Life of Kropell

Friends, fish and a flock of seagulls

Posted on 30.09.2010 by Kropell

I went on a fishing trip a couple of weeks ago with my friends Kjetil, Sture and Torvald. We met in Bergen and drove north for about an hour. After a ride on a ferry we ended up on the island of Fedje located on the west coast of Norway. If you travel due west from Fedje the first place you’ll hit land is the Faroe Island or Iceland.

Early morning at Fedje harbour - going fishing

Pilot boat at Fedje traffic station

Fedje is very close to the approach to the Mongstad Refinery. Mongstad is the main refinery for north sea oil in Norway and there’s a lot of traffic with large ships. These are tough waters and authorities want to keep strict control to avoid disaster. Working the pilot boats is not a job for the faint hearted, these guys will go out in tough weather to pilot the ships safely to harbour.

We arrived Friday evening and Torvald made Sushi for all of us. He had a Sushi Making kit bought from Amazon.com and it worked great! Saturday was grey, rainy and a bit windy, but we got in the boat and went fishing anyway – I didn’t bring my camera though. There were lots of fish in the water and we brought back a selection of pollack, cod, mackerel, saithe and a couple of other species for which Google translate didn’t give me a satisfactory translation. Sture made the most amazing fish soup based on our catch of the day!

Torvald showing the catch of the day!

Sunday was absolutely beautiful! No wind – which is extremely rare at Fedje – and sunny. We got in the boat at went out to catch more fish.

Yours truly in the foreground with Sture and Kjetil

Sture pulling in 3 mackerels

Torvald pulled a "brosme" (don't have English translation)

Captain Torvald

One of the chores that comes with the package on a fishing trip is that you need to clean the fish. We decided to do that on the way back and this attracted a lot of seagulls. I’d just been reading up on how to use my camera and specifically how to take action photos. After tweaking the knobs and wheels on my Canon G10 I started snapping shots of anything moving. Torvald was helpful by throwing the fish leftovers in my direction, so most of the action was pretty close to where I was sitting in the boat.

Cleaning the fish

Seagulls hunting for the leftovers

Seagulls hunting for leftovers

Seagull at Fedje

Seagulls fighting over leftovers

That’s if from Fedje. It was an amazing trip and we’ll hopefully be doing something similar next year – either at Fedje or maybe somewhere else. Stay tuned … 🙂

Categories: Photo diary, Travel | Tags: Fedje | 2 Comments

Back to Il Convento

Posted on 20.09.2010 by Kropell

I went to Italy with my Taiji friends approximately one year ago. My impressions from that trip can be found in a blog post from October 2009.

We had to come back – for so many reasons. It’s a beautiful place; the monastery is situated just outside the village of Trevi in the Umbria province, about 2,5 hours bus ride from the Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome. The valley and the mountain side around Il Convento are covered by olive trees. There’s lots of nice paths to walk in the area to take in all the stunning views.

Live Mørstad is the person in charge of Il Convento and she makes everyone feel welcome and cared for. Her kitchen staff use mostly raw materials from the area to produce simple, but extremely tasty dishes. The food alone is worth the stay! This is what they had waiting for us in the garden when the bus arrived:

Welcome to Il Convento

After the refreshments we were taken for a tour of the monastery with Live as our guide. Her enthusiasm is contagious and both recent and ancient history of the place is very interesting indeed. Il Convento was built in 1158 and was visited St. Francis of Assisi.

Live Mørstad

Here’s a picture of the whole group taken by a small church located among the olive trees on the mountain side above the monastery.

The group

We had an amazing week practicing Taiji and Qigong at Il Convento. A day trip to Assisi was also part of the program, I brought the camera, but I didn’t take a single picture while we were there. I just had too many other things going on in my mind at the time.

There are however a few shots from our trip to Assisi in 2009 on my Flickr page.

On our second day we experienced a level 4 earthquake! I was relaxing in a chair on the lawn just after breakfast when I noticed a deep deep rumble and the ground started shaking. I could hear windows and furniture – in fact the whole monastery vibrate. It lasted about 10 seconds and then everything went quiet …

Taiji practice in the garden

Frode and Kristian taking a break by the olive trees

Relaxing by the pool

Frode playing with his balls ...

We’ve already booked Il Convento again for next year. It’ll be great to go back there … If you feel tempted to join us just keep an eye on our web site www. taiji.no. Information about the trip will be posted there in March or April 2011.

See you next year!

