The Travels of WhiteGhost Farstrider

[WhiteGhost]

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend.  Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.  In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Manchurian Steppe. The wind was not the beginning.  There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.  But it was a beginning. 

 

Very basic challenge this time around.   I am still traveling around HeiLongJiang Province in Northeast China for the rest of this week, and then later next week we will be heading to the US where we will be until almost the end of August.   I don't expect much to happen in terms of working out, so I will have only 2 challenge items:

 

1.  Don't eat only candy and fast food

2.  Update  to NF

 

For the first,  I will be on the road for a large part of the challenge (driving from San Diego to Salt Lake City with a stop at the Grand Canyon) so food choices will be limited but I will try to make at least some effort to make relatively healthy food choices. 

 

For the second, I may not post every day, but I will try to.  Bonus points to me if I post pictures. 

 

[deftona]

Here for the pictures! Goal one sounds like it should be easy but we know better huh

[Mad Hatter]

Here! Looking forward to the pics!

[KB Girl]

That L-sit was great. Extra bonus points when you post more pictures like that?

 

Also, Wheel of Time <3

I feel like I'm getting send all kinds of messages that I should really re-read them. 

And ehh.. technically we are in the first age, aren't we? 

[sylph]

9 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Don't eat only candy and fast food

Seems reasonable.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Here to watch the Newest Assassin GL actually post a challenge in his own guild  

[WhiteGhost]

7 hours ago, deftona said:

Here for the pictures! Goal one sounds like it should be easy but we know better huh

Oh yes,  we definitely know better

 

6 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Here! Looking forward to the pics!

I'll try not to disappoint

 

5 hours ago, KB Girl said:

That L-sit was great. Extra bonus points when you post more pictures like that?

 

Also, Wheel of Time <3

I feel like I'm getting send all kinds of messages that I should really re-read them. 

And ehh.. technically we are in the first age, aren't we? 

Extra credit for any pictures at all

 

I thought about what age I should post but I really wasn't sure if it was 1st age or the 5th age or the age of legends or what it should be (and I couldn't be bothered to look it up) so I just kept with the 3rd

 

1 hour ago, sylph said:

Seems reasonable.

Keeping that bar as low as I can

 

23 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Here to watch the Newest Assassin GL actually post a challenge in his own guild  

I almost did this challenge with the Adventurers because I am not planning to be very assassiny but decided to come here after all. 

 

Today started out with a trip to a natural spring that if I was in charge of naming things would call it "soda spring."  It was naturally bubbly and tasted like soda water.   After that we went to a volcano museum and the kids got to play around with some model volcanoes showing the different types.   (For those who weren't following last challenge, I am in Northeast China and was in an area near the Russia border that had a group of 14 volcanoes) 

 

After lunch we drove down to Harbin, which is the provincial capital. on the way we stopped of at a few rest stops and I got in a little bit of exercise doing pullups on a broken swingset, some wall runups on a retaining wall and some balance work on a parking railing

 

At another rest stop, I found Coke Coffee.  I have never seen this before,  does this exist where any of you live? 

 

It turns out that the All Asia Bodybuilding Championship is taking place in the hotel next to ours and there are tons of super stacked people everywhere.   I am surprised at how many of them have clearly been skipping Leg Day, though... 

[Deckard Gainz]

From Diablo to WoT? A nephalem after my own heart. May you avoid the trolloc hordes...

 

58 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

 I am surprised at how many of them have clearly been skipping Leg Day, though... 

 

Never be surprised by this.

[KB Girl]

Always fascinating to watch bodybuilders. I had an opportunity to walk through the prep area once, they’re all busy either getting a tan or pumping their muscles.

[Mike Wazowski]

Excited to follow along with all the travels, and hopefully see some epic candy you're eating, too!

[@mu]

In!

[deftona]

3 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

 

At another rest stop, I found Coke Coffee.  I have never seen this before,  does this exist where any of you live? 

 

 

No, what exactly is it? Is it just coca cola branded coffee or is it coffee with Coke in it?

[Harriet]

15 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

1.  Don't eat only candy and fast food

 

So.... if you spend five weeks eating candy and fast food AND have one stick of celery, you will technically meet the requirement and win? Awesome. 

 

4 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Today started out with a trip to a natural spring that if I was in charge of naming things would call it "soda spring."  It was naturally bubbly and tasted like soda water.   

Oooh, soda spring! I once got to taste two different streamlets on a volcanic island in (White Island in NZ). One tasted metallic, and the other tasted like very sour fizzy lemon. Really. We were supposed to just dip our fingers in but I was so fascinated I probably drank a bit more of the sour fizzy streamlet than I ought to have. Also, the island was sometimes clear but sometimes clouded with some sort of sulphur fog, so we had to walk about with masks. It was neat. 

[WhiteGhost]

8 hours ago, Deckard Gainz said:

From Diablo to WoT? A nephalem after my own heart. May you avoid the trolloc hordes...

 

 

Never be surprised by this.

I am re-reading the WoT series with Ghostlet (who is reading it for the first time).  Tying to gently guide him toward nerdery

 

7 hours ago, KB Girl said:

Always fascinating to watch bodybuilders. I had an opportunity to walk through the prep area once, they’re all busy either getting a tan or pumping their muscles.

