Me: I’m sorry, I don’t know.

Her (laughing): something something something something. Do you want to eat?

Me:  Do you have dumplings?  Fried rice?

Her:  Fried rice, yes.

Me: I like fried rice.  I want water.

Her:  OK.

I sit down, get some water, and a huge dish of rice comes out.  I’m about to start eating it when she sits down and starts trying to talk with me.

Her:  Where are you from?

Me:  America.

Her:  Something something something do you like war?

Me:  No, I don’t like war.  Do you know Obama?

Her:  Yes, Obama. 

Me:  I think, in America, people don’t know China.  People in America don’t talk with people in China.  That is not good.  (NO IDEA WHERE I PULLED THIS OUT BUT THANK YOU RUOLAN, SUCH A GOOD TEACHER)

Then, a guy sits down and joins the convo. 

Him:  something something something yes, we don’t talk. 

Me: Do you like Americans?

Him:  Yes, I like Americans a lot.

Me:  I’m going back to America tomorrow.

Him:  something osmething something something.

Me:  I’m happy to see my friends and family, but I like China.

i forget the rest of the conversation, but it ended with them giving me a big “welcome to China” (so i’m not sure if they understood that was leaving tomorrow) , and then a whole group of giggling teen girls watching me leave. 

goodbye China!  i’ll miss you. bottle of water + rice to feed a horse= Y7 or USD 1.

booya americaaaa

Andrew

So, I’ve come to the end of another big trip.  Tomorrow, I head out to the Great Wall for a day, and then on Tuesday, I fly home to the United States of Facebook and Wikipedia-ing Representative Democracy.  Beijing has been busy–

1) I checked out the Forbidden City.  It is MUCH bigger than anticipated.  In my opinion, the most interesting part of the entire complex is the entrance gate with the massive portrait of Mao.  Essentially for China, after being crushed by the British and French since the late 1800’s, after becoming a nation addicted to opium, after being massacred by Japanese in invasions beginning well before the outbreak of the second World War, to hear Mao stand at the Southern gate and declare China its own country is a moment that still lingers in power and importance for Chinese people today, in spite of the atrocities and offenses that the Chinese govt has committed since.  In this sense, it’s not easy for Chinese people to hate on Mr. Chairman.  They know he did bad things, but at least he was Chinese and Chinese people were finally directing their own lives (even if they were starving and killing each other and stuff).  So that site as the most momentous location in modern China was more interesting to me than the vastness of the Forbidden City, which believe me, is vast.  It’s ambitious to try to see all of it in a day.  If you’re older, it’s probably not feasible.  Either way, pretty massive.

2) I checked out the Lama Temple with a massive, 60 foot Buddha made from a single trunk of white sandalwood.  Pretty cool, but not as cool as the Confucian temple and academy which has 189 stone tablets of original Confucian teachings engraved by students at the academy.  Pictures to come.  On the way there, too, I watched an intense game of Chinese Chess with an active group of about 20 local Chinese men.  For those who don’t know, Chinese Chess is SWEET.

3) Saw the Temple of Heaven.  Much more peaceful and relaxing than the Forbidden City, would recommend it moreso.  Beautiful gardens and the actual possibility of a moment of peace, which is generally impossible at the Forbidden City.

4) Di Tan Park and the Temple of the Earth.  A very relaxing and cool park, they have sales and fairs here, pretty cool.  Also close to Lama Temple and Confucian academy. 

5) Bei Hai Park is enormous but also on a huge and beautiful lake.  In the winter time it freezes and is opened for ice skating, which would literally be the most mystical/magical place a person could ice skate in the entire world (think surrounded by pagoda’s and ancient chinese script). 

6) Ate Peking Duck (now called Beijing Duck apparently?) at Quan Ju De on WangfuJing street (a  major food/shopping area).  Quan JuDe is legit, official peking duck, and it was amazing.  A funny story:  I was supposed to meet my friend Wendy at the restaurant, but I was having a hard time finding it.  I also didn’t have a phone to call Wendy with to let her know that I was running late.  As i’m walking around WangfuJing looking for it, a pretty Chinese girl approaches me and says, in quite good English, “Hi, where are you from?” I said, “Mae Gue”, which means America in Chinese.  She says, “do you want to talk with me?”  I say, “Actually, I could use your help.  I need to use your phone.  Ne de dien-wha (you’re phone in Chinese). ”  She looks at me, disgusted, and says sarcastically, “Why don’t we have coffee first…?” turns away and refuses to acknowledge my attempt to explain.  You see, she thought I just insta-asked for her phone number.  It was pretty much hilarious.  I’m sure the thought I was a pretty big ass.  Puts her in league with a few other girls I know.

