7

Notes from the Field: The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond Artventure, beijing, edinburgh, Gao Gao, notes from the field

Hullo Adventurers.

This has been a remarkable summer, and I have not blogged half the things I have promised. This shall change.

I am heading for the dark moody heathers of Scotland for a year, to start a Masters in Modern Art. This means regular Artventure programming shall commence in the Autumn: the Europe edition.  Meanwhile, I am busy attempting to find myself a flat, register for classes, and reorient myself back to life in the UK. This translates as watching everything released by the BBC in the past five years. Visual archival research, of course.

So, adventurers, if you find yourself in the North, enjoy pub quizzes, or want to share a deep fried snickers bar, send me a carrier pigeon at gaogao@theadventureschool.com. Until next time.

GG

31

Notes from the Field: Seoul is for lovers. Artventure, culinary expedition, Gao Gao, korea., notes from the field, seoul

Hullo Adventurers.

On our most recent trip to Seoul, our focus was on the food. Breakfast was a stone grilled egg sandwich bought outside our hostel. Lunch was bulgogi and Nakji Bokkeumbap fried in a giant wok at our table. Dinner: Seafood scallion pancakes washed down with Doenjang-Tzigae. The list goes on. We forced ourselves to walk around the city so that we’d be appropriately hungry enough to appreciate our next meal – a glutton’s exercise regime. Gastronomical Heaven.

The city is so fantastically cosmopolitan and rife with community based culture. Highlights: fractal laser shows on the Cheonggyecheon River that conjured up giant projections of robotic flowers, the school children that swarmed the Rodin exhibition at the Seoul Metropolitan Museum of Art, and above all, street markets that teeter with the weight of every product I could possibly imagine. Bring empty suitcases to this city, adventurers – Seoul is the place to shop. Even the subway stations all have their own malls.

If you are looking for a cheap place to stay – consider the hundreds of hostels in the Honggik University area. If not, the Hilton in Namsan Park gives you an incredible view of the N Seoul Tower. Explore the Lotte empire – there is an underground mall (or rather, labyrinth) devoted to duty free goods. Walk around Myeong-dong at night to see the street performers mime, dance and sing. Follow it up with a bottle of Soju and some fried octopus – but be warned – this innocuous looking liquor packs quite the punch!

In short, adventurers, if you’re looking for an urban adventure that has a dizzying carousel of delicious foods, serene palaces and retail therapy, come to Seoul. It’s a sensory delight.

Until next time adventurers.

This is Gao Gao reporting from the Mainland.

9

Notes from the Field: A Beijing fortnight Artventure, beijing, Gao Gao, notes from the field

Hullo Adventurers.

I shall be joined soon by our favourite foreign correspondant here in the ‘jing. I’ve been compiling a list of sights, restaurants and galleries I want to go with him; my goal is to have him ninja level seven when it comes to chopstick manipulation.

Here is a sneak peek at our plans:

EAT

* The Private Room. Locally sourced, Cantonese style dishes. Fanfare included. Park Hyatt Beijing, Chaoyang

*Bellagio. Trendy after-hours hangout with an extensive Taiwanese menu. I recommend the red bean soup, the mango and lychee shaved ice mountain, and the sugar dusted sweet potato fries. 6 Gongti Xi Lu, Chaoyang

*Noodle Bar. Watch chefs pull noodles out of thin air with panache. Cool decor, even cooler liang mian-perfect for hot summer days. 1949: The Hidden City, Courtyard 4, Gongti Bei Lu.

*Apothecary. Inspired by the bayou, this restaurant/bar makes a mean gumbo. Pair with their twist on the Ol’ Fashioned. Go early if you want a seat – this place gets packed around 8pm. Nali Patio, 81 Sanlitun Bei Lu.

DRINK

* Yin Bar. Go here for a breathtaking 360 vista of Beijing’s major sights.  Best time to go is at sunset – the glistening roofs of the old city are not to be missed. Extensive wine collection at reasonable prices. The Emporer, 33 Qiheloujie, Dongcheng district.

* Capital M. The colonial decor and art-deco tea sets exude a bygone elegance. Watch the rickshaws circle around Qianmen as you sip on Capital M’s signature tea. Pair with the ‘yoyo’ – an Australian soft shortbread biscuit with a passion fruit filling. 2 Qianmen Dajie, Chongwen district

* Houhai. I recognise that Houhai is a district, but most bars in here offer the same thing. Best thing on a hot night – rent a boat for 10 quai, bring some beers, and float past water lily castles. End the night with the local absinthe and mango flavoured hookah. Yum.

