I just discovered this interview online. One I did with ICON-X when I just finished skating in Shanghai. It already feels like a blast from the past! Just click on the image for the interview.

I’ve just completed an interview with an online China lifestyle blog Lost Laowai. You can read the interview here:

http://www.lostlaowai.com/blog/2008/10/04/skateboarding-from-switzerland-to-shanghai/

A great set of questions that had me thinking hard!

For the last three days I have done little but sit on the couch. Highlights from the couch so far include:

• I put together some random footage of Michele (my host here in Shanghai) and I skating around Shanghai (above). Youtube version of the same video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O36qc1ufk9o
• Read Moods of Future Joys by Alastair Humphreys. If you’ve got no prospect of actually getting a hold of a hard copy of the book (like me), you can read the whole thing online for free. A very good read. He cycled around the world over a 4 year period. Good solid back to basics low budget get-out-and-do-it who-cares-about-the-limitations adventure. Many experiences of Alastair’s I can relate to.
• Met up with Keen Footwear Shanghai PR person Yoyo. Keen have been a great help by offering to replace my worn out sandals that I used for the latter part of the China trip.
• Met up with Tommy Zhao from Funboxx to talk about my trip across China.

And not much else, really.

As I was sitting in the internet cafe waiting for this batch of photos to upload, I managed to polish off about 1kg (2 Jin) of lychees. Lychees are well and truly in season here now, and I am loving it. I see on that Wikipedia link there that by consuming 1kg of lychees, I also consumed 1,200% of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin C. Rich in Vitamin C, they are.

Back in Zhangye now. Very jaded after far too long on trains, and a 20-day visa mission in Hong Kong.

But I am stoked to be back, and am keen to get back on the road. 2,500km of smooth blacktop await, along with a nice 3,800m high pass to start the action off in the next couple of days.

From Hong Kong I got the train to the massive city of Guangzhou. At Guangzhou central train station, the only ticket I would be able to get direct to Lanzhou was a hard seat, four days later. Many, many people are travelling at this time of year.

I decided to get a ticket to Shian, a city about 750km east of Lanzhou. I could still only get a hard seat ticket, and had to wait a day in Guangzhou. The prospect of 30 hours on a hard seat did not appeal, but I had no choice. My visa time is precious. I only have a 30 day visa, so with the allowed extensions, that’s only 90 days in the country.

So with ticket in hand after a 2 hour wait in line at the train station, I went out to find myself a cheap hotel. That would be harder than I expected.

For some reason, the plethora of cheap inns that one usually finds near train stations does not seem to exist in Guangzhou. After 30 minutes of walking around, one of the hotel hawker ladies saw me and offered me a room at a ‘nearby hotel’ for 120RMB. I said I was looking for something no more than 60RMB.

She scratched her head and reluctantly decided to lead me to a dingy apartment block with dark holes for rooms. 60RMB would get me a ‘room’ literally not much bigger than the dimensions of the bed itself, with no windows.

Guangzhou is hot by the way. Muggy. 120% humidity. I was shown that room after lugging all my gear up 5 stories of stairs. I told her that the room was worth no more than 30RMB. She got offended. I left in search of an internet cafe where I knew that I could pay 15RMB and spend the night dozing there.

I slept little that night (19th of July), and little the following night too, in the same internet cafe. I could have paid 120RMB (12 Euro) for a room at a nice hotel, but I was being stubborn out of principle. Dumb.

The train ride from Guangzhou to Shian was horrid. I am sitting here in Zhangye, and my behind still hurts. I slept little in the 30 hours it took to get to Shian. Cattle Class as I have heard it referred to, the hard seat class is overcrowded to say the least. Ugh.

I arrived in Shian on the 21st of July, and went straight to the ticket counter to try to get a train onwards to Zhangye. The only ticket left for Shian to Zhangye was a soft sleeper ticket for a train leaving 10am the next day. At 384RMB for the 12 hour train ride, it was more than three times the price of the 116RMB hard seat ticket for the 30 hour train ride from Guangzhou to Shian. But I was not about to argue. Soft sleeper it was.

