Welcome to the North

Just in case you ever come to Harbin, here is a little tid bit to know. The sun rises at 3:15 am! So if you plan on sleeping much past 3am, you might want to close your blinds. What was I thinking, it is next to Russia and Mongolia.

The last few days we have spent loading in our show and surprisingly the locals here are very good. They are from a local theatre company and actually have some knowledge of how to load in a show. AMAZING. Unfortunately, the loading dock in the theatre is a set of stairs... so that took a while to pull crates up. Above, you can see our translators for Harbin. The picture was taken at 9am, because we were still waiting for the 1st thing to be unloaded an hour into load in (loadins usually start at 8). The picture pretty much shows you what we deal with to have things translated, including high heels, purse, and all. Here is how my first conversation with my translator goes:

Me: Hello I am Doc. You are going to be following me around alot today and we will put in the show. Have you ever done theatre?
Trans: No
Me: If you would like i can put your purse in a safe place, and then you won't have to carry it.
Trans: No, i will just carry it. I might need it later.
Me: Ok, well we will do alot of walking around. Let me fill you in on some helpful terms. Stage left, upstage, fly system.....
Trans: fly what?!
(it isn't that bad, but it is funny)

Harbin has a very famous music festival. We really didn't see any part of it, but we were the closing attraction to it. One night when we went out to the local street walk, we saw the symphony playing.

As the closing night to the music festival, the theatre decided to bump up security for our show. It was kinda funny. They set up metal detectors to get into the theatre, the had bomb detectors, bomb dogs that walked all over our set for over an hour, many government officials, and these guys (see next picture) that sat backstage during the show...We really have no idea what they were doing, but they sat there with fire extinguishers i guess in case there was a fire.

Soon enough we decided we need to take a picture with them. And they were so bored, they agreed.

One night on tour, we all decided to go out to this American style country/western bar one of the actors had found in a travel guide called "Arbucks". About 20 of us had gotten really excited for "western food" and were ready for a night of fun.

As you can imagine, it left alot to be desired. It did prove to be a good place to have a beer, but the food was horrible. And the themeing was in no way western. I order fries and chicken curry rice. This is what i got...

It was more like some tomatoes and spaghetti(no chicken at all). Needless to say, they couldn't even get the curry part right. At least i was able to have a few Corona's. I did however have to take a picture of the bathroom. It was filled with naked ugly chicks, pretty funny.

And PS. this is a "squatty" as we call it. If you ever here me wanting a real toilet this isn't it. Any time we come upon one of the these we A. stop breathing and B. RUN!!!!!!

I must say that in Harbin I am very much a celebrity. In one day's time i had my stomach rubbed 3 times. Just random China peeps walking up to me, rubbing my "Buddha" belly, and giving me a thumbs up. So i got kinda creative, and thus started rubbing there belly's back. And when they rub mine, i lift up my shirt and pat it. It's made for some fun times.


When we went out to the Sun Island one woman grabbed me and started taking pictures of me. And the best is at work. I have set up my work area upstage left and it seems the locals love to come around me and watch me work. They always check in with what i am doing, check out my computer, and stand literally inches away as i repair moving lights. (As noted in the picture below).
And finally for this post a picture of our fruit bar at breakfast. Some oranges, watermelon, and cherry tomatoes. Enjoy!!!

Harbin, Take One

Welcome to Harbin, pronounced (Har-bean). This city will probably be the furthest northern city we will play in China. It took us 3 hours to fly from Shanghai to Harbin. This city is the 10th largest city in China. And for the record, i stand corrected when i was talking about Chongqing being the largest city in China, sorry bout that. Beijing and Shanghai are the largest. This city we are staying in a huge complex that has our hotel(40 plus stories), a mall, a Carrefour, Pizza Hut, KFC, McDonald's, our theatre, and a sports arena. It is huge!!! The sad part about it, is that we will probably just stay around the hotel complex cause everything is right here. Here is an interior picture of the Carrefour. And for those that havn't heard of Carrefour, it is a french supermarket chain in Asia, Europe, and South America.

And outside the Carrefour is a large ampitheatre where they were having some Karaoke contest. The steps in the pictures were soon filled out by alot of people. We slowly moved further and further from the steps, cause it sounded pretty bad. I don't really understand all the Karaoke over here in China or KTV as they call it. It is HUGE. It seems in every bar and hotel we have been in they have had KTV. And i have to be honest. When i first came to China i kept reading all these signs for KTV. KTV-modern or KTV-80's. Whatever. And i really thought it was a television station. I kept saying to myself "man this is a popular tv station." Nope, just Karaoke!!!

Here we are in the cab headed to dinner for our first night in Harbin. As you can see the cab is a little snug. For some reason our cab driver didn't really know where he was going. We spent a good 20 mins driving around the city tring to get to the restaurant. The best part when this happens is that you have NO input on the matter, because literally you are just along for the ride. You just hope that the hotel cared enough to explain where to take you and that the taxi driver actually understood. As always after driving around for 20 mins, we started circleing back from where we had come, and ended up in front of the restaurant. Cab charge= 10 yuan- about a $1.40.

