One of the most loved former Survivors is Yau-Man from the Survivor: Fiji and Fans & Favorites seasons. He’s a very likeable man and even though he admits to being a bit shy at first, he is very friendly and gracious once he gets acquainted.

This weekend when we were in the buffet line beside each other, he told me that in China people will cook and eat anything that flies, swims walks or crawls because meat is so scarce there. And since they cook so many vegetables at home, they expect to see almost exclusively meat at a buffet. It was one of those interesting cultural things I enjoy learning.

He was unable to make it to last year’s Dodgeball event since he was still filming the China season at the time. But now that I had the chance to find out, I was interested in what he’s been doing since the show. So here he is, filling us in on his latest activities:

UPDATE: You can read Yau-Man’s blog entries here. (And I’m adding the link to my sidebar too.)

I have a bit of reality TV trivia for you. It’s a very little known fact that Survivor: Fiji star Anthony Robinson and Beauty & the Geek 4 winner David Olsen have been friends for about 10 years and share an unusual hobby: LARPing. While David was very open about his love of LARPing on his series, I don’t remember ever seeing Anthony discuss the subject before this weekend’s Survivor Charity Dodgeball event.

And one more bit of trivia: the foam weapons used by David to demonstrate LARPing for the B&tG series actually belonged to Anthony. Now how’s that for some reality TV trivia?

The two of them were very animated and enthusiastic when they were hanging out at the after party Saturday night. They talked a lot about LARPing and I asked them to pose for a photo together. This is what they came up with:

[Photo: Lynn DeVries - DO NOT repost without permission]

They then explained to me that in two different LARPing games, the gestures they were making made them invisible. (Yes, they still did show up on the camera…LOL) Anthony is invisible in the Vampires game and David is invisible in the Quest game. Who knew?

Still have no idea what LARPing is? It seems that even reality shows are a form of LARPing. Here’s David to explain:

One of my favorite former Survivors is Bruce Kanegai. He and I have talked on several occasions and have both attended the Dodgeball event twice. He’s sent me a number of exclusive items to post on Reality Exploits and has always been terrific to share things of interest to Survivor fans. He’s a wonderful guy!

Since retiring from being an art teacher, he says that he takes about two vacations each month. One of his most recent was to run with the bulls in Spain. Now, here’s the amazing part…he did it two days in a row! I got him to tell us what it was like to run with the bulls:

He has also promised me a couple of photos he took while he was there. I’ll post them as soon as I get them. He always comes through.

I know you must remember hottie Nate Gonzales from Survivor: Cook Islands. And the great news is that he’s a truly warm, friendly, wonderful person to talk to in person as well as being good-looking. I’ve had the pleasure of talking with him at a couple of reality star charity events now and can honestly say he’s great guy.

[Photo: Lynn DeVries - Do not repost without permission]

This weekend, he and I were both at the Survivor Charity Dodgeball event in Long Island, NY and I asked Nate to tell us what charitable things he’s up to these days. He’s involved in a lot, as you will see, but here’s his explanation of his recent work:

I’ll be adding an entire page with information about Nate’s charity, Stoked.

I have to thank my good buddy Betsy Hijazi for the idea for this section of my site. She suggested this months ago and I, being the dense person I can sometimes be, didn’t think to start it until today. I realized that I will be attending at least two of these reality stars’ charity events in the next three months, so her idea finally got through. (Thanks, Betsy!)

Anyway, one of the things that occurs to most people when they meet a group of reality stars is that they often have a desire to give back to others who are less fortunate. They have a “15 minutes” of fame, and many of them want to use it to do some good for others. So from now on, I’m going to highlight those activities on this site. I’ve added a new section (It’s just got a couple of pages so far, but give me a few days and it will begin to take shape as the reality stars I know give me information for their charities.)

Check it out in the sidebar. It’s a permanent page on this site and it will be under the main page of Reality Stars Give Back. I’m going to give each charity a page and any reality stars who want to send me updates, they will be on that charity’s page.

Right now, the big push is to find reality stars to help with the upcoming Reality Rumble event on October 4th in Virginia. I have posted about it before, but any time you want to find out what’s happening with it, check that page. My friend Tim Lawler will be sending me regular updates for it.

There will also be a page for the huge Survivor Dodgeball event in November added too. I’m hoping that this will become a place for reality stars to promote their events, and for the reality fans to find out how to meet them while supporting their causes.

If you have any information about these types of events and want them covered here, just email me the details. Let’s all help reality stars help others.