DO

*Beihai Park. When I was a child, my grandparents used to take me here on Sundays. There are rollercoaster rides (Old school communist style), street vendors, platoons of old chinese ladies dancing with fans and lots of fish to throw kibble to. Gather a group of friends, bring a picnic basket, and rent a pedalo for a great afternoon out.

* 798 district. Gallerinas, hipsters, and old money congregate here for the art. Built in an old Russian ammunitions factory, the district hosts hundreds of small contemporary galleries. Bring a beret and fake goatee.

*Mutianyu. This section of the Great Wall is probably my favourite – largely due to the fact that there is a massive helter skelter slide going from the top to the bottom. I think I’ve been at least a dozen times.

For those of you that want to know what ninja level seven is: see here.

Until next time, Adventurers.

GG

2

Notes from the field: On the edge of the Middle Kingdom adventure, Artventure, baijiu, expedition, Gao Gao, horse riding, Inner mongolia, lamb, notes from the field

Hullo Adventurers.

I have just returned from a few days in the grasslands. The weather in Beijing seems to have diffused into a mild smog – I can at least see the sun now.

At university, I took a lot of classes regarding China. Classes on feminist theory in the Qing dynasty, on postcolonial literature in the revolutionary period, on environmental technologies in the Yuan. I dreaded the History of China classes because the professor was a bore. He always insisted on wearing this awful blend of silk and plastic in the form of a waistcoat, and refused to make eye contact with… anyone. My environmental history class, however was another story. My professor was a recent grad from Harvard, who was extremely easy on the eye – I’m glad that I never missed a class.

The North and West borders of China have historically been militarised through agricultural incentives – a strong presence on the borders against Russia and the various Turkic states was maintained by offering soldiers their own plots of land. As the climate and geography paled in comparison to the fertile paddies of the South, new technologies were quickly invented to sustain life on the edge.

From my sojourn to the West, I see that this seems still to be the case. I was pleasantly surprised to see alternative and sustainable technologies used in the most innovative way, harking to those written in my environmental history text book – from solar panelled street lamps, to acres of wind turbines. That is not to say that there was not pollution – the speedy development of cities such as Hohhot and Baotou has its consequences – but the edges of the Middle Kingdom seem to be where these technologies run rife.

We stayed at a sustainable farm, a few hours out of Hohhot. I could see turbines for miles around. My mother, sister and I all bunked in one tent – our hosts, and my father in another. Dinner was outside, with roving chickens and pigs weaving between our feet. We feasted on gargantuan racks of roast lamb, fresh boiled mutton and wild grass and flowers. I drank copious cups of salty milk tea – flavoured with freshly churned butter, fermented milk skin, and toasted millet. I also drank a lot of bai jiu – a transparent liquor distilled from grain – to help the meat go down.

I was already familiar with most Chinese customs – waiting for the host, or guest of honour to sit down first, eating last (on account of my age), standing and maintaining eye contact when toasting. I did, however, learn the Mongol toast which is four fold – to bless the sky, the earth, oneself, and then the person you are toasting with. At a table of ten, where each person toasted each other (anticlockwise, of course), I was soon very giddy – and slept very well that night despite the storm outside.

At the end of the meal, fireworks exploded in the vast expanses of the night sky in honour of the farm’s new guests. We danced around a giant fire pit in the centre of the courtyard to shrill haunting songs sung by one of the workmen. At the end of the night, popular Chinese folk songs were sung in unison.

I woke up early the next morning to raging winds. The weather had turned over night. Mists were rolling over the grasslands as the horses were being corralled back from pasture by men in cowboy hats on motorcycles. The turbines turned menacingly in the background; on my walk around the fields I was constantly accosted by giant emerald crickets and minefields of dung.

The next day was focussed on horse riding. Whilst at boarding school, I spent every Saturday at the stables, riding well trained ponies in dressage competitions. I thought that I’d have no problem. However, the horses up North don’t do dressage. The woman whose horse I was riding was sceptical of my abilities. She squinted when I got onto her first horse and promptly told me to get off. A few minutes later, she brought back a bigger horse. Unsurprising – my hosts are by the large a foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter than me. I accepted this new arrangement and named him Wilbur.

We rode through the fields up into the forest of wind turbines. Up close, they towered over my head. Note – do not to get too close to the powerful rotating blades – it’s a sure fire way to lost a limb. Riding horses here is nothing like back at the Amersham stables. For a start, I’m pretty sure that Wilbur had the equivalent of horse dreadlocks.

In short, Adventurers, Inner Mongolia is a must-go for those that have a taste for good food, fresh air or an interest in sustainable technologies. It is not for the faint of heart. I am quite sure that the lamb my sister called Billy ended up as dinner. Other activities include: rock climbing, pig wrestling, sand dune tobogganing and visiting the many temples they have in the mountains.

