FOOTBAW IZ BACK!!!1!!1one!

I don't really have that much to say in this post, actually, but an even that I've been waiting for since, oh, January 7th or so certainly merits a post of its own, I think!

First, the set-up. I got to Gainesville on Friday night, looking forward to an awesome three day weekend. Cherrie and I met up with Ed at Gator Nights, where we ran into Ray and Jenn, and we all went to make some leis in preparation for the season opener against Hawaii. After my failed attempt at making a lei (Cherrie's was much better), we waited in the ridiculously long line to see the very awesome Iron Man film. I'll probably catch a lot of flak for this, but I actually enjoyed this film more than I did Dark Knight. I think it was Tony Stark's personality that really made it awesome for me. I don't want to spoil anything though, so I'll leave it up to you to see what I mean yourself!

The plan for Saturday morning was to get up early so we would be able to park near the library before the game, then walk to the stadium from there about an hour or so before the game. However, since we were up till almost 3AM watching Iron Man, that didn't really happen. We headed out to campus at about 9:30 instead, and already, traffic was packed on University Avenue. After considerable circling, I decided to do what I always did back in the days when I went to school here - park on the lawn behind the Engineering building. Ed met up with us there, and we walked over to the Reitz union to grab some food before heading to the stadium to pick up our tickets from the Engineering block representative.

Unfortunately, we were supposed to go to Gate 3 of the O'Connell Center (UF's basketball dome), not Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, to pick up our tickets. Gate 3 is also arguably the most inaccessible gate of the O'Connell Center. After circling the entire dome, we finally arrived at Gate 3... but no one was there! After about 30 minutes, it started raining! Finally, with only about 10 minutes left before kickoff, the Engineering block representative showed up and gave us our tickets, and we rushed back to the stadium only to find that our seats were just one row from the top! Fortunately, the seats were relatively centered in the field - plus, if you've ever been to a football game, the players always look huge on the field, regardless of how far you are sitting.

After the disheartening loss to Michigan in January's Capital One bowl, it feels pretty good to come back and beat the snot out of last year's loser in the Sugar Bowl, the Hawaii Warriors. Without their run-and-shoot guru of a coach in June Jones and NCAA record smashing gunslinger Colt Brennan, Hawaii was reduced to little better than your typical directional school as the Gators routed them 56-10, scoring 8 touchdowns in about 30 minutes of game time, in every way imaginable, before the second and third string teams went in and allowed Hawaii some dignity.

After a slow (and swelteringly hot) first quarter, despite not having Percy Harvin, who was out with a heel injury, Brandon Spikes, Cornelius Ingram (out for the season with an ACL injury), and other tight end Aaron Hernandez, Tim Tebow commanded a formidable spread attack throwing for one touchdown, and letting his team do the rest. UF scored two touchdowns on interception returns, one by hard-hitting Major Wright and another that went 80 yards by Ahmad Black. Brandon James scored on a 1-yard run and on a 74-yard punt return that bounced some 15 yards in front of him before he fielded it. Chris Rainey struck from 33 yards out, Jeff Demps, the fastest high school athlete in U.S. history, scored on a 60+ yard run, and backup Cameron Newton punched one in as well. Tebow's single passing touchdown came on a 40+ yard pass to Louis Murphy, and didn't have to do much more after that.

With Miami on the horizon next week, it would be awesome to see a similar performance - with the shellacking we took in 2004s Peach bowl and the horrific waste of a 20+ point lead in 2003, not to mention that we haven't won against Miami since 1985, I'm really looking forward to a great game and season!

China 2008, Part XI: Bai Nationality and Guanyin Xia

After seventeen days, the 29th Olympiad in Beijing has finally come to a close. I haven't yet seen the closing ceremony, but having seen the sheer awesomeness of the opening ceremony, which can be viewed nearly in full on NBCOlympics.com, I am very much looking forward to seeing it once it's broadcasted!

