Im in Japaaaannnn yaaaaay!!! Met up with Kosuke and Tac at Nanba Station and we went around Nipponbashi.

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The main reason to meet up at Osaka was to go to the Steins;Gate cafe!! It is located right in Nipponbashi and has been opened for the past 3 months. Today was the last day, good thing we made it!

We also went around all the awesome anime shops Nipponbashi has to offer! Plus we played some Jubeat, Street Fighter and Project Diva, yaay!

Gel Banana!!!

Full album here:

DAY 5:

After a 9 hour train ride from Beijing we arrived at the old capital of China - Xi’an.

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This is the place with the world famous Terracotta Army. Hundreds of thousands of statues of warriors carved out of clay and put underground if front of the burial place of the first emperor. The first Chinese emperor strongly believed in the afterlife, so he made the people build him this huge army, so that they would protect him when he passes away. It was a crazy idea, and it took them over 30 years to make all of these warriors, but it was done. And then it was buried underground so that no one would ever find them. But in the 20th century a farmer was digging a well and stumbled upon this “army”.

In general Xi’an is dirtier and rowdier than Beijing. How should I put it, its more of what I expected of china. Beijing was more like Russia/Ukraine (Moscow/Kiev) - Nice new buildings, noisy and annoying people.

For dinner we had some cute bird, pig, fish shaped dumplings (pics bellow).

DAY 6:

Bullet train to LuoYang. Saw some caves with carved Budas there. Aparently a small city in China is 2mil people… Well the population of Latvia is 2mil…

DAY 7:

Shaolin Monastery and temple. Hundreds of kids practicing Kung Fu. They look awesome! Just like in Kung Fu Panda XDD

We even got to see a small performance. Those kids did some unbelievable stuff. Now I see why everyone is obsessed by Kung Fu (cause its awesome). Everyone being the movie and gaming industry (yes I am looking at you Blizzard… Mists of Pandaria…)

Well that basically concludes my journey to China. Now I’m in Japan and will blog about all the awesome stuff I see and experience on this island.

PS. More pics:

So the plan for day 2 was:

• TianAnMen Square
• The Forbidden City
• The Temple of Heaven
• A visit to a silk factory

A pretty full day. It was rather tiring, but we managed to pull though!

TianAnMen Squire, the biggest square in the world. It is huuuuuuge! I can’t image what goes down when half of china is gathered there. There were lots of tourists nevertheless, so it gave a pretty good understanding of the size.

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When we went though the gates with the giant face of Mao Zedong and then went through another set of gates, and then another…

Then we finally reached the Forbidden City. It is called forbidden, cause in the good old days only the emperor and his closest advisers were allowed in.

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This whole forbidden city, emperors, advisers, etc… reminded me a lot of Avatar The Last Airbender. I know that it was heavily based on the Chinese history and stuff, but to be soooo much alike, wow :D

Then we moved on to the Temple of Heaven. A very beautiful traditional building (temple). What I found very intriguing, is that the outer walls and gate of the temple make a square shape (a square symbolizes the earth in old chinese mythos), but the inner walls and the temple itself is a perfect circle (a circle represents the sky, heaven). It was explained to me, that this was the road from the ground to heaven, and the emperor would walk it to “enlighten” himself once in a while.

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After a nice and filling lunch, we went to a silk factory. There we were shown how silk is gathered and what can be made out of it. Rugs, pillows, blankets, sheets, shirts, pants, napkins, scarfs, robes, etc… That was pretty cool. I decided to put a silk chinese white shirt and pants outfit on, but my mother didn’t like it, so i couldn’t buy it :( I think she has a grudge against china themed clothes. There were also heaps of chinese dresses (you know, like the ones in anime), so u thought to myself: “Hmmmm i should get one for my girlfriend and make her wear it” But then I realized a small flaw in that sentence… I don’t have a “real” girlfriend.

