' on. And fill out the occasional job application when there's something out there that we're qualified for.

One year down

Today was the one year anniversary of Claire's first day on the job at ZAIA. It's been a great year. She's seen a lot of changes happen on the show. A lot of people have come and gone. Acts have been redesigned. Parts of the theater have been rebuilt. Along with Claire's anniversary have come some of the biggest changes to happen in our little paradise. We are getting ready to move into a new apartment. It's going to be a great new home, but the reason for the move is a sad one. Our very good friend, Larry, is the current resident and owner of the flat and he's moving back home to Melbourne. We're going to miss him a lot. He's a great friend and hopefully not too often an extraordinary tour guide and Macau Savant. The other huge change is that Colleen, Claire's partner in crime (read -> wigs) is leaving as well. Colleen will be headed back to the States, back to she and Claire's hometown, Cincinnati. I know Colleen and Claire have formed a friendship that will last a lifetime. It will be sad to see her go. Not only are we losing a friend, Claire a coworker and confidant, and ZAIA an unshakable seer of the bright side, but now in her place will be no one. Claire faces a new challenge of running her own Wig Shop. Once again she is CEO (chuckle). So here's to change. May those going out into the world find fun and fulfillment and may we moving into a new residence find it warm and welcoming.

Is that a breakthrough?

I sent out the mass text for the slack session today like I always do. Sadly it was one of those days where the crew all had other obligations. But hey, Winnie the security guard was on duty so I had company.

It was beautiful outside today. The air was cool and dry. The breeze was crisp. The ground felt softer and cleaner. It felt like a day in another time and place when I was on summer vacation without a care in the world. I was really feeling good so I decided to set a perfect line.

I wandered through our small stand of trees thinking about what I wanted to accomplish. The line should be high so I can leave it fairly loose and allow a lot of sag. Then I'll have a better shot at getting this sit start. It should be fairly long so I can get some steps in. I'm feeling really good, really in the zone and ready to get centered. Where better to drop into sync with the line than on a long, high, loose one?

Tighten, tighten, tighten, test, tighten. Shoulder height. A foot off the ground in the middle. Trees 13 meters apart. Line fluttering in the breeze off the lake; slashed in sunlight filtering down through the branches. Gravity trees an arms length away from the line at two points. I'm stoked.

I love that feeling you get on the soles of your feet when you find center on the line. It's like the line has turned into a whole road just for you. Balance is no longer an issue. There is no saving from side to side. There's only wandering along the line, back and forth in constant balanced motion, watching a small span of time and life existing around you.

I can't wait to see what type of mind blowing experiences I get to have when I actually get good at slacklining!

Winter is coming!

It's 6:30 PM and it's already fully dark outside. I can handle short days as long as they bring the cool temps along with them. It rained yesterday and today which was a nice change from the thick heat that's filled the air for the past couple weeks.

Claire and I are gearing up for a move. Larry is heading out of Macau for at least a little while so we're going to sublet his apartment. It's a great place. We're super excited to be moving there. It will be awesome to live in Macau and really feel like a part of the city. Living in Taipa has been good. We have nothing bad to say and no negative reasons for the move. It was the right place for a time. But now we're excited to try something new.

Wednesday is out first wedding anniversary. We're planning a camping trip out into the country parks of Hong Kong. Year one was a good one. We're both still alive and still in love. I think we can handle a typhoon in a tent.

Duathlon

This morning the alarm went off at 5:00AM. By 5:54 the ten minute dreams in between attacks on the snooze button were weirdly pointing me in the right direction. Why was I being awoken by kids on four wheelers at dawn? Why was I searching out and donning this funky blue mesh football jersey and thinking it would be great to keep me cool? Why was I trying to get all my dancing, drinking friends out of my house so that I too could leave?

At 6:30AM this morning I met a group of about a dozen people under the Lotus Bridge on the Cotai Strip. The mission? Duathlon. We would run 4K, making two laps around the 2K run course. Then we racked up 20K via four laps on the 5K bike loop. Last, to finish up honestly, we re-ran the 4K one more time. Twenty eight kilometers before 9:00AM. Right now I'm hurtin'.

I gotta say, it was bad ass and super fun. Myself and another guy both rode our fixed gears. Which was cool because we saved a little time in the transition. Not that it helped me too much in the long run; I came in dead last. But I've got my benchmark time now and I'll be out there again next month giving it my best!

Hash House Harriers

Yesterday at 3:30 in the afternoon I showed up at the meeting point unaware of what and who I would find. In the shade of the Old Taipa Gazebo there gathered the TMH3. Taipa Macau Hash House Harriers.