We went to a dumpling shop in Harbin. I was really craving some Chinesse since i hadn't had it in the 2 months i was back in the states. I didn't want to eat it for 1 and didn't bother eating Chinesse in the states either cause it is so different. Maybe this means i am starting to grow a small liking to real Chinese food. In this photo is a traditional Harbin speciality of sliced potatao pickled and served raw.

And as requested, more pictures of our meal. We came to understand why dumplings are so popular, because it doesn't matter what they put inside of them (you can't really see what you are eating). We got to the restaurant and noticed there was only a Chinese menu. Lucky for us there was one waiter that spoke english and he was able to help us order.

We ordered a beef dumpling and a pork dumpling, but i have to be honest that i never was able to determine which was which. Oh well, for the most part it was great.

Another awesome thing in China is all the fresh juice served. Here you can see us drinking watermelon and mango juice. Good stuff!

After eating everything we ordered through the english speaking waiter, we started looking around the restaurant at everything else that people were ordering. Below is the final entree we saw on another table, that we had to try. It was deep fried potatoe cakes with sugar on the outside and a cream custard to dip in. These things were incredible, good thing we know how to point!

Having driven for 20 mins in a circle in the cab, we realized we were only a few blocks from the hotel, so we decided to walk home. Random photo's along the way...

Orient Home is the Chinese version of Home Depot. We spent about 30 mins walking around the store to see how it compared to the US version.

Back to China

Alright, so here we go again. As most of you knew, i have headed back to China to finish up the tour of Sound of Music. I am quite excited to head back to China, and think i will have a better outlook on it now that i know what i am getting myself into. Bring on the stinky tofu and scorpian on a stick!!! Having been in the states i have realized what a wonderful experiance i have been given and have a new mind set on the whole trip.

Since i have spent a month and a half over there, i have taken some time to collect a few food items/ comfort foods to head back with. You didn't think I wouldn't bring food, did you? So along with the chocalote covered nuts and little debbies, i did bring back some health bars. I got as many fruit bars as I could, since i didn't feel like i ate my quota of fruits and veggies last time. And yes, that is 20 packets of McDonald's hot mustard. Are you kidding me? You think i am going to eat the sauce they serve in China for chicken nuggets.


Traveling back to China I got up at 6am. Boarded my first flight from Louisville to Chicago at 8:05 am. Left the states at 10:45 en route to Shanghai. Some 14 hours later you arrive in China. The crappiest part was we then had to fly Shanghai to Harbin to get to our final destination and we had flown over it on our flight to Shanghai. The flight to Harbin was 3 hours long. Total travel day including time in the airport was 25 hours!!!! UHHHHH is right. Anyways, i actually had my camera this time flying over the northern icecaps. So check out the photo's i got. The Captain said we were less than 500 miles from the actual North Pole.


We did get to spend one night in Shanghai (before our flight to Harbin). Unfortunatly i was so exhausted from the full day of travel that i crashed in my hotel and slept for 12 hours. This picture is the hotel shuttle they gave us to transport to the hotel with all our luggage. For some reason hotel shuttles never plan on you having any luggage, so Radar (our company manager) is holding all the luggage from falling over. And for referance, 5 of these bags are tour supplies shipped over for us from Troika with things from the states like moving light lamps, rope, and tools.

And finally the board in Shanghai for "some" of the departing flights out that day. Just a little overwhelming!!!And on that note (having spent waaaaaaaay to much time on a plane) it is nice to be back in China and your loyal blogger guide through China.

NOW WILL SOMEONE POST A COMMENT!!! Just kidding. Kinda

A day at Disney!

Ok, ok.. .this isn't a blog about China and yes I go back to China on June 26th. BUT IT IS DISNEY...

So here is how you do Disney in a day. 3 parks in 1 day!!! It was insane, we spent 16 hours at the parks, but it was time well spent for my girlfriend and me. She had never been to Disney so we planned her entire day off to accommodate that. I have to say thanks to Omar who gave me the tickets and put us up for 2 nights and to JLove who gave us endless tips of how to “avoid the crowds”.

We left Ft. Lauderdale at 10:30 pm after her show on Sunday and drove the 2 and half hours to Omar’s house. We finally got to bed at 2:30 AM!!!