So here I am. Back in Zhangye. I arrived at 1am in the morning last night. I skated the 10km into town from the train station in the dark, once again marvelling at the wondrous smooth roads of China. Checked into a random inn, slept little because of cigarette smoke filtering through the walls from the next room.

For those who missed the interview on TV3 national TV in New Zealand, here’s the online link:

http://www.3news.co.nz/Video/CampbellLive/tabid/367/articleID/63309/cat/84/Default.aspx

By the way, thanks to Lee for pointing out that yesterday was the two year anniversary of the 14degrees Journey. I left Japan on the 22nd of July 2006. How time flies!

Sorry, this is really really last minute, but for those readers who are in New Zealand, check me out on Campbell LIVE tonight (Wednesday 16th July) at 7pm on TV3. Spoke to John via satellite today at the Associated Press Office in Hong Kong.

Also, a story about my journey appeared in the South China Morning Post yesterday. Read it here.

Just a quick report of recent events here in Hong Kong…

1. Repairs to trailer hitch: Check
2. Meeting with legend local skaters: Check
3. Visa ready to be picked up: Check
4. Digital Camera handed in for repairs: Check
5. New skateboard wheels ordered from the US: Check
6. Interview with local newspaper: Check

1. The trailer hitch that was hastily designed and put together for me in the US had developed some issues recently. This is the first time that something like this has been developed for a skateboard, so unforseen issues were to be expected.

The tounge that attaches to my skateboard is made of aluminium, and the pin that goes through the tounge is stainless steel. With the continuous pulling action on the tounge by the pin, the hole in the soft aluminium tounge elongated, meaning that with each push I made, the trailer would jerk back and forth.

Rob Luxton, who is heavily involved in the interior and product design world in Hong Kong, took me to Lee Kam Fai’s metal working shop to see if something could be done to fix the problem. Lee Kam Fai took one look at the hitch setup and instantly came up with a workable solution:

Two stainless steel plates on either side of the aluminium plate. Seems to work well, and we’ll see how it lasts. I am concerned about losing the nuts though…they have spring washers attached, but they may still vibrate loose. I will have to try to find some nylock nuts or some Loctite.

2. I met with hkskateboarding.com founder and administrator Warren Stuart on Saturday after he read a post I had made on the forum asking about skate shops in Hong Kong. Warren is a bit of an institution in Hong Kong, involved in the skateboarding scene for many years.

Photo by 8Five2 Skate Shop, Hong Kong

We met at 8Five2 Skate Shop on the second floor of the United Success Commercial Center at 506-508 Jaffe Rd, Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island. It is the only skate shop I know of in Hong Kong that sells good quality bearings (Bones Bearings). Warren and I went down to the Excelsior Hotel and he shouted me a quick meal of as-good-as-they-get-in-Hong-Kong fish and chips at an ex-pat bar. Thanks Warren!

Photo by Warren Stuart, Hong Kong

I took my entire longboard touring rig into town with me to show Warren. Mind you, skating through Hong Kong on a longboard is not ideal - too many people around.

Photos by Warren Stuart, Hong Kong

3. I was supposed to go and pick up my visa for China on Friday, but got into Hong Kong central city and realised I had forgotten my receipt for collection. So that has been put off until Monday.

4. I had dropped my digital camera (again) about two months ago in Urumqi. The damage was not fatal, but meant that some of the buttons did not work. There is a Canon service center in Hong Kong, so I dropped the camera off to be fixed. The quote for repairs was steep: 2,100 HKD, or about 200 Euro. Still cheaper than a new camera, so I asked them to go ahead with the repair. Should be ready to pick up mid-next week.

5. On Monday I ordered some new wheels from Seismic, a skateboard company in the US. Those wheels should arrive mid-next week also. They are slightly smaller and slightly softer than the wheels I have now, so I am looking forward to seeing the difference, if any.

6. I have been interviewed by a major newspaper, the South China Morning Post, and will possibly have a feature story run about me. Thanks to Rob Luxton for setting this up!

