Jared's Adventures

beauty, humility, and the frustration of being unable to communicate

July 16, 2