As you can see in the medal count in the sidebar, the United States closed out strong, earning gold in Basketball with the Redeem Team, consisting of stars such as Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Dwayne Wade, Jason Kidd, and LeBron James, as well as in Beach Volleyball and earning several medals in Track and Field, as expected. The U.S. finished their Olympics leading in the overall medal count with 110, beating out China's 100, but trailed China's 51 Gold medals with 36, the same number of gold medals as we got in Athens, largely thanks to mer-man Michael Phelp's record breaking 8 gold medals.

While I have tons to say about this year's incredible Olympics, there are droves of professional journalists out there who are covering them, so I won't dwell much more on the subject. However, for a laugh, I do recommend Rob Riggle's coverage on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which you can view at their website dailyshow.com. Once your there, search the tag "Chasing the Dragon". You won't regret it!

The conclusion of the Olympics allows me to finally change my What I'm Listening To playlist, which has been updated to feature pop from all over Asia, which I though would fit well with the continuation of my China 2008 series!

On Wednesday, after a long bus ride, we arrived near Dali, a city where the Bai nationality has a strong presence. The Bai nationality is characterized by their relatively more Han Chinese culture, when compared with many other minorities in China, but they still have unique culture of their own as well, such building houses with Dali Marble, which would be considered quite a luxury in most other places of the world.

In addition to their marble-clad homes, the Bai people have an interesting marriage tradition. In Bai weddings, it is common for the bride to cry - not because of joy, but rather due to pain. This pain is a result of her bridesmaids and the groomsmen, as well as many of the other wedding guests, to pinch the bride's cheeks! There was a reason for this bizarre practice, but I have to admit that I've since forgotten what that reason was.

After lunch, we headed over to a nearby lake, whose name I no longer recall (I think it had something to do with ears, though!), for a boat trip. Each boat was pushed by a boatsman (or in our case, a boatswoman), but we were also equipped with oars, so when we weren't looking at the traditional homes with no electricity or running water along and within the lake, we raced other tourists from our tour group!

Tired from rowing, our group next rode over to Guanyin Xia, or Guanyin Valley, a very scenic spot that pays tribute to the Bodhisattva Guan Yin. Guanyin Valley, besides being a beautiful sightseeing spot, is inhabited by another minority that uses one of the world's only heiroglyphic languages today.

Heiroglyphics or not, the main draw for me at Guanyin Xia was the hiking trail, which started after a short train ride through a tunnel. The hike was actually quite strenuous, though it was nothing the likes of Cherrie and I couldn't handle, after having climbed several sections of the Great Wall and up and down mountains like Huang Shan and Hua Shan several years back. But what was impressive was my 85-year-old grandfather, who's eyesight has sharply deteriorated over the last several years, was able to make the climb as well, though not nearly as quickly as he used to. I remember as recently as 2004 that he used to kick all of our butts when hiking! Still, that he was able to make this climb without any assistance was something that impressed more than a few of our fellow tourists!

Come back next week for the next installment of the China 2008 series!

China 2008, Part X: Shilin

I've been pretty busy for the last few days, especially with watching the Olympics (sometimes while at work!), so this Tropical Storm Fay finally gave me a little bit of time to write since we have the day off from work! Hopefully, the house doesn't take too much damage during the storm though!

This past weekend, we met up with my family for the first time since we got back from China. The main event was yet another wedding reception for my parents' friends to attend - this one was substantially smaller than the one we had in Wuxi, with about 50 guests, most of whom we knew. The party was okay, too - a lot less variety of food (although we had a sushi boat!) but there was Karaoke afterwards, which made up for it somewhat!

Well, back to the China 2008 series. We last left off in Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan province in China, where we visited the Tribe Exhibition Park. On Monday, decked out in my new Metersbonwe gear, we headed to the nearby 石林 (shi lin, or Stone Forest). This natural wonder is a huge park that is characterized by thousands of limestone pinnacles that jut out from the ground up to several hundred feet in height. The 2,670 square kilometer park is actually separated into several scenic areas, but for obvious reasons we were only able to check out two of them, the 大石林 (da shi lin) and the 小石林 (xiao shi lin), or Great and Lesser Stone Forests, respectively.