Speaking of Rob Luxton, he’s posted his version of events, since I’m crashing at his place…http://www.chinawheelie.com/archive/2008/07/Rob%2DRob/

See towards the end of his blog post. Pity, I missed out on the bun festival.

Rob is living on Cheung Chau Island, and has the patience and tolerance of a saint. Big thanks to him for letting me share his space while I potter around Hong Kong!

// Gaze up.
// Swallowed.
// Jagged teeth of the city skyline surrounds.
// Dizzy.

// Humans, like ants.
// Propel progress.
// Push forward.
// Power.

// Consume.
// Produce.
// Live.
// Be.

// Subways smooth and chic.
// Dazzle.
// Cutting edge design.
// Create.

// Pushed away.
// Out of sight.
// Obsolete.
// Waiting.

—————————————–

Dropped my visa application off to the Chinese visa office today. No big dramas. I had my flight and hotel bookings sorted. No worries. Picking the visa up on Friday.

Hong Kong is mad.

What a whirlwind! The 30 hour train ride turned out to be 42 hours, but I made it to Rob Luxton’s place in Hong Kong unscathed…well, mostly.

I got on the 11.22pm train from Lanzhou to Guangzhou with little drama. My skateboard and trailer snugly stowed under the lower bunks, I climbed into my top bunk and dropped dead for about 10 hours.

I slept well on the train, and only got out of my bunk a few times during the 30 hours I thought it would take to get to Lanzhou. In the morning of the second day in the train, I asked a fellow passenger when we would be arriving. 5pm, was the reply. A tad bit longer than I had expected.

So I spent another few hours tossing and turning in my bunk.

Arrival in Guangzhou, I fought for a ticket for a train to Shenzhen, the border city with Hong Kong. Got on the train, arrived Shenzhen 5pm. Stopped in at an internet cafe, had dinner at an Uyghur restaurant. The restaurant people were confused. A guy with long stubble - almost a beard - not Chinese, comes in wanting beef fried rice. They figure I must be Muslim. A Xinjiang local at least. No, I tell them, wrong on both counts. They still look confused. Then I tell them I am skating across China…

I got across to Hong Kong by 8pm. Not before I was held up at the Chinese border. The immigration officer was not happy with the amount of visas in my passport, for some reason. 30 minutes worth of waiting, my passport was registered and I was interviewed, and then I was allowed to exit the country.

At the Hong Kong border, “How long will you be staying in Hong Kong, sir?”

“As short as possible,” I reply. “How long am I allowed to stay?”

“How about 90 days?”

So….I leave China. I am now in….China.

With 90 days stamped in my passport. For free. 90 days…in…China.

Yes…yes, I am confused.

I don’t stop to argue, and I follow my nose and Rob’s directions to his place on one of the outlying islands, a 45 minute ferry ride away, managing to get on the very last ferry for the day.

I am greeted with this on the door of his 1/2 bedroom apartment:

Well, I guess I am a ‘trans-continental longboarder’.

Rob is not here. But I am. Phew. Made it.

And today I made a video of the last few weeks action. Sorry about the terrible quality. Had to do it on a Mac, and couldn’t figure it out proper. The Youtube version (which is even more terrible quality) is here (http://youtube.com/watch?v=OpJMcWQRLjg).

I guess I should be out exporing the city. I’m not. I’m in an internet cafe watching streaming new release movies for free. How this works, I do not know, but it does. See if it works where you are:

http://192.168.0.251/MovieList.aspx?moviecatid=1004

Click on the ‘Play Movie’ button at the bottom of the movie you want to watch, then click on the text link in the second box at the left of the film graphic. It will have a number with some Chinese characters in the link, like this:

第001集

In fact, by clicking that link above, it might even play Battle for Haditha for you, which I have just started watching. You may need a special codec to view the movies, but I am viewing them on the Media Player Classic.

I’d be interested to know if you can watch them overseas, and if so, how the heck they get around copyrite laws.