For those who prefer a city escape – I recommend Baotou. The New York of Inner Mongolia if you will. All signs are in both Mongolian and Chinese. The police women wear short skirts and thigh high leather boots (Seriously). The hotels have fewer beetles and puddles of horse dung. There are showers.

For the sceptics: see the photos.

This is Gao Gao, reporting from Beijing.

Until next time, Adventurers, from Korea, where I will be joined by our foreign correspondant!

27

Notes from the field: The love affair between Vuitton and Mao. Artventure, beijing, China, Gao Gao, Louis Vuitton, Mao, notes from the field, the village

Hullo Adventurers.

This is Gao Gao reporting from Beijing, China.

Travel back to Asia is always overwhelming. The contrast in technology, pace and pitch is overwhelming. Those that can boast previous travels to city have no idea. The cityscape undulates in construction – the Beijing I see today is yet again a different Beijing from the one I left a few months before.

Beijingers have incurred an astonishing increase in disposable income – especially those of the ‘ba ling hou’ generation. The growing middle class are materialising their presence in designer goods, a growing consumption of the arts and hospitality sector.

With the opening of the economy in 1978, capitalist practices have proliferated exponentially. That is not to say that the government is not present – the exchange of goods is still heavily monitored – but the days of state branded goods has headily been replaced by McDonalds, Chanel and American Apparel. The Red Flags are being switched for Hondas. My father has everything Apple has ever released. In both colour models.

China, however, is not fully capitalist. Not in the sense where private ownership is directly related to democratic agency. It’s not fully Communist either. Perhaps in culture- not necessarily in power. Take the Cult of Mao, for example. Where Mao’s image had previously been used to symbolise an ideological movement from the feudal imperialism of the dynastic era and the capitalism of the western industrial era. Now, however, his image is used quite subversively. He appears on mousepads in kitsch design stores, embossed with LV in the background. Red stars adorn the hats on sock puppets and iphone covers. Communist propoganda is now sold as post-it-note-pads.

The Communist propaganda images from 50 years ago still appear – except this time, the chinese people (and foreigners) are paying money to consume it. A wry inside joke, if you will.

The country, as a whole, still has a long way to go Adventurers, but Beijing is the place to be right now. In the block my mother was born in, there are apothocaries dedicated to capturing the scent of swimming pools and thunderstorms. A cinema called Megabox. Milk massages. 3 quai beers. Orange art galleries.

In short? See for yourself adventurers. Flights are only approx $1200 for the month of August, and I will be your personal tour guide and translator. Things I can promise: You will slide down from the top of the Great Wall on a helter skelter. You eat three things you can’t pronounce, and two things that you wish you couldn’t. I will introduce you to the Lychee Martini. I will cycle you around in a tut tut.

Until next time Adventurers.

GG

p.s. Mongolia has been postponed to this Friday – this adventurer misjudged the quality of a lamb doener.

20

Artventure: Notes from the Field Artventure, beijing, cambodia, crocodile, Expeditions, Gao Gao, germany, japan, mongolia, notes from the field, scotland, the adventure school

Hullo Adventurers.

It is time.
I am to leave the US for lands afar.
This is not to say, however, that you will not hear from me. The Adventure School is, after all, a global entity. Regular Artventure programming, however, will be delayed with a new mini blog series: Notes from the Fields.

The itinerary:
July: Beijing, Inner and Outer Mongolia.
August: Japan and Cambodia.
September: Germany and Scotland.

The goals:
- kill a crocodile.
- learn how to harvest rice.
- perfect my machete skills.
- play elephant polo.
- eat live squid on a stick.

Merely an adieu.
Until next time adventurers.

(Expect a postcard.)

13

Artventure: The countdown has begun. aerial bandits, andrew evans, Artventure, Bastille Day, casper babypants, delicious food, Gao Gao, jason webley, Molly Moon's, petanque, The Corson Building

Hullo Adventurers.

This week is important for two reasons.

1) I am leaving for China in a week.
2) Tomorrow is Bastille Day.

In order to celebrate my time here in Seattle, come to Bastille Day.

It’s very simple.

KIR! PASTIS! MAGIC! AERIAL BANDITS MUSIC! CARNIVAL GAMES! BOUNCY CASTLE! FOOD! MOLLY MOONS! FALAFEL! PETANQUE!

Franco-glorious goodness.
Be there Adventurers, before I say Adieu.

6

Artventure: Bastille Day at The Corson Building aerial bandits, andrew evans, Artventure, Bastille Day Fete, casper babypants, Gao Gao, jason webley, mad rad's dj darwin, tattooed psychic, the adventure school, The Corson Building

Hullo Adventurers.