Categories: Photo diary, Taiji, Travel | Tags: Trevi, Umbria | Comments Off

Travelling under the ash cloud – Edinburgh and Paris

Posted on 16.09.2010 by Kropell

After returning from my trip to China, I stayed on the ground for a bit less than 24 hours. During that time I slept a bit and packed for my next trip. The plan was to attend a conference in Edinburgh, Scotland and then go on to another conference in Chicago, Illinois and then stop for a meeting in Boston on my way home. In other words a real round trip! The stay in Chicago was supposed to last for almost 10 days with time for friends and some tourism.

– But nature wanted it differently …

The trip to Edinburgh went as planned and I had a great time at the conference. There was not much time to take pictures, but I managed to squeeze off a few:

Edinburgh

Spring flowers in Edinburgh

About 5 o’clock in the morning of April the 15th I woke up to the phone ringing in my hotel room. The night porter was surfing the net and had followed the development as a volcano erupted on Iceland. One of the developments was that ashes were spreading through the air space and airports in the south of Norway was closing. Airports in the UK and the northern parts of Europe were expected to follow suit. Bless the man for alerting me. I was booked on the 8 o’clock flight to London and he thought I could try to get out there early to catch a flight before the airport were closed.

The airport was closed. Thanks to the night porter though, I was out there early and was able to secure a seat on an early train to London. There was still a chance to catch that flight to Chicago later in the day from Heathrow! Approaching London I got an SMS saying that my flight was cancelled and that Heathrow was closed. Luckily I had my iPhone and checked the Internet for news about the ash cloud. Paris Charles du Gaulle was still open and to make a long story short; I was able to get on a train to Paris just 1,5 hours after arriving in London. My travel agent booked a flight from Paris to Chicago the following morning. Again cutting the story short; I ended up staying in Paris for about a week, before I was able to catch a ride on a bus back to Norway.

My last shots in this post are from Paris. It was springtime and the weather was absolutely beautiful!

Springtime in Paris

The last picture is kind of cool. From the roof of the tourist bus I spotted a loooong line of people waiting outside a building. I assumed it was an airline office, since people were lining up outside those offices all over town. Imagine my surprise when it turned out that they were waiting to get in to an exhibition based on the work of the famous Norwegian painter Edvard Munch!

Edvard Munch exhibition in Paris

This concludes my backlog of pictures. The posts coming up after this one are a bit more current … 🙂

Categories: Photo diary, Travel | Tags: Edingburgh, Paris | 1 Comment

China 2010 part 4 – Beijing

Posted on 07.09.2010 by Kropell

Beijing was the last stop so this is the last part the story. The first day in Beijing started in Jingshan Park (Coal Hill) just behind The Forbidden City. We met some of our friends from The Beijing Taiji Association led by Master Lee. In the picture below you can see our teacher Pamela Hiley with our delegation leader Zhi and Master Lee.

Pamela, Zhi and Master Lee

Zhi travelled with us from the very beginning and followed us the entire trip. He works for the Beijing People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. They helped us arrange the trip and Zhi did more than just an excellent job as our delegation leader and translator. He also became a great friend. We had the pleasure of seeing him again in Oslo this summer. He traveled with his boss Mr. Wang and the Chinese girls soccer team to participate in the annual Norway Cup soccer tournament in Oslo. We were very happy to present him with a birthday cake at Norsk Taiji Senter on his 40th birthday!

Taiji fan demonstration in Jingshan Park, Beijing

Taiji morning practice in Jingshan Park, Beijing

Chinese parks are great places to be – especially in the early hours. There’re so many things going on! Taiji, Qigong, Kung Fu, dancing, painting, calligraphy, music and much more. One of my favorites on this particular morning was this guy:

Early morning in Jingshan Park

After the morning practice in Jingshan Park we went to the Beijing Daoist Association. They reside in a small temple located in the Beijing business district. We were met by their senior priests and the Director of the association.

Beijing Daoist Association

The following discussion was just amazing! We told them about our travels in China, the places we had seen and our wish to study and learn more about the root of Taiji and the Daoism. They responded with great enthusiasm and it was extremely interesting to hear their reflections. Among other things, they told us much about the origin of the I Ching and Ba Gua that at least was new to me. One of the monks was an expert in Wushu or martial arts and he shared some of his knowledge about the origin of Daoist Taiji with us.

Beijing Daoist Association, martial arts demonstration

Before we left the Daoists, they treated us to lunch at a nearby restaurant. Another delicious meal in the company of great friends. I feel pretty sure that we will stay connected with our new friends at the Daoist Association.