We got here right as it finished so we only got to see the after party (which was mostly just dancing and stuffing faces with food they had been denying themselves for the last 3 days) 

 

7 hours ago, Mike Wazowski said:

Excited to follow along with all the travels, and hopefully see some epic candy you're eating, too!

I was planning to hide the candy and not really talk about it,  but if that's what people want to see... 

 

7 hours ago, @mu said:

In!

Welcome! 

 

6 hours ago, deftona said:

 

No, what exactly is it? Is it just coca cola branded coffee or is it coffee with Coke in it?

It was Coke with coffee in it. We did not try it,  but the group consensus was that it probably would be terrible. 

 

5 hours ago, Harriet said:

 

So.... if you spend five weeks eating candy and fast food AND have one stick of celery, you will technically meet the requirement and win? Awesome. 

 

Oooh, soda spring! I once got to taste two different streamlets on a volcanic island in (White Island in NZ). One tasted metallic, and the other tasted like very sour fizzy lemon. Really. We were supposed to just dip our fingers in but I was so fascinated I probably drank a bit more of the sour fizzy streamlet than I ought to have. Also, the island was sometimes clear but sometimes clouded with some sort of sulphur fog, so we had to walk about with masks. It was neat. 

Technically yes, but this is one of those things where the spirit of the law is more important than the letter.  

 

The lemon fizzy spring sounds like something I would enjoy very much

 

[KB Girl]

8 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Tying to gently guide him toward nerdery 

I approve of this effort

[WhiteGhost]

3 hours ago, KB Girl said:

I approve of this effort

NF needs to to ensure the next generation

 

Today started out with a trip to a Russian village which is a big touriat attraction in Harbin.   unfortunately, it was just a big store selling all kinds of Russian kitsch. It was pretty disappointing.   After the village we went to the city center to look at the Russian architecture and an ice sculpture exhibit.  Harbin is most famous for the huge ice sculpture exhibit every winter,  so for tourists in the summer they have an indoor exhibit in a giant underground freezer.   It was pretty cool, but the lighting was terrible for pictures. All of the Russian architecture was pretty neat too. 

 

 

In afternoon we left the group and met up with some more relatives who live in town and had a great dinner. 

 

After dinner we went to a local park to see the city lights and I was messing around doing some simple parkour lines with Ghostlet. While we were in the middle of one,  one of the security guards started yelling at us through a megaphone to get off the walls so we had to cut that short

 

 

[@mu]

16 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

After dinner we went to a local park to see the city lights and I was messing around doing some simple parkour lines with Ghostlet. While we were in the middle of one,  one of the security guards started yelling at us through a megaphone to get off the walls so we had to cut that short

 

ha ha

 

What is in the glass flask /shapely bottle on the dinner pic?

[DarK_RaideR]

On 7/30/2019 at 3:47 AM, WhiteGhost said:

It was Coke with coffee in it. We did not try it,  but the group consensus was that it probably would be terrible. 

I tried some a few days back, someone passed the SRLF a small promo can. It's actually not as terrible as it sounds, it tastes a bit like moccha. Still, I take my coffee black, so it was too sugary and creamy for my liking.

[WhiteGhost]

4 hours ago, @mu said:

 

ha ha

 

What is in the glass flask /shapely bottle on the dinner pic?

That's a wine decanter

 

2 hours ago, DarK_RaideR said:

I tried some a few days back, someone passed the SRLF a small promo can. It's actually not as terrible as it sounds, it tastes a bit like moccha. Still, I take my coffee black, so it was too sugary and creamy for my liking.

Interesting.   I was a little suspicious that it might be fake, given that the bottle had no English on it at all (they are usually half & half) and I have have never seen it anywhere else. Tiny shops in the middle of nowhere are people sell the fake stuff - places where the people who shop there wouldn't know the difference. Even knowing it is (probably) the real deal, nobody was interested in trying it out

 

Today started out with a looong 6 hour bus ride.  Luckily I packed some snacks for the road

 

 

We left from Harbin and drove over to a small volcanic waterfall whose claim to fame is that Deng XiaoPing visited and said the scenery was lovely. 

 

 

We also visited a small Korean ethnic village (we are now close to the border with North Korea) but it was a bit disappointing.  This particular village was founded by refugees from the Korean War back in the 50s 

 

 

[Mad Hatter]

I love the fish plate, something about the pattern and the light makes it look like it's photoshopped right on top of everything else.

 

He's not wrong about the scenery, it's indeed lovely.

[sylph]

1 hour ago, Mad Hatter said:

I love the fish plate, something about the pattern and the light makes it look like it's photoshopped right on top of everything else.

 

I thought the same thing. Like it's some celestial, holy fish or something.

[Harriet]

Love the cathedral and love love love the waterfall. So beautiful. 

[Mike Wazowski]

Oooh that waterfall!!

[raptron]

Ahhh, gorgeous waterfall. 

[deftona]

oh my word that waterfall. I have a false memory of standing behind a waterfall when I was a child but I am pretty sure it is actually a scene in Disney's Robin Hood which to be fair would explain the fox.