Vacation!

Home has been a good time. I have seen many friends and family whom I haven't seen for over 6 months now. The weather is different. Seeing an accumulation of snow brings mixed feelings. It's nice because I haven't seen or played in it for what seems to be a life time. It's bad too because that means lots of shoveling and no skating :( Luckily the first couple days I got back, it had not snowed yet. Greg and I went skating. It was interesting to ride a board again. Steep hills seem a little scary, even on my speed board. I think I have to stick to sliding around for now.. until I get used to it again :P

Christmas - December 24 & 25, 2008

Christmas Eve dinner was spent at Auntie Renne's house. I got to see many of my family friends there. It was a lot of fun. We discovered that although we had all grown up together, we still didn't really know each other. So.. a few icebreaker games were played.

For Christmas dinner I went to the house of my childhood friend, Jonathan Lee. The night was spent chatting, playing some pool, and watching a movie. I got to see people who I haven't seen in a long time, so that was exciting.

New Years - December 31, 2008

As usual, we went into Boston for First Night. This year seemed to be a lot colder than the years before. We helped out in the parade again with GBCCA (Greater Boston Chinese Culture Association) and did the dragon dance. After the parade we went out for Vietnamese food. It was delicious.

Happy New Year. 2009 :)

Saturday - January 3, 2009

Because we had a demo planned for the next day, YMAA Andover's demonstration team had practice in the afternoon. We met up around 1pm and went over lion dance and various sequences for almost three hours. Afterwards, I went to Michelle's house for a movie night she was hosting for kung fu people. When I arrived, Jamey, Grace, and Sully were already there. Them, Michelle, and her boyfriend were all playing Rock Band on her PS2. Having tested Guitar Hero guitars, that part was easy. However, playing drums and singing was a different story.

We ended up watching Jet Li and Jackie Chan's Forbidden Kingdom. I enjoyed most of the fight scenes, but I'd have to say the movie was kind of disappointing. I'm not sure why, but I didn't like it as I thought I would.

After the movie, we played Taboo. It was guys vs girls and the guys were winning! However.. Michelle's sister showed up and we got rocked.

Sunday - January 4, 2009

I took some of YMAA Andover's demonstration team into Boston for a performance at the Children's Museum. They performed lion dance and martial arts. This demo was Alex and Mike's first time performing the lion dance. They did a pretty good job considering they were limited to practicing time and didn't get to touch the lion until the day before.

We had two performances that day. The first at 12pm and the second at 1:30pm. The 12pm show was interesting. Because Alex and Mike had never performed beforehand, their first experience didn't go that well. Although they did a good job covering up their mistakes, there were a few that were beyond saving :P The rest of the demo went well. I thought the most entertaining thing was that on stage, everything seemed fine. However, backstage was chaos. Everybody was running around preparing to go up and wondering who was performing next.

Pictures from the first show:

Lion Dance




Taijiquan



Sword group

Shang Xia Zhi

Yi Lu Mai Fu

Wu Bu Quan

San Cai Jian


Sha Shou Jian

Saber vs Saber

Ending, group greet

[Photos by: Mom]

In between shows, we were allowed to have fun and explore the museum. For those of you who don't know about the Children's Museum, they have two main things to look forward to. All the exhibits are interesting and cool, don't get me wrong.. especially the Japanese house.. but none of them can compare to the bubble room or the three story high giant climbing structure in the middle of the museum. We somehow managed to get all 11 of our team members up the climbing course. It was great, especially with all the 5 year old kids in our way. Most readers are probably thinking on how immature I am now, but that's fine, I don't care :) When at the Children's Museum... if you can fit in the thing and are able to get all the way up, there is nothing that should stop you. The second exhibit worth mentioning is the bubble room. Memories of my childhood came back: playing with soap water, creating sphere shaped goodness, and then making them explode upon contact. I found out that I wasn't a very good bubble maker and the younger demo team members were sure to rub it in. They made remarks such as, "you must have failed kindergarten," or just bluntly, "your bubbles are horrible."

Our second show went a lot smoother than the first one. The lion dance was a lot better and our drummer, Jonathan Lee, played a lot louder and with double the energy. Also, there was no confusion backstage :P

Taijiquan

Xiao Hu Yan

[Videos by: Jack (cousin)]

In the end, I think everybody had a good time. The crowd seemed to enjoy our demonstration and the team was all smiles. We hung out at the museum for about another hour or so. Myself and the guys hung out in our prep room and chatted while the girls explored the museum some more. We left Boston around 3pm and headed back to Andover.

Because we were paid to do the shows, I took the team out to dinner with the money earned. They had a choice of where to go, and they picked Bertucci's. We had fun drawing and coloring, folding origami, and throwing stuff at each other. The food was good too! Pizza and pasta.. yum.

Tuesday - January 6, 2009

After kung fu I went to my old high school to visit the gymnastics team there. I had practiced gymnastics in high school and was the team's captain in 2006. It was weird seeing my freshmen as seniors and as the captains. It made me feel old. I enjoyed seeing my coaches again and they allowed me to practice with the team. I participated in their strength exercises at the end of practice and I forgot how intense it could be. I'm sorry to say, it was pretty difficult keeping up with their push ups. I haven't really done push ups since March, but it was a good challenge :)