Lunch with Beijing Daoist Association

The last stop for the day was reception at the Beijing People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. We were received by Executive Vice President, Mrs. Li Xiaoqiang and most of her management team. I believe we were treated more or less like an official delegation with a formal reception where speeches and gifts were exchanged over a nice cup of tea. After that they treated us to a magnificent dinner. It’s hard to describe the atmosphere as any different from a dinner with old friends.

Reception at Beijing People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries

Dinner at Beijing People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries

My last shots from our trip to China was from our visit to a hospital at the outskirts of Beijing – not far from the Great Wall of China. The director of the hospital Dr. Chen is also a master of Chen style Taiji and he made a profound impression on us when we visited him in 2008. Bjarte Hiley studied with him for a few months before he went to Wudang and we wanted to pay our respects before returning to Norway.

Visit with Dr. Chen

Dr. Chen took us on a tour of the hospital and showed us how they use both modern western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. He said that Chinese medicine often is superior in the treatment of chronic diseases. Modern medicine has saved many lives and improved the quality of life for many people, but the traditional medicine is still an important part of the treatment administered at the hospital.

Traditional Chinese medicine

We also had time for some Taiji exchange before we left Beijing:

Chen style Taiji

Yang style Taiji

That’s it from China in 2010! I close this post with a picture of the whole group taken by our friend Zhi at Jingshan Park:

Norsk Taiji Senter delegation to China 2010

Categories: Photo diary, Taiji | Tags: Beijing | Comments Off

China 2010 part 3 – Louyang and Anyang

Posted on 06.09.2010 by Kropell

The days we spent in Wudang was a pretty tuff act to follow, but as it turned out our trip kept up the pace. Next stop were the city of Louyang. Our main purpose visiting this city was to see the Longmen grottoes. More than 100 000 statues (mostly Buddhas) are carved into the rock in a small area by the Yi River.

Longmen grottoes

After our visit to Longmen we went to a local Peony festival. The Peony is a flower and is one of the national symbols of China. The celebration was visible around the city – like in thisparking lot:

Peony festival in Louyang

Pink peony

White peony

Taiji teacher Pamela Hiley in the peony garden

After Louyang we went on to Anyang. At first the Chinese were a bit surprised that we wanted to go there. Not many foreign tourists do. Anyang is however a most interesting place if you’re interested in the origins of Chinese culture, philosoply, language and more. Back in 2008 we went to the museum dedicated to the origin of the Chinese writing. This time one of our most important goals was to visit the origin of the I Ching (The Book of Changes). It’s impossible to explain I Ching in a short blog post, but I’ll mention one pretty cool thing. The system of tri-grams I Ching shares with the Ba Gua is the first known use of binary code. There are 8 tri-grams that can be combined in to 64 hexagrams. Anyone with some knowledge of computers should recognize this as the same language used by our computers. One of the things we learned during this trip is that the oldest manifestations of the Ba Gua found in archeological surveys are more than 7000 years old!

I Ching memorial

Next stop on our journey was to reacquaint ourselves with old friends from our previous visit in 2008. We drove to the park at the center of Anyang and was welcomed by a large crowd of people. Leading them was our friends from a local Taiji school and the leader of the Anyang I Ching University.

Welcome to Anyang!

Anyang Taiji demonstration

Anyang Taiji sword demontration

Pushing hands with the Master

After practicing in the park we were taken to visit the local Taiji center. My photography skills are not quite good enough yet, because most of the pictures I took there are not good enough. We had a great time though and I’m pretty sure this is not the last time we see our friends in Anyang. There will be more trips to China and it’d be great to go back!

Categories: Photo diary, Taiji | Tags: Anyang, Louyang | Comments Off

China 2010 part 2 – Wudangshan

Posted on 05.09.2010 by Kropell

We arrived in Wudang in pouring rain – which turned out to be the only day on the entire trip with bad weather. Bjarte Hiley met us at our sleeping quarters. He’s my teacher Pamela Hiley’s oldest son and is currently staying at The Purple Temple at Wudang to study Wudang Kungfu and Taiji. You can read about his experiences and see some pretty cool movie clips in his blog.

From the left: Bjarte, Pamela and Zhi

We met with Master Zhong the following morning for some Qigong practice at The Purple Temple. Our stay only lasted four days and it would not be enough to learn Wudang Taiji or Kungfu. Master Zhong taught us instead some Qigong forms that can improve our own Taiji practice. If you find any of the places in the images familiar it could be because some scenes in the latest Karate Kid movie was filmed here.

