Old Trip to Xi'an

During my last month in China we went on a trip to a couple different cities. The first one was Xi'an, and I've finally put together the video from that trip! It features a few of my favourite moments from our time there: biking the city wall, checking out pagodas, and impressing ladies through the universal language of sweet roller skating moves.

Also, travelling tip here- Xi'an is home to the world famous Terracotta Warriors, a huge tourist attraction. The story goes that an emperor had the stone army made to protect him in the afterlife. My opinion however, is that if you're in Xi'an one day, don't bother with them. As you can see from how short their portion of the video is, I didn't think there was much to see. It's definitely impressive that people carved so many statues to such detail, but I wasn't blown away like I was in other places (like the Great Wall for example). So imagine hundreds of life-size statues, then hundreds more. That's the Terracotta Warriors, and there are thousands of 'em.

"All These People are Dead Now"

Last week we escaped the room.

And here's the squad that did it.

There's an activity here in Jilin that we've done a couple times that's unlike anything I've ever experienced before. "Locked Room," as it's been translated to me, is essentially a place you get trapped inside and have to solve a series of puzzles to escape. In some ways, it's like a giant point-and-click game come to life. There are physical challenges (like throwing balls or grabbing keys), codes based on words, numbers, or characters, and all throughout you constantly need to use your environment to your advantage (like aiming and reflecting laser beams to hit sensors that will unlock a door, or finding a lock combination on a scrap of paper with a UV light).

So far, it's been extremely difficult. The answers often require uncanny creativity, and many times I've been thinking "I never would have thought of that" as we move from room to room. But last week, we did it. The goal is to finish all the puzzles to earn your freedom in under an hour, and we were successful. Full disclosure: a couple of us had already done this room before, but we stayed pretty quiet and quite honestly had forgotten most of the solutions anyways.

To those who escape, the reward is a picture of them on the wall. So now we have the honour of mounted fame, plus we'll be the only foreigners on the wall!

Here's a video from our first attempt at the same room, when we were not as successful...

From the Archive- Thailand

Today I'm opening the Archive.

In an effort to catch up on all the footage I have lying around, I hope to (in time) create videos of these little experiences I've had during my time away. It'll really clear up some space in my apartment, and hopefully someone somewhere will find some part of it interesting.

So today, I begin with a video from my trip to Thailand this past February. For some reason, although I was in one of the most beautiful locations I've ever witnessed, I was far too relaxed and usually couldn't be bothered to bring or use my camera. As a result, the video is a very short and admittedly erratic collection of clips. Enjoy.