After leaving, we went through People's Park which was nice and active despite the rain (that none of us were prepared for). We went to Beijing Road, where there is a ton of open air strip mall shopping, restaurants, street performers, and vendor's who automatically yelled "Cheepah! Cheepah!"as we walked by. Really (I've noticed) that they yell any bits of English they know as I walk by. It's slightly amusing, but mostly annoying. It makes you very self conscious to know that it's so obvious that you do not belong somewhere when people stop dead in their tracks and stare, laugh, point, and yell.
So here's a tangent called Out of Place:
I can honestly say that I have never felt that there was a place in the US that I just "belonged." This even more painstakingly true in China. I get stared at by everyone. Not just a glance, but a cold stare lasting as long as I am visible. Sometimes they stop if I look back, but many times they will walk right up to me and stare. It's curiosity most of the time, but the looks of disgust or the people who jump back because someone describes whats behind them, is often unsettling. It stinks to know that my very presence is enough to make people jump back and avoid touching me because they want no part of whatever it is that they are seeing; at the very least, it's annoying.
I have never been more self conscience. Luckily, I've always been fairly self conscience, but have a personality that has let me do things that made me uncomfortable. I would say that I am actually pretty unsure of myself and my abilities in general; it serves as my reasoning to just try anyway. I've got nothing to lose, but a new experience.
Now back to our adventure.
We had a nice time and walked around, but my exhaustion level made me less than adventurous. All I wanted was a bed and time to sleep. We stayed out so late that it seemed inevitable that I would be sleeping on our classmates' couch, which was less than attractive, but better than nothing. We had fun and chatted and checked out their awesome "penthouse" apartment on the 43rd floor. Fun, fun, fun, but after getting about 5 hours of sleep my body decided that it was time to wake up. I was up at 6am and didn't have a clue on how to get home. So I waited...
I was able to Facetime my neighbor's and one of my friends which helped to pass the time, but I was ready to chill and I needed to get something prepared for work the next morning.
We eventually get out and walk towards food, but as everything goes, it took forever. We walked and walked and walked, found a dim sum place, but my appetite wasn't feeling it. I really am not a huge fan of Chinese food in all actuality and eating noodles and rice and beef platters for breakfast is not my cup of tea. I actually tried a few things and drank some tea, and we left just in time to catch a downpour. We walked and walked and walked some more as we got rained on...NICE
We finally catch the metro and get back to the hub and we cannot find the bus we took. We see it, but it doesn't stop. We can't read any of the sign or schedules and have no real way to find how to get home. It's still raining. Anyone who knows me at all, knows that I'm not a very social person when I'm tired. I was very much less inclined to be social as we are now lost and stuck in the rain.
We find someone who works at the station who speaks some English we show her our address and she writes down the bus we need. Perfect! Except it was not the bus we needed. In fact, I have idea where it took us, but we rode it to the end of the line before the bus driver turned off the bus and got out. Cool. With a few text messages to our friend and following the crowd we got back to another metro station and got to Lijiao station, which is the closest one to our building. From there, we paid a bike taxi 6 yuan (about a dollar) and get home...3 hours later...soaking wet! With our first "adventure" in the books, I figured things could only go up...
No comments:
Post a Comment