Changchun/1st concert

September 12, 2009

Well I woke up this morning and blew the power for our floor and then ripped down the curtains in our room, ah the life of a rock and roller! ;)

I woke up around 5:30 am after going to bed early and getting a great nights sleep. We had some issues yesterday with the power strip so I thought to check the breaker and it was kicked off. I reset it and tried to use the flat iron and that's when all hell broke loose! Smoke, crackling sounds and flashes of light all pretty much happened at the same time. No power at all. Nothing worked. Gary Jennings was in the room next to us and we even knocked out the power it his room. Was I done creating chaos? NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! We decided to open the windows to get some air coming in since the air conditioner actually runs on electricity. As I went to push the curtain over that was (note past tense) in front of our patio, it all came crashing down on me! I decided to not touch anything the rest of the day.

About 10:30 we met everyone and headed to a sculpture park the is the largest in China. There were several sculptures that were made by people all over the world. I believe there were over 400 countries represented by the works there. It was quiet awe inspiring.

We then headed to lunch at King Dumpling and we ate, you guessed it, dumplings. Most of the restaurants that we eat at on these trips are usually locally owned, but this was a chain that was all over China.

After lunch we headed back to Jilin University and finished up rehearsal for the show that evening.

The greatest honor that was bestowed on us so far on this trip was the meeting of the Mayor of Changchun. That may not sound like a big deal but to the University is like have the President of the United States showing up. Changchun is an extremely large city, couple of million people probably more, so the university was very excited that she was coming to see us.

After the show and several pictures taken with students and audience members we headed to dinner. Where we had my favorite meal, HotPot! Hotpot is a meal similar to fondue but usually cooked in a broth. I think is was the best dinner by far on this trip.

Sunday night we get on a train and head to Shenyang and do a concert on Monday night!

Daniel