First Race

Hey all, so as promised here's the write-up of today's goings-on. We left Bristol at around 6.55 this morning to head over to Reading, which is about 80 miles away, which, from where we are straight across is half-way across the country. I knocked out right away and woke up right before we got into Reading proper.

We pulled up onto a curb in a sweet little suburban area and hopped out to find the trailer, which was chilling on a corner not too far away. Our club president, Adam, rolled up in his Land Rover and towed it over to a grassy spot near the bank of the Thames. The Thames, for non-rower folk, is a pretty legendary river. It flows through London and there is a particularly famous stretch on which Oxford and Cambridge beast it out in their annual Boat Race. Anyway, there were the classic English river barges lining the banks, with picturesque balconied bungalows stretching for a good length of the river.

Enough of the airy-fairy details, because just as the trailer was parked, we found out that we had roughly half an hour to rig our boat. Rigging is a fairly efficient process when you have enough wrenches, in American, spanners and rigger-jiggers in English. However, we didn't have many to go around, so it was a bit hectic trying to arrange riggers and screw them all securely into place. I was presented with a third-hand Bristol rowing kit, and now I was officially a Bristol rower.

We had a rushed warm-up and then walked our boat down to the bank and set off on our way to the start. It was a really, really nice stretch of river: calm and very little current. We passed under a bridge right after we passed the finsh mark (going the opposite direction) and made our way up past a few little islands. We had a great warm-up pace going, moving through the boat with a great connection, then we hit a huge traffic jam of boats a few strokes past the 2000 metre mark of the 4.6km course. See, the divisions weren't organized well, or at least the organization to get the boats to the start wasn't there, so all these boats were just jammed on a narrow stretch of river. We ended up inching our way through a jumble of school VIIIs, master's VIIIs and other universities, and one particularly impressive octuple (sculling VIII) full of kids, but was a bit annoying. After ages of waiting, we finally made it to the start, but didn't quite realize it until the official called for us to turn around and start.

We turned, made some great strokes, and we were off. It was amazingly smooth. On Wednesday we had done a head race style piece at our course at Saltford at a 30-32 stroke rating (strokes per minute), and it wasn't bad, but this was really, really good. We kept on at a 30 stroke rating for the first two and a half kilometres, and managed to pass one of the boats from the Imperial College in London. We kept it up all the way down the course, and managed to hit a 31.5 stroke rating in our last 1000 metres. It was the best rowing I'd ever been a part of. We moved quickly and smoothly, no rush, everyone caught and locked in the water, and there was excellent send of the boat. Each stroke came more speed and length, and once we passed the boat from Imperial, they just became smaller and smaller, until we rounded the bend and couldn't see them anymore.

As always, I wore my red headband for good luck. Back at Vassar, before one of our big races, I think it was our Liberty Leagues race, I put it on, and we rowed a great course. The tradition stuck, and now I've brought it here. I also shaved my head yesterday, just because my hair was getting to be a bit of a bother, and I prefer a monk cut anyway. It calls for less maintenance. And so that was my Saturday. I'm off to dinner now with a friend at Nando's, this sweet Portuguese-style chicken restaurant. If you're ever in England/Australia (according to my Australian sources, they have it there too), look for one, and eat up. It's absolutely delicious.
















University of Bristol Boat Club 3rd VIII (L-R: Stuart, Adam, Alex, Me, Luke, Ivan, Lloyd and Tristan, and our cox, Jenny in the front)

To the 3rd VIII and Jenny, cheers for a great race and great rowing today. 3rd VIII, no faff.

UPDATE: 5th of 37 crews in the S4 division. Sweeeeeeeet.

The Culinary Adventures of Kyle T. Chea, esq.

So, realizing that I'm on the Vassar homepage, I figured I'd write up a little "blogette" to give you nice people to look at while you wait for tomorrow's post (which will involve me rowing in my first head race with the University of Bristol Boat Club).

