Air and Style

Finally to the reason we were in Beijing...The Oakley Air n' Style....I'd never been to this event before and was siked to check it out, especially in China...Chinese law says there has to be a shit-ton of security guards at any spectator event.....They definitely respected the law.

This security guy had amazingly good seats for the Chinese boy band that played after the event.

A little excessive?

The Birds Nest was next door to the venue we were at...I never got a chance to check it out but she was poking her head out the whole time.

Grilo and I had a chance to film some funny video stuff before the event. I caught up with him before he hiked the 7 stories of stairs for the 1st time.

The level of riding was super high...Sebastian Toutant walked away the victor.....The security guards even got a chance to get a quick cell phone photo...Hopefully I make it back next year

Tourism at its finest

We got a chance to get out of Beijing a bit and check out some of the Chinese countryside. The place is def not easy living. Seems like everyone is struggling to survive in a way..

We rode a day at Nanshan...A local ski hill about an hour outside of town....When we arrived there were a bunch of guys making a mogul field with shovels. Right before a park jump?? Not too sure their logic on that one.

The next day we made it too the Great Wall. I hadn't been to this section of The Wall before and it was just as impressive as the other section years ago.

After the Wall we headed to this super low key restaurant in one of the traditional Chinese neighborhoods...The place was amazing. Apparently, this was one of the Emperors old cars...This was before the entire fleet was converted into Prius's.

Jesse enjoyed dinner. And decided that he was going to be Tony Montana from Scarface for the night...Not quite sure how I have all these photos of Jesse?

They Love Mao

Everywhere you seem to go in China there is a picture of Mao....such as this restaurant....Seems kind of weird loving someone so much that brought your country less freedom? (communism)
Before one of the dinners, we had a chance to sit down and catch up on our Chinese history. Jesse read it to us aloud, over drinks.
Ryan, Claude, Todd, and I headed up to the Budda temple one afternoon. He looks directly over the Forbidden City. This is the view Budda has, all day long.
There is no shortage of street vendors to take photos of either....The kite business must be booming these days in Beijing...its always windy

Smell that Fresh Air?

I had some time to walk around and shoot some photos and TL's while in Beijing.

The 1st day we were there was brutally cold and had the worst air quality possible. A little different than when the Beijing Olympics were in town.

Everyone seems to work their ass off in ChinaOn the second day the air cleared and we had some time to head to Tiananmen Sqaure. It was so damn cold. Not sure why these guys didn't have matching beanies instead of baseball hats?

A Nice Historic Flatground Spot

One would think that when you have to walk through X-ray machines to access Tiananmen Square, skating would be out of the question.....

its China afterall, I think they have bigger things to worry about...such as 1.3 billion citizens..

p.s. Jesse and Mao say hi

No Blogging Allowed

Just got back from an amazing trip to China with a couple days in Tokyo on the back end. Both places are great for blog photos and I should have some cool posts in the upcoming days...The Chinese government actually blocks Facebook and Blogspot from internet users....luckily I can jump super high and I was able to outrun them.........................

....actually, Ryan Young and I were waiting for our van to pick us up and I asked him to shoot this photo....The timing wasn't as easy at it may seem. I finally landed it like 6th try.