Wudang - Purple Temple

Qigong practice at The Purple Temple in Wudang

Master Zhong practicing his flute

Master Zhong demonstrating Wudang Taijiquan

Our stay in Wudang ended after four days of intense practice and I would gladly have stayed much longer. I’d like to express my admiration for my friend Bjarte and his study of Wudang martial arts. He’s practicing Taijiquan and Kungfu more than 6 hours every day at Wudang. I’m looking forward to seeing him back in Oslo demonstrating and teaching his arts at Norsk Taiji Senter … 🙂

Categories: Photo diary, Taiji | Tags: Wudangshan | Comments Off

China 2010 part 1 – The South

Posted on 04.09.2010 by Kropell

It’s been almost a year since my last post on the blog. I guess my 3 – 4 readers can live with that, but I have missed putting words to some of my experiences during the last few months. I start with the trip to China with Norsk Taiji Senter during the Easter Holiday this year. This post will cover the first few days of the trip.

We arrived in the city of Chengdu in the late afternoon of March 27th after almost 20 hours in the air and waiting at airports. We stayed in Chengdu a day and a half to relax a bit after the long trip. We met up with one of the local Taiji masters, but I’ll get back to him later. The first shot is from the “Leshan Giant Buddha“. This is one of the largest Buddha statues in the world and was carved into the rock from 713 to 803.

Leshan Giant Buddha

After Leshan, we went on to Emeishan. The summit is at 3100 meters above sea level, and the way up there is an experience in itself. Cars and ordinary buses are not allowed to drive up there. Only special buses with locally trained drivers are permitted to use the road up towards the gondola that will bring you to the summit. When the bus stops you still have about 40 minutes walk up the mountain to before you can enter the gondola. We were warned about carrying food in plastic bags or in anyway visible. All bags and pockets should be kept closed. This was due to the monkeys living in the valley along the path. One of my friends ignored the warnings and one of the monkeys actually snatched a boiled egg from her lunch bag!

The path to Emei shan

Emeishan monkey eating an egg from my friend's lunch bag ...

Emeishan monkeys

The fog lifted when we got to the summit and eventually the clouds disappeared and all of us got sunburned. The view that met us at the top took me totally by surprised. I was told in advance about the huge golden statue and about the temples up there, but my wildest imagination did not prepare me for what I saw when we arrived.

Golden statue at Emeishan summit

The next image will give you a better idea of the size of the thing!

Giant statue at Emeishan summit

We also did some Taiji outside one of the temples with the statue in the background.

Taiji at the Emeishan summit

After Emeishan we went on to Hemingshan. This is a place with great significance for the development of Daoism and consequently also for the development of Taijiquan. We visited a large Daoist center. The center is built by a local business man who made his fortune selling pharmaceuticals developed from local herbs. Building the Daoist center is his way of giving something back to the local society. At Hemingshan we also met up with Master Mei from Chengdu. Master Mei is 83 years old and is recognized for reconstructing the original Taijiquan form as it most likely was performed by Zhang Sanfeng. Most of the masters we met on the trip would tell us that their form was the original Taijquan form and that their city or village was the place where it was developed. I don’t think anyone truly know the full story of how the soft internal martial art of Taijiquan was created.

Master Mei with students at Hemingshan

Taijiquan sword demonstration at Hemingshan

Last but not least I show a picture from one of our meals at Hemingshan. The food on the whole trip is worth a blogpost in itself – at the very least. I’ve never had so much great food in my entire life! The food at Hemingshan was however in a class of its own. We were told that all the courses was prepared based on Daoist principles and that each course could be considered as medicine for body and soul.

Dinner at Hemingshan

That’s it for now. The next post will be dedicated to our stay at Wudangshan, practicing Taijiquan and Qigong with at the Purple Temple …

Categories: Photo diary, Taiji | Tags: Chengdu, Emeishan, Hemingshan, Leshan | 2 Comments

First impressions from Paris

Posted on 26.10.2009 by Kropell

I’m in Paris for the 2009 European ICOLC conference. There’s not much time for leisure, but I did manage to jump a tourist bus for the Grand Tour of Paris this Sunday. Since this is my first time here these shots are my frist impressions from this beautiful city.

