Hey all… sorry for the lack of updates lately. I’ve been in tech week and haven’t had a chance to do much other than work and sleep. I’ll post later in the week when I’ve had a chance to catch my breath. Thanks so much for the notes…

Wednesday started off with a little bit more insomnia after waking up to use the bathroom around 6:00 in the morning in combination with my hard matress. I think my body is going to take some time to adjust to this new schedule. I took a walk with John (lighting designer) through some of downtown Chengdu. We were in search of a market so that we could buy money clips — Chinese money is a little bit taller than US money and, hence, sticks out of the top of my wallet just a tad. We came upon the theatre where we will be playing until April 7 to find giant postings for our show. Ticket prices range from $25 to $220 — I guess even the ticket prices show how much of a divide there is between the “haves” and “have nots” here.

We continued our walk and never quite found the right market (if we had been looking for chunks of unidentifiable meat hanging from awnings, we’d have been in luck, however).

After a short attempt at napping, a big lunch at a fancy Japanese steakhouse and a trip to the Carrefour (think Chinese Walmart) for some snacks I headed off to get a massage with Nicole (carpenter), Doc (head electrician) and Sarah (nun). We found a nice place that gave us foot rubs followed by 90-minute full-body massages (no, not that kind of massage) all for $17. It was wonderful to have every inch of my arms, legs and back kneaded and twisted to restore some sense of restfulness.

We began load-in into our venue Wednesday night at 10:00 pm. With the sole task of emptying the four trucks that haul our show, we had 40+ Chinese men there to help, all decked out in camo and army boots (except for the one guy wearing slippers) — literally an army there to push our road boxes up and down ramps onto stage. We are back this morning at 8:00 AM and will be working until 10:00 tonight. It sure is nice to feel like I have a purpose here finally, especially after hanging out with the cast who have been in rehearsals for the past three days.

A long flight from the US to China brought many fun surprises aboard China Air. We flew out of San Francisco, up over Alaska, across the Bering Sea, over Siberia (see picture to the right), and then down to Beijing. The flight consisted of two bad meals (and I thought US airplane food was bad), 13 audio channels of unidentifiable Chinese music, two glasses of bad wine (I later switched to a much better beer) and a bun filled with some sort of smoked pork for desert (surprise!). We met up with more crew from the NY flight in Beijing customs where the agent proceeded to smell every toiletry in my carry-on to verify that they were in fact toothpaste, hand sanitizer and deodorant. We got to the hotel via a tour bus with a Sound of Music advertisement plastered all over the outside at 12:30 am and crashed after taking a brief walk in search of food — I picked up some pistachios and OJ ($1.37!).

Today I took an adventure with Nicole (asst. carpenter), John (lighting designer) and Sarah (3rd nun from the left) to the Panda Center, just outside of Chengdu. After finally getting a cab in the rain we got to the center ($6 cab ride for 30 minutes) and saw all sorts of pandas varieties: giant, baby, red and combinations thereof. We spent $6 each to hold a baby red panda — I’m still waiting to get a good picture of me from Sarah’s camera. A quick cab ride back and lunch at little bistro next to our hotel wrapped up a great afternoon adventure in a seemingly very foreign country. I swear — I could be on another planet right now and not know the difference. Everyone seems great — this should be a wonderful tour. Leave me a comment with any news from home. And stay tuned for more from Chengdu.

[update] Here’s me and one of the baby red pandas. I think his name was Bruce.

So I’m taking a week off of sitting around unemployed in Minnesota to visit some friends before I leave the country. I started my vacation in Alexandria, VA, just outside of D.C.. I lived in Alexandria for nine months while I worked at the US Patent Office just after graduating from college. It was so nice to be back in town for a beautiful, sunny weekend with my good friends, Lauren and Brandon. We hit up some lesser known museums (National Gallery, Building Museum, US Postal Museum anyone?), ate some good food (minus sushi, which for some reason all Old Town sushi restaurants were closed Sunday afternoon when we went hunting) and even a Nerf-gun fight after a good night of reminiscing and drinking with L, B and Elise.

Monday, I headed up to NYC for the rest of the week staying with my good friends Paul and Erin. Tuesday night Erin and I saw “Forbidden Broadway”, an off-Broadway show roasting the current Broadway lineup. A must-see for anyone with a good working knowledge of the current Great White Way’s offerings. We finished up the evening with ice cream and a movie. I’ve got tickets to The Daily Show tomorrow evening with my buddy, Joe, from school. We’re going to catch Spring Awakening either Friday or Saturday night… gotta get the shows in while I can!

I got travel details this week as well — I’ll be traveling for a total of 27 hours from Minneapolis to Chengdu, leaving 3/16. I go to Denver, San Francisco, Bejing, and finally, Chengdu, landing late night of 3/17… I guess I’ll get in a few hours’ worth of St. Patrick’s Day fun. Anyone else on the tour have their details yet? I can’t help but feel like everyone will slowly gather together at the gate in SF before our 2:50 pm flight, awkwardly trying to find the rest of the group.

This is also going to be the first test of my subscription functionality on the site. Let me know if you have problems — my code is almost never right the first time around.