We woke up and headed off to Disney at 7:30am. Got to the Magic Kingdom thinking that it opened at 8am, when in fact it didn’t open till 9am. None the less we were literally the first to walk into Magic Kingdom and I have to say that it was the best thing we did all day. At 8:00 AM the Magic Kingdom train rolled into the station and off comes Mickey and all his friends to greet us into the park. The flood gates open and off we rush on our first of 3 fun-filled parks. We had been told to go clockwise thru the park, because statistically the crowd goes counter-clockwise. And so for the first 2 and half hours we got all the way through Magic Kingdom, the only thing we didn’t do that we wanted was Pirates of Caribbean (closed), Space Mtn. (2 hour wait), and Tiki Room.
We went on:
Swiss Family Robinson Tree house
Splash Mtn.
Big Thunder Railroad
Haunted Mansion
Peter Pan’s Flight
It’s a Small World
Mickey’s Philharmagic
Cinderella’s Carousel
Arial’s Grotto
Snow White’s Scary Adventure
Toontown and Minnie’s Country House
Tommorowland Transit Authority

By noon we were headed on the monorail to Epcot. We got to Epcot and what we missed out on was Soarin’, Nemo and Friends, and Spaceship Earth.

But went around the world from Canada to Mexico… stopping to watch a guy balance on 8 chairs in France, went shopping, rode Maelstrom in Norway, had lunch at Marrakesh in Morocco, saw animal candy making in Japan, had the best deserts at the bakery in France, had guacamole and churro’s in Mexico.

We then headed to Universal Studio’s by 3:30 via bus and were already starting to get a little tired. But we pushed on and headed to my favorite ride… “Towwwwwwwwwwwwer of Teeeerrrrror”!!! We rode it, followed by “Aerosmith’s Rockin’ Roller Coaster”. Then went back to “Tower of Terror” and rode it again. Hell Yeah! At this point we were ready for dinner, so we had burgers and fries outside Rockin roller coaster.

Next up was “The Backlit tour” which takes you on a journey through a live stunt stage and they dump hundreds of thousands of gallons of water over your head in a canyon.

After that Amelia and I went to a childhood dream of ours, the “Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground”. We walked thru a life-size set of the movie and took a few photos.

Then was time for another favorite of mine the “Muppet’s 3D movie”, another childhood memory of mine.

Did some more shopping and ended our day of rides with “Star Tours”-the ride simulator.

We headed back to Magic Kingdom to shop and snack on some peanut-cameral covered apples, just before the fireworks called “Wishes Nighttime Spectacular” which was cool to watch on Main Street.

Being totally exhausted we thought that by sitting on the curb we would just wait out the crowd of people. Let me tell you how exciting it is to watch about 50,000 people walk past you! As we got ready to go, we realized that the last parade of the day was about ready to start and so we watched the “Illuminations” parade which is an entire float parade with nothing but LED lights on the costumes.

By midnight we were so tired that we got back to Omar’s house and crashed. And that is how you do Disney in 16 Hours!!!!

Life in the states.

So hopefully my long awaited return to China is coming to an end. They have now extended our layoff in the states 3 times and at this point i will be returning to China on June 26th. I hope that you will all get excited again as i head back to China. Please take the time to go back and view all the photo's i have added into the blog from the start of this.

I have added this map so you can get a better idea of city to city relationship

New schedule (and this changes daily):

June 26-July 6 Harbin, China

July 7-13 Tianjin, China

July 14-23 Shenzhen, China

July 24-31 Guangzhou

Aug 1-9 Nanning, China

Aug 10-22 Macau, China

Aug 23-7 Thailand

Sept 8-21 Indonesia/Phillipines

Sept 22-Oct 19 Taiwan

Oct 20-Nov 23 Korea

In the meantime i have truely enjoyed spending time in Louisville with friends and family, and taking some much needed time to spend with my beautiful girlfriend Amelia. We have spent almot 4 weeks together in Hartford, Louisville, Ft. Lauderdale, and Orlando. It has been awesome and here are a few photo's along the way.

Some more random photo's

Wuhan on a random street. This a normal occurance, people hanging all there laundry out to dry cause as i have said there really arn't alot of washing machines.






I thought this was funny. I have seen alot of

bikes and motor bikes carrying all sorts of goods
around town and this would be the "beer truck".
Snow beer is very popular in China, but i prefer
Tsing Tao pronounced "Ching Dao". Large trucks are not allowed in the city until 10pm, so that is why these bikes are so popular to transport goods.








One night when we went out the the bar, we came across this old church converted into a bar.
















This is the local fish wharf in Wuhan.

















Me trying to fit in... Can you spot which one i am?










They were doing a local photo shoot in the downtown streets, so i thought i would take a few.













YUMMMM! Noodles!




















This was the "loading dock" in Wuhan. As i said it
30' in the air. The locals used rope to hoist up some of our scenary. It was a LOOOONG day.












This was the houses right across the street from
the theatre in Wuhan. Looking out the loading door.












It is very interesting playing another country with a theatre production. You often find that the theatre/government rolls out the red carpet for you. As i have said, we have had tradtional meals in almost every city as an "opening night" gift from the presenter. Here in Wuhan they decided to repaint the ENTIRE lobby, so when we got in this man was busy touching up the job and making the theatre look nice. (To bad they don't give as much attention to the backstage conditions) In Chong Ching they gave our company a police escort parade to get us throught he downtown area to our hotel from the city limts.