My trip started close to the Notre Dame so the first pictures are from that area:

Notre Dame

There’s so much going on by the river! Thousands of people walk, run and relax by the river. There’re lots of small businesses selling books, paintings and “stuff”. On a walking bridges close to the Pont Neuf a painter was working and a group of girls had a picknic …

Shopping by the river

The River

People on a bridge

Champs Elysee

Detail from Arc de Triomphe

Tour de Eiffel

Detail from the Paris tour

Detail from Louvre

This blog post ends with a picture of a tree getting to dropping its leaves before winter. I may be back with more – if I can find the time …

Autumn

Categories: Photo diary, Travel | Tags: Paris | Comments Off

Il Convento – Taiji in the footsteps of St. Francis

Posted on 19.10.2009 by Kropell

I believe it all started during spring. My teacher Pamela Hiley got an invitation to teach at a Qigong course at the Il Convento monastery in Italy in May. She and those of my friends at the Taiji center who went there immediately fell in love with the place. As a result Pamela almost instantly started planning a second trip in late September. We arrived in the afternoon Sunday 28th of September. This is some of my impressions from Il Convento, but I’ll publish at least one more post with more focus on the Taiji and Qigong practice later. I’ll also post some pics from our day trip to Assissi later. For more pictures from the trip to Italy, check out my Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjensvoll .

Tea in the garden

We were welcomed by Live Mørstad the absolutely charming manager at Il Convento.

Live Mørstad talking about the history of Il Convento

Here are a couple of my first impressions of the monastery shot the first day:

Il Convento - first impressions

The clock tower. This tower would ring every 15 minutes from 07:00 to 22:00

Every morning started in the inner garden at 7:30 with one hour of Qigong practice before breakfast. We practiced Taiji before lunch and Qigong between lunch and dinner (19:00). In other words; our days were filled …

Qigong in the garden

Taiji pushing hands in the garden

Pamela instructing Andreas in pushing hands

We did not stay inside Il Convento the entire week though. On the fifth day we went to Assissi. I’ll post some pictures from that trip in my next post. We also went for walks in the area around the monastery. An old church is located all by itself in the hillside surrounded by olive trees. When we came up there we practiced Taiji ….

Taiji at the mountain church

Local resident at the mountain church

Here’s a shot showing Il Convento taken from the hillside church. Most of the village of Bovara is visible in front of the monastery.

Il Convento from above

When the week suddenly was over I was almost surprised. Even with the relatively slow living inside the monastery the time flew by very quickly. I’d gladly stay a week or two more …

The last supper at Il Convento

For even more pictures from the trip to Italy, check out my Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjensvoll

Categories: Photo diary, Taiji | Tags: Trevi, Umbria | 1 Comment

Taiji summer course

Posted on 28.07.2009 by Kropell

The annual Norsk Taiji Senter summer course started Wednesday 24th of June. Some of us got an early start and arrived at Haugtun around noon. By 18:00 we were all there and shared a lovely dinner prepared by our hosts at Haugtun.

Haugtun

Haugtun - Our room for indoor practice and meditation

As you can see from the pictures; Haugtun is a beautiful mountain farm. The weather was fantastic throughout our stay and I got myself a nasty sunburn on my shoulder already on the first day …

I’ll show some of my favourite pictures in this article, but if you want to see the all you can find them at my account on Flickr.com.

The program at the summer course is pretty tough. We start every morning at 4:30 with meditation. After that we do some Qigong practice and the Taiji form a few times. Then we have about 1,5 hours break before breakfast.

After breakfast we practice Taiji and Qigong the whole day and after we finish in early evening most of us went to sleep pretty soon; we needed all the sleep we could before the wake up call at 4:10 next morning …

Practice at Haugtun

Golden rooster stands on one leg

Bagua sword practice - Hilde means business ... 🙂

Break

The last day of our course we went to one of the local peaks; “Spåtind”. The walk up from the cars is roughly 1,5 – 2 hours through classic Norwegian mountains terrain. The view from the top is spectacular. When we arrived at the top it was time for food. We brought packed lunches, coffee and tea. After lunch it was time for some practice.

Our teacher and my beloved friend Pamela

Vibeke at the top - in the background you can see Jotunheimen

Lunch at SpåtindLunch at Spåtind

Lunch at Spåtind

Practice at Spåtind

Taijiquan at Spåtind

Finally we got everyone together for a group shot at the mountain top!

The Spåtind experience

Categories: Photo diary, Taiji | Tags: Haugtun | 2 Comments