On the 14th of July, Georgetown will be unrecognisable. The Corson Building and The Adventure School announce Bastille Day Fête: an afternoon and evening of music, food and fun to celebrate friends, family and Franco-glorious traditions!

Sounds include Caspar Babypants aka Chris Ballew of The Presidents of the United States of America, accordionist Jason Webley and Mad Rad’s DJ Darwin and more!. Prepare to be astounded by Andrew Evans, Illusionist Extraordinaire. Watch with wonderment as frilled aerialists twist and turn in the skies. Savor a smorgasbord of oysters, stews and pastis by Wylie Bush and Matt Dillon of The Corson Building. Spoil yourselves with Molly Moon‘s scrumplicious ice cream or tasty tasty falafel.

Chicken races! Pétanque! Carnival games! Bike-powered hijinx!

Lose yourself in the sensory delights of Bastille Day and Run away with la Cirque Parisienne!

This event costs $35 and is open to the public. Tickets are available at the door. Three drink tickets are included in the price of the ticket. The party will be held at The Corson Building in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood from 4 pm to 12 am. Kids under 12 are free.

Just to get you really ramped up, take a gander at last year’s shenanigans!

bastille-day-at-the-corson-building from Mike Prevette on Vimeo.

Be there Adventurers.

29

Artventure: The Best of Life by Vik Muniz Artventure, Gao Gao, The best of life, Vik Muniz

Hullo Adventurers.

In a world of frenetic social networks, cybernetic avatars and the ability to retouch, rewind and reinvent just about anything, the fabric of our memory is no longer our own to alter. An individual’s sensory recollection of a major event cannot be separated from the barrage of images proliferated in the media; there are iconic images created, sacralised and misinterpreted as a collective history. Even in absentia, these images manifest as personal recollection as we project them, we insert them, and we look for them as our own.

Vik Muniz, a Brazilian artist now based in New York understands this concept in its essence. Born in 1961 in Sao Paolo, he has produced a lifetime of wry, deft  and varied works such as this and this.

His earliest work, however, interests me the most. Like me, Muniz experienced American history from a distance, through the mediums of television, radio and print – which is why his 1989-2000 series ‘The Best of Life‘ resonates so strongly with me. The process is fascinating. Muniz takes a photograph of a drawing that he renders from memory from a set of iconic photographs that appeared in Life magazine between 1936 and 1972. Taking his photos with a soft focus to blur the evidence of his hand, he then prints the images through a half tone screen to simulate the original form of pixelation.

I am enthralled not only by his ability to capture the detail of these images through memory, but through the significance of his process. By repeating the reproduction of an image through his own eye and hand, he instills his own scopic positionality as central. By photographing the rendering, he, eerily, removes himself from the image; the distance between the camera and the image becomes that of the distance between his eye and the event. Modern media infiltrates our consciousness to the extent that we cannot separate our own from the collective, and yet by recollecting them as our own, they are altered forever.

It is interesting to note the changes in angle, alignment, tone and juxtaposition that occurs in Muniz’s renderings. There is a finger on the trigger, where in the original it rests, lower. The image is often reversed. Background noise is sometimes eliminated. Shadows are cast where there are none. Memories are created. Memories are changed.

This last photo is especially poignant to me. I didn’t know that this event happened until college; in China, I never saw this image, even though I’ve driven down that road hundreds of times. Now that I have seen it, I feel cheated, because it’s not my memory. But it’s all I have of it.

Until next time Adventurers.

27

International Adventurer Profile: Ella Xing Gao Ella Xing Gao, Gao Gao, Hyatt, International Adventurer Profile, Nightingale Charity Club, Poodles, TAS in Europe

This week’s international adventurer profile is on Ella Xing Gao.

What a woman! Ella is currently at École hôtelière de Lausanne completing a Bachelor of Science in International Hospitality Management. Translation: She’s a jet-setting, sommelier-ing, quadro-lingual superstar in the international hospitality industry. She has worked all over Europe and Asia with the Hyatt Group – most recently completing a whirlwind four month live-in stint at the Grand Hyatt in superglam Shanghai. As an adventurer, Ella knows no bounds. Weekends in Amsterdam or Thursdays in Rome; she is the epitome of glamour and wanderlust. Her event planning talents, moreover, do not end in hospitality. Ella is one of the founders of the Nightingale Charity Club – a grass roots organisation based in Beijing that has raised over 23,000 for children in need. In short, she’s a pretty big deal.

Hi. My name is Ella. I like making people feel like a big deal. Which is why I’m in the hospitality industry. I have matching tattoos with my sister, and two poodles called Coco and Josh. I also like The Adventure School. You should too.