Of note, the Shilin park is in an area in Yunnan heavily populated by the largest minority group in the province, the Yi people. The Yi, also called the Nuosu (a transliteration of their local name) have their own unique spoken and written languages, as well as their own dress. Since Yi women, like many of the minority women in Yunnan, are typically the workhorses of the family, they tended to age very quickly, such that women as young as 30 often look like they are well into their 60s! This phenomenon can be considered one of the recurring 18 Oddities of Yunnan.

After touring around Shilin, we stopped at two of the several "shopping traps" that are obligatory for just about every tour in China you can take. First, we stopped at a Puer Tea (普洱茶) Depot, where we were presented with ample opportunities to purchase Puer tea. Puer tea is actually unique among Chinese teas in that it is a black tea, rather than the green teas that are more common in the Far East. It is also unique in that, unlike many teas, Puer tea gets better with age, and as such, it is often compressed into sculptures and used as decorations until such time that it is used to drink! I suppose the dust and germs that it would have collected over the years would be sterilized from the boiling water... at least I certainly hope they would!

One last note about Puer tea - Puar, the cat like character in the original Dragonball anime, is named for Puer Tea, much like the bandit character Yamcha is named after 饮茶 (yin cha, or Dimsum), which is pronounced yam cha in the Cantonese dialect!

Our last stop was to a famous Jade depot. Being so close to Burma, which is widely regarded as the largest source of high quality jade, Yunnan is the largest source of high quality jade (also called 翡翠玉, fei cui yu) in China. Jade is a very special stone that is highly prized in East asia for it's luminescenence, hardness (scoring just a few decimal places below diamond), and it's vibrant range of color, although green is the "classic" favorite. Jade bracelets, due to their hardness, can cut right into glass, despite the bracelet being round. In addition, due to the consistency of the stone (despite the inconsistency in its color, another prized feature of jade), when lightly struck against another hard surface, a jade bracelet produces a pleasant metallic ring similar to that of a tuning fork. We end up visiting one more jade depot on our trip, so I will conclude my discourse on Jade when I write about that visit!

Beijing Olympic Botanical Garden

It's been a good day for China at the Olympics, overtaking the USA in total medals and more than doubling the USA's Gold medal count, as you can see in the nifty Medal Tracker in the sidebar that I added a few days ago!

For those of you not keeping as close an eye on the Chinese Olympic Team as I am, so far China has swept all of the diving events and gymnastics events, with the latest Gold medal in gymnastics coming from Yang Wei's dominating all-around competition. They've also earned gold in all but one weightlifting event that they have entered, earned several golds in shooting and have even been earning golds in swimming, archery, and fencing!

Anyhow, all that can be easily recapped by going to NBCOlympics.com, so I won't go into any more detail than I already have.

Instead, today I present something that isn't featured on NBC's totalitarian Olympics coverage, the Beijing Olympic Botanical Garden! I have visited the Olympic Garden in Atlanta several times before, but this is waaaay cooler than that. See photos below!

A guy playing with a hoop
A different angle
Bridge Kids
Old men, or something
Wall mural
Another wall Dolphins Not sure what this is...
Abacus!
Women and a boat
Not sure what this is either... Butterfly, pretty standard fare for a botanical garden A parthenon? A gate of some sort Hand, flower
Chinese castle
A non-Chinese palace
A vessel
My favorite - pouring a steaming cup o' tea!
Pond view
Cutout hedge dolls! I'm pretty sure this is Tin Pin Slammers!!!

Yao Ming and Lebron James Commercial

Yes, it's another YouTube cop-out, but it's still sort of relevant! I think this commercial ran during the US vs. China basketball game at the Olympics on Sunday. What is that thing Yao Ming is riding near the end?

Keen-eyed readers will also notice a new toy in the Grant's Pad Sidebar. That's right, it's a Medal Tracker so you can see who's leading the way at the Olympics!