Oh we also went for a tea ceremony. Ended up buying 300$ worth of tea… But maaaaaan that was some good tea!

I love tea. Photo Album:

I have already written up a post about me walking around Beijing during the first day while waiting for my parents. So now, since I have normal internet again, I will continue the story.

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After meeting my parents and having a lovely reunion, we went for dinner. It was no ordinary dinner, it was a duck; a Peking duck.

It was delicious. I’ve tried lots of chinese food while living in Sydney, but never have I tasted anything as wonderful as this duck.

My parents, who have never eaten any chinese food, were very impressed by the variety and delicious taste of the dishes that were served.

After that delicious dinner, we went to a Chinese Acrobat show. My father filmed the whole thing, so here is just a snippet of the one and a half hour long show:

• Part of the hat juggling performance

• Motorbikes in a giant metal ball

It is pretty hard to impress me, but WOW! that show was just amazing.

If you guys want to see more of the performance, just let me know and I can upload some more footage.

Meanwhile here are some pics (the whole China 2012 Album):

Its been 3 days in to my China trip and im loving every moment! Sorry for the lack of post, blame it on the Chinese government, who blocked youtube and stuff.

Anyway, what I have decided to do, is just enjoy my trip and once I get to Japan on the 30th, I will post 7 posts, about each of my days in China.

But for now I bid you farewell, and stay tuned!

After a good nights sleep and a solid breakfast (fried rice with bacon and fruit) i decided to wander around town cause my parents will obly arive at 3pm today.

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Then i found this sign:

I have no idea what it says, but it has a communism sign on it!

Then I found this place, the new CCTV station:

Unfortunately the weather isnt all that great, its very cloudy and quite humid. But on the other hand, its not hot!

While i was walking around I managed to find a McDonalds, 2 Starbuckes, and a Subway. Also I sonehow managed to end up in the russian shoping district… Also i went down into the city subway (underground/ metro) and aparently you need to goo through a bag inspection, just like the one in airports, in order to get to the tracks; weird, ain’t it?

Some french people asked me where the post office was and i didnt know, so helpless :( sadface

My expectations of beijing were completely different, i thought it was sonething like we see in movies, but it turned out to be this big, clean and beautifull city! Im impressed

I found this to be pretty funny (read the sign):

“China International Copyright Expo”

After spending 14 hours in the plane, I’m in a cozy bed in a hotel in Beijing. Only to find Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Google, Foursquare (on my phone for some reason, even though the normal website works fine), YouTube and other awesome sites to be completelly blocked… Well i knew about it, but dang yo :(

P.S. Wordpress is blocked too, but for some reason i can still write blog posts through the iOS app *_*

As some of you might know, I am leaving for China and then Japan starting today 22nd of June till the 29th of July.

Since China has its great firewall setup I might not exist on Twitter and Facebook for a while, and may not even be able to post (we shall see).

But I will upload most of my trip photos and tell you guys about the awesome time I am having!

So keep in touch and if you ever need me: Twitter / Skype / iMessage / Facebook

On sale now! These awesome green urbanest hoodies are now officially on sale! For only 44.99$ you can be a proud owner of this fabulous jumper.

It comes in different sizes so it fits perfectly. If you want one, you have to be an urbanest resident. So if you are, just come down to reception and get one now!

Cause ur awesome!

This is an amazing series made by mondo media (same people who made Happy Tree Friends) and it is in all ways awesome!

It features the life of Red (the red stick figure) and Blue (the blue stick figure) and their friends: japanese raccoon, Lord Tourettes, Mr. Dingleberry, Pink, Stacy and Jason. They go on these all out crazy adventures and crazy killing sprees XD

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Each episode is 5 mins or so and there are 4 seasons so far, and a movie coming along as well, so support the Kickstarter if you want this to happen! I know I do!

Here is a link to my favorite episode:

And now you are hooked on it and you want to watch all the episodes of it and donate money to their kickstarter!