Little bit of background: I live in self-catered housing, which means no meal plan for Kyle. I cook my own food every day, which is usually a mixup of whatever looks interesting in Sainsbury's (the grocery store down the way) and what I've got lying around in my shelf of the fridge. Here are a few things I've been so proud of that I've had to take pictures of them.

Here, we've got eggplant, or aubergine (pr. o-ber-zheen). Don't ask me how it got that name. I get funny looks of confusing and xenophobia whenever I say "eggplant," but it's always a good time. So, what I've done here is cube the aubergine, curry it, and sautee it in coconut milk with onions and garlic. Then I sliced up another one and grilled the slices with basil, salt, black pepper and olive oil drizzled on top. But when I went to put them all together, I realized I didn't have enough space on my plate, hence the pileage.






For my next trick, I put out some char siu （叉烧） pork, a well-liked Cantonese dish. My friend, Jess, from Australia stopped in Bristol on her travels round the world, and I made it for her. I couldn't be bothered to cook veggies as well, as we had just been in Bath for cream tea (for those who don't know, tea with scones, with a side of clotted cream and jam), so we were a bit full, but still hungry enough to enjoy my homemade char siu.




























On a much more random side note, I just found out how to put pictures up on these things, which is why I am excitedly writing a new post now, eager to try out this new-fangled thingamajiggy.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to photograph tonight's dinner, which was fish in sweet chili sauce, garnished with ginger, garlic and scallions. Oh well, next time. Keep posted for tomorrow's post-race post! (Yes, I know I wrote all those "post" words. Thank you.)

Bristol Snow

So you may have seen all the crazy news reports of snow in London basically shutting the city down by now. That was us yesterday. Bristol is a fairly large city to the southwest of London, home to the University of Bristol where the Concorde was designed and constructed, where Rolls-Royce has a huge firm, and where Isambard Kingdom Brunel designed and built a massive Clifton Suspension Bridge that spans more than 200 feet above the Avon Gorge, and is right down the road from me.

I've been in Bristol ever since my last post, but this time I am well-rested, well over jetlag and a bunch of other things. I've moved into self-catered housing, meaning I'm not on a meal plan, which is about a 45 minute walk from the main university precinct. It's a picturesque walk: as I walk up the hill to one of the older residences (Wills Hall where they still dress in robes for Friday night dinner), I can practically see the entire village of Stoke Bishop. Over the hill, past Wills, is a large field called the Downs. These extend all the way to the Avon Gorge, where the Avon river cuts deeply through the rocks and snakes its way past the Bristol docks. This is about a 15 minute walk across the Downs. Then it's down Blackboy Hill, along Whiteladies Road and then to wherever I need to go. So there you go, a two second geography lesson of the greater Bristol area.

I'm in three classes at the moment: The Myth & Reality of Mao Zedong, British Political Culture and Communication, and Contemporary Japanese Society. I'll be working on taking a Chinese course one-on-one with the prof, since Vassar has prepared me way too well to take Chinese here. Also, it's because nobody here signed up for the level I elected to take. Oh well.

On an extracurricular note, I've been rowing with the University rowing team, and it's been great. They're a great group of guys, and I'm in the 3rd VIII. Basically, the 1st VIII is a bunch of guys bred for rowing. They're all tall, lanky muscular beasts. Everything the ideal rower should be. Then you have the 2nd VIII, which are the guys which are also ridiculously good. Then you have the 3rd VIII, which looks like the rowing I'm used to. A bunch of average height guys who work hard at what they do, focus, and try to make up for what nature hasn't given them with crazy dedication (Third Eight, no faff!) Faff, for you Americans out there, means we don't mess around, in the most PG of terms.

Well, kids, it's off to start my reading, where here, there are no texts that you pick up at the beginning of term. You hop to the library after receiving your weekly readings, find em, check em out, and trek back to your room with them, and cuddle in for a good time. I kinda like that system. It saves money, and everyone reads something different. However, you're reading whole books instead of articles and excerpts, which I much prefer reading if I must read often. Just the way the cookie...err, crumpet, crumbles I suppose. Fair ways til next time.