Anyway, I’m very excited to come back home. I did some math and discovered that I was out of the USA for around 200 days in the last 12 months.  It’s a bittersweet experience to be away from your home for so long, expecially having bounced around so much (since graduation I’ve been to NYC/Maine, Australia #1, South of France/Monaco, Buenos Aires and Patagonia, Australia #2, Vegas twice, NYC again, San Francisco for New Years, Thailand, and now China). 

I’m going to get a place.  I’m going to get in shape.  I’m going to do poker again. 

From now on, my trips will either be 2-3 weeks in length or 6 months-1 year. 

excited to come home. 

Andrew

First, lol goes out to Dave Safe.  I saw a comment from sforzisi or something similar, and it looked similar to your last name, so I just figured it was you.  My B.  Also, my facebook is blocked until next tuesday, just an FYI.

Today I went to the Panda reserve (pictures taken on my iphone will be forthcoming, stupid broken camera).  Pandas. Are. The Sickest.  There were like 6 giant panda cubs sitting on two levels of bamboo floor covered in fresh bamboo for them to eat.  At one point, one of the pandas on the lower level just grabs a big bamboo shoot with both paws and pulls it as hard as he can towards him.  He doesn’t realize that there are two pandas sitting on that shoot above him, and so he pulls them all onto himself.  Then they all wrestle and play around.  The Sickest.

Then I met up with Ruolan and Forrest and checked out the Tibetan section of Cheng Du.  Really fascinating.  Tibetan culture, counter to popular western depiction, is not suppressed at all here.  In fact, their stores and restaurants are very popular.  Tibetans are like an ethnic minority in the U.S.– my brother used Little Italy as an example.  Tibetan religious icons are OK.  We had some delicious Yak Tongue (not joking) and buttermilk tea, and I bought some prayer beads and prayer flags.  The only thing they’re not allowed to do is hang pictures of the Dalai Lama.  While China’s limits on freedom of speech are still troublesome to someone from a western perspective, this is NOT North Korea (or what N.K. is portrayed as being).

Finally, we had some dinner with Ruolan’s god-brother (he is going to Seattle U for graduate school next year).  Turns out he loves the NBA so we had lots to talk about.  I told him my brother’s name was James and he immediately responds, “LEBRON”.  It was awesome.  I’m going to start calling my brother LeBron.   Then we hit JiaTi, the ancient street that now contains Cheng Du’s bars and many local crafts.  I got a dice for drinking games written in Chinese.  Sweet.  Cheng Du, for being a large, urban area, does have some charming smaller spots. 

It also has some fantastic roadside pita joints.

Tomorrow Ruolan and I are hiking up to a Taoist temple where we’ll meet up with a monk she knows, I’ll bring the Tao te-Ching and we’ll share some spirituality.  Ohm Mani Pebi Hom.  Thats Buddhist.  Oh well.

Beijing on Thursday, Oregon on Tuesday.

Andrew

So I’m chilling here in Cheng Du at an internet cafe.  For those of you guys who don’t know (everyone), Cheng Du is in Western China in the Sichuan region.  Now, some of you are going, hey, Sichuan, they put a red pepper next to sichuan dishes on the menu at my chinese restaurant.  yes, the food here is spicy.  More on that later.

1) I toured a Chinese hospital with Ruolan today.  Her boyfriend (sorry Dave Safe, no pics coming soon) works there.  I got in a conversation with some Western students of Eastern medicine (from germany and Israel), also with Ruolan.  The subject is very interesting– they believe that body systems are far more interrelated than we do in Western medicine (a point I tend to agree with), and that each system is regulated by it’s “Chi”, or spiritual energy (a point I still struggle with).  Needless to say, they think about medicine in a VERY different way here.  Most prescriptions are for combinations of herbs and rarely for pills. 

The hospital was also where Ruolan grew up (her parents both being doctors) and so I saw her old house, and where she learned to walk.  It was actually quite touching.

2) We met up with her boyfriend, ate some quite delicious pig intestine noodle soup (yes, I really said that) and went to center city, where there is a HUGE statue of Mao seen here: 

Mao in Cheng Du Center City

Oh yeah, one SICK story from Hangzhou.  So, Hangzhou (near Shanghai) is basically the cultural capital of China.  Most of Chinese poetry is based around the beautiful places in Hangzhou, especially “West Lake” seen here: 

West Lake

So I’m here in China, and I can firmly say that while it’s AWESOME, it’s also totally an adventure.