Let the Beijing Olympics Begin!

It's finally here! I'll be posting stories of interest as I see them. Plenty of pics and stuff on the sites themselves, so I probably won't be adding many more.

First up, the writeup at NBCOlympics.com about the opening ceremony that took place this morning - reportedly a $300 million project!

Read all about it here: China Lights Up the World

China 2008, Part IX: Kunming

Sorry for the delay once again in writing... I had my finals this past weekend and had to work quite a bit to ensure my A's for this semester! Fortunately, I got them, so my studying time was well spent.

The 2008 Olympic Games loom just 4 days away, so it's time to get crackin' on my China 2008 series before I start getting sidetracked with Olympics related blogging!

After we had our way with the PSB again at Wuxi Airport, we hopped over to Kunming, Yunnan province, stopping along the way at Wuhan airport in Hunan province. Incidentally, my good friend Eric from the good ol' days of my China 2002 study abroad, just recently returned from a work assignment in Wuhan. Eric is becoming a very well traveled white man in China... since my last trip to China (before this one, of course) in 2004, Eric has gone to several Chinese cities that even I haven't been to, like Dalian, Tianjin, and now Wuhan!

But this post isn't about Eric, it's about me! Yunnan (云南) is waaaaay out in the southwestern corner of China, bordering not only the Chinese provinces of Tibet, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Guangxi, but also the countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Burma. Most of the industrial cities in China, such as Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin, are concentrated along its east coast. As such, way out here in the western rim of the country, the skies were blue and the air was fresh almost every day, although it did tend to rain quite a bit.

Speaking of rain, because of its geography the weather of Yunnan is quite interesting. Its latitude is far enough to the South that it is fairly warm all year long, yet its altitude is higher than 2000 meters on the plateaus, causing the temperature to typically stay between 60-85 degrees all year round during the daytime, though it gets substantially colder at night. It is because of this geology and subsequent weather pattern that Yunnan is said to feature four seasons of Spring. I have to comment that this reputation was well deserved - just look at those blue skies! A stark contrast to the greys we had seen all summer long!

Yunnan is famous in China for oddities. Throughout the province, you will find people and publications quoting sets of the 18 oddities of Yunnan (云南十八怪, yun nan shi ba guai). These range from all sorts of oddities such as "Children are raised by men", referring to the tendency of women being the dominant gender in many of Yunnan's ethnic groups to "The same dress is worn all four seasons", referring of course to Yunnan's pleasant weather, to more bizarre ones like "Three mosquitos make one dish", referring to the large size of the local insects.

The source of many of these oddities is due to the diverse nature of the population on Yunnan province. China officially has over 50 ethnic groups, with the predominant one being the Han tribe. 85% of Chinese, including myself, belong to the Han ethnicity. Thus, about 300 million Chinese belong to one of the remaining ethnicities. Of these minorities, 25 are found in the Yunnan province. Among the most well known are the Dai people, the Yi people, the Tibetans, the Muslims, the Miao, and the Naxi.

Because of this famous ethnic diversity, our first stop in Yunnan was the Tribe Exhibition Park in the capital city of Kunming, the largest (population 6 million) and most modernized city in otherwise relatively underdeveloped and poor Yunnan province. The park featured exhibits of quite possibly all of the tribes and cultures that can be seen in the Yunnan province. In addition, we were able to try on some traditional dress and buy some handmade traditional crafts, such as these beautiful wooden mantlepieces which were carved right before our eyes!

We didn't get to stay very long at the Tribe Exhibition park, but arguably we didn't want to anyhow - it had been a very long day for us, having got up at around 5 in the morning and taken a long trip to the other side of the country, we were about ready to head to the four star hotel to have a rest! After unpacking our luggage in the hotel, Cherrie, Ed, mom, and I went out to check out a little bit of the nightlife in Kunming, stopping to have a bite of some local (and I must say, somewhat unimpressive, food) and buy some Metersbonwe (one of the major local brands in China) clothes, so we could traipse through the rest of Yunnan in style!