Several weeks ago I was searching through results on Google trying to find the height of our little mountain, Taipa Grande. One page caught my eye with giant, comic book typeface splashing the words MACAU HASH across its banner. We won't get into the specifics of why these words guaranteed further reading from yours truly. The point is that I read on and was instantly sucked into the history of a fantastic phenomenon that I'd never heard of before, the hash race.

Basically a hash race is a modern reinvention of the fox hunt. Take a group of runners. Round them up at a starting point unaware of where they will end up and what route will lead them there. Now send off two runners who are packing flour which they will use to mark their trail at varying intervals; two hares who are leaving a scent trail. Wait ten minutes. Loose the rest of the pack. The chase group, in their attempt to overtake the hares, will undoubtedly come across false trails, loops, dead ends, climbs, descents, and more.

Wow. Those who know me have probably heard me say more than once how little I like running. Today I realize that it has never been the running that got me down. It was the ways in which I was doing it. On a track. In a line of teamates. Dripping on the control panel of a treadmill. Today I realize that running for running is good, but running in pursuit of a game is the WAY.

Thanks TMH3. It was a blast. See you next week.

I snapped a few pics while walking around Coloane the other day. Coloane is great. It's the island at the south end of the Cotai Strip. Actually, it's where Cotai gets the "Co." Coloane seems to be the only place that the gaming and tourism industries haven't moved in and changed things. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty for tourists to come and see in Coloane. I'm just saying it's maintained its old world feel and it's fishing village vibes. There are several beautiful temples on Coloane. There are nice trails cutting back and fourth and around Alto do Coloane. Plus there's a few DOPE bouldering spots. I haven't taken too many pictures there yet. Hell, I haven't even gotten on all the problems there yet. But there's time. The spot is right around the corner from Cheoc Van beach. Another big beach on Coloane, Hac Sa, is over on the east side and is on the South China Sea. Not the cleanest water... very few people brave a swim. But there is a large stand of nice tall, shady trees above the beach. It's sandy and it's a great slackline spot.

The Great Wall of China

We just came home from a trip to Beijing. It was a short trip, three days and two nights, but we stayed busy and saw a lot. The highlight of the trip was walking along the Great Wall of China. We rode out to it on a bus from downtown Beijing and it took about two hours. The landscape outside of town was beautiful. The mountains are old. You can tell from a glance. On the drive our tour guide talked to us about China and the Wall. One thing she said that stuck with me for the rest of the trip was, "China is still a developing country." Along the trip there were so many sights that brought this statement back into my head. Every time you turn around you see something perfectly modern, but just not quite up to par with what you would see in the states. Don't get me wrong, Beijing and the countryside are both beautiful, full of history, culture, tradition, and life. But it's still an old world that's been and is still being brought into this future. 

First Line Of Spring Rains

Yesterday the rain started and didn't stop. So I headed up to the top of Taipa Grande for a wind rain hilltop view line. It was great. Reminiscent of the Daapside MLK ridge line. But new twist... super gusty wind straight off the South China Sea and on a mission to deline me. We tangled and I walked on. Then the darkness came. The rain got braver. It tried to wash me off the mountain. It was late so I took the hint and headed down. When I got home I took out the line to dry and noticed there was a sling and biner missing. Fuck. I knew exactly where it was. In the darkness I'd left it on the tree. I thought... well, I don't have this raincoat for nothing! So off I went back into the rainy night. A second trudge up three hundred steps to the loop trail then halfway around to the backside and the line. Right where I left it. The rain sounded good tapping on my hood. It was invigorating to feel the water splashing my face and running over my hands. Below me, the lights of the strip looked cleaner in the rain. They seemed warmer and farther away. I walked home the long way and the rain never let up. I was a little glad that the others had turned down the dusk rain hilltop line that night. It was good to be out in it alone with no one to talk to because there were no words. This place has it's moments for sure. 

Another Day On The Island

My good buddy has a blog with all kinds of stories and cool pictures so I thought maybe it would be fun to start one myself. And, here it is. I'm Mike. I just turned 26. I live in Macau SAR. I've never lived abroad before, and although this is my first experience I'm going to go ahead and say as far as foreign places go this one is pretty fuckin' foreign. I moved here with my wife, Claire, about four months ago. We've settled in pretty well, but it becomes more and more apparent that we will never be locals. The local language is Cantonese. Maybe living in a culture of native Cantonese speakers was foreshadowed when as a kid my favorite dish from House of Hunan was chicken cantonese. Maybe not. At any rate, it's a tough one to decipher. But, we have high hopes. Certain tones are starting to sound familiar and some phrases are beginning to stand out. And, there's always the Phrasefinder. We're keeping our fingers crossed, keeping our ears open, and smiling real big. And, hey, if we talk real fast they can't understand us either so that sort of evens things up.