One example:

I arrive in Hangzhou airport planning on catching a quick bus (about 2 hrs) to Suzhou to meet up with my friend Ruolan at our hotel, PingJiang Hotel.  Sounds simple, right?  First thing I need to do is get some money, so I head to the ATM at the airport, and… it’s out of money.  OK.  So, I head towards the only English that I see, a sign for the information desk.  I walk over and say, “Hi, I want to go to Suzhou”.  The girl at the counter looks at me oddly, then says “Suzhou…” then, heavily accented, “five”.  OK, so there’s no English even at the English-sign counter.  Great.  So I wander around the airport for 20 minutes until I find the alternate ATM and get some Yuan.  Whew.  Then, I walk down to gate 5 and find the ticket-purchase counter.  I try my best Chinese “Woh yao qu Suzhou”.  The lady behind the counter prints me a ticket, 95 yuan, shows me 11:45 on her calculator, so now I have a ticket and a departure time.  Great… except… where am I departing from?  This stretches my meager Chinese, and I find myself wandering around the bus terminal (probably 50 buses) asking “Suzhou?  Suzhou?” etc.  Finally I find the bus.  We head off.  The other passengers (only about 8), are let off at random places, one at a time.  Eventually the last 2 are let off on a street in Suzhou.  The driver looks at me.  I realize that I’m supposed to get off to.  OK, so here I am, on a random street, no English anywhere, no Chinese from me.  OK.  Catch a taxi.  I wave down 3 taxi’s and all of them have no idea where PingJiang hotel was (turns out PingJiang is like the most well known section of the old city, so WTF taxi’s, I know you knew!!!!”.   Finally, a bicycle taxi overhears me and beckons me in.  Not knowing any other course of action, I hop in, and sure enough, he delivers me.  He asks for 100 yuan (at least twice the actual price) and I pay him anyway cause hey, he seemed like a nice man.  So, welcome to China.

The food here is SUPER hit or miss.  I’ve eaten the most amazing pork in my life, dumpling soup that’s so good i wanted to cry, and the crispiest and most delicious of spring rolls.  I’ve also eaten preserved egg (holy shit that stuff is gross), quail’s egg (not quite as bad but still pretty tough), and an oyster egg pancake (that was the highlight of the preserved egg meal but still…. ugh).

Tomorrow we’ll head to Hangzhou for a few days, then go to Chengdu for a few days, then from Chengdu to Beijing and then back home.

Booya!

Andrew

writing from Thailand this time around.  This time it’s to both update you all as well as explain balugapoker.com’s mysterious disappearance.  Basically, the site had been inactive for a while (for a few reasons) and was only serving to sell books, which (due to pirating and the books permeation through the market) had slown down dramatically.  So, if you still want to purchase a book, your best bet is to post here, send me a message on DeucesCracked or TwoPlusTwo, or to email teambalugawhale@gmail.com .

Why’d the site go down?

1) Tangibly:  My credit card was stolen/cancelled and thus my domain host site tried billing a cancelled card a few times and then cancelled the site.  I wasn’t paying attention given that I’m travelling in Asia.

2) BalugaPoker was a poorly constructed, ill-planned site, in general.  In short, I was selling myself in a capacity I wasn’t ready to fill.  I learned a lot from the experience.  If and when I do come back with another site, I will make sure it’s better run.  Everything about the site, in my opinion, reeked of mediocrity.  Especially Sir Moonshine.  But seriously, the site design, maintainence, forums, products, updates (or lack thereof), all were poorly done.  That’s ok– I was 21 when I started it and it was my first business.  Looking forward to trying again.

3) The site was created to help people buy the book.  The real meat of the site (seminars and classes) need a better format, better planning, and better structure.  I’ll be working on that.

Now, what’s up with me?

Leaving Hong Kong tonight.  I’ve eaten dim sum every day I’ve been here, sometimes twice a day.  It’s like living in candyland.  So amazing.  Honestly, Hong Kong is the most vibrant city I’ve ever been to.  On the water, tons of awesome buildings and places to go eat and things to do, short boat trips away from beautiful, empty, tropical beaches.  It’s a pretty ideal city.  I don’t like humidity though, but I feel like that’s a sticking point only for someone from the pacific northwest.

Next up is a trip through China with Ruolan.  The plan is to go to Suzhou tomorrow (the Chinese Venice, supposedly).

Suzhou, Venice of China

Spend a few days in Suzhou, check out it’s sister city Hangzhou, then Beijing (maybe a stopover in Shanghai before Beijing), then home to Portland.

Back in Portland, I’m going to set up a pretty legit office, so, does anybody have recommendations for:

1) Desktops

2) monitor setups

3) comfy chairs

Thanks!

Andrew

Haven’t updated this in a long time, been kinda busy trying to figure out where I’m going to be and what I’m going to do. At the moment I’m on Koh Phagnam, an island in Thailand that hosts the Full Moon party (which was last night). Needless to say I’m savagely hungover and trying to figure out how I’m going to wake up at 630 tomorrow to go scuba diving at Sail Rock

Sail Rock

Thailand has been good so far, though the troubles in Bangkok have certainly overshadowed the entire country (supposedly this full moon party was one of the least attended in years due to the violence in the nation’s capitol). You can read about it w/ daily updates here: http://www.bangkokpost.com/

So, as a result, we’ll be moving straight through Bangkok to Chiang Mai for a few days of rafting, then I’ll head to Hong Kong where I’ll begin a 3 week travel through China, eating as much dim sum as possible. If you don’t eat dim sum, or haven’t, find the nearest place immediately. Amazing. Here’s a teaser and a great restaurant for you all in the Bay Area:

Dim Sum... mmm

To quickly wrap up what I’ve done
1) chilled at Ben’s house in Thailand with Mexor and FoldToCash among some other people, including Kotkis. very chill. lost to mexor HU like everyone does, because you can’t lose if you smoke weed.
2) Scuba dived a few days in Koh Tao, it was super excellent and a lot of fun. Got to go to Impian Divers, best dive group around. Some hilarious characters there.
3) Went to full moon party in Koh Phangam. Despite it being almost entirely white people/europeans (brits especially), it still made for one of the most epic nights I’ve had.

hope all is well.

OH YA ONE MORE THING
I think i’m going to live in Portland for a year and get back into poker. booya.

holla
Andrew

I’ll be back in time for LOST

Andrew

As for me, I’m currently hanging out at home in Oregon, getting ready for the following string of events:

April 5th- Thailand (meeting up with my friend Ben, Mexor, 603Lucifer, and others)

April 28th- Hong Kong (hopefully seeing my friend Cailee there)

April 30th- May 15th, traveling around China with a friend

May 15th- Enter Tibet

June 5th? 8th? 3rd? 11th?- Fly home to Oregon to chill before WSOP

June 30th- WSOP 25k 6max event (super excited for this)

July 5th- WSOP ME

as soon as I bust or  win- San Sebastian and Biarritz in northern Spain/France, a little jaunt over to Sweden, maybe a stop in Vienna before either

A) surfing in Jeffries Bay, South Africa

or

B) looking at getting a home in either Seattle, Bay Area, or San Diego

hope you all are running well and playing like champions.

Andrew

And win I did.  The format was a best-of-3 series.  Game 1, I limped Q4 suited in spades on the button, and he checked.  Flop was JT2 all spades, he c/c.  Turn was a 9 offsuit.  He checked, I bet 650, he check-raised to 1300, I jammed, and he snap called with 92 offsuit no spade.  I’ll refrain from commenting on his play, other than that I think it’s pretty bad.

Round 2 i got it in with AK against TT and won a flip.  nothing interesting there.

Round 2 I played against some no-name that I instantly underrated, and he ended up taking me down to the ropes.  Round 1 was a grind, which he won eventually.  Round 2 I won on the 3rd hand when I turned trip 3’s against his top-pair top-kicker.  Round 3 I was down really low, and then this happened:  he limps for the first time all game, so I raise Q6o expecting him to fold every time.  He calls.  Flop is KQ9 rainbow, I bet, and he calls.  Turn is a 6, I jam, he instantly calls with JT for the straight, and I spike a Q for the boat and the win.  whew, that was close.  Mike mcwhirter, you are not bad at poker.

Round 3 I get the unfortunate pleasure of playing against my good friend Dani “Ansky” Stern.  Round 1 I am hit in the face with the deck and can’t miss any flops, and it goes fast.  Round 2 takes literally forever.  The blinds are huge, we both have no more than 25 big blinds ever, and I shove J7o over his minraise only to be snapped by QQ.  Too bad the flop is 984, turn T, river 8, and I take the win 2 games to 0.

Tomorrow we play televised.  Me, Vanessa, Brian/Flawless, and LuckyChewy are all in the final 8, so it should make for some good tv.  will let you all know what the deal is.

Oh, and 8th place books an 8.5k win, so even if I lose, I pretty much secure a +40k trip.  hooray.

gl all,

Andrew