Skateboarding
The Rice Diaries - Exploring China Part 1
Exploring the local culture of skateboarding’s most famous skateboard destination.
3 min
Rice Diaries: Episode 1
Exploring the local culture of skateboarding’s most famous skateboard destination.
Everyone knows that Canada has rough winters, but I wonder if they really know? In Vancouver, where most of our crew is from, there's no indoor parks, mini ramps, nothing. This can be a long and lonely winter if you can't skate with your friends. So each year we try and get a crew together to skate, hang out and escape the icy roads and shovelling driveways of snow. China seemed like the perfect escape as we had our amazing guide, Will Cui, and I've been there many times already and knew some spots.
Our team was a big one, Derek Swaim, Dave Ehrenreich, Jason Gordon, Mike Campbell, Matt Berger, AJ McAlister, Cory Klim, Dane Collison, Nick Moore, Benny Stoddard and Mike Vince. We were to spend a few weeks filming for Benny's documentary and working on photos of the crew for various publications. We travelled a lot exploring new cities from Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Foshan and Guangzhou - this was going to be a great adventure.
AJ McAllister, Frontside Hurricane
© Brian Cassie
While skating the famous Eiffel Tower spot as we called it in Foshan we came across this perfect out rail with marble run up. This plaza was so good we spent the whole day there. AJ McAlister locks into a nice frontside hurricane grind while you can see the tower in the background.
Matt Berger, Backside Noseblunt
© Brian Cassie
Benny Stoddard and Matt Berger filmed a lot this trip, more than I've seen in past years with anyone else. With so many spots and little time in each city we never hit the same spot twice. Here Matt slides a long backside nose blunt mid line. This plaza of stairs and manny pads is a must-see while in Shenzhen.
Cupping
© Brian Cassie
Massage parlours in China are everywhere and very cheap. After a long day of skating we'd always grab a beer and visit them for a foot or back stretch. We actually had a good one in the hotel itself and a two-hour massage could run you around $8 - for that price we became locals! There's a process called Cupping where they suck the toxins out of your skin which leaves a strong bruise as you can see here.
The second part will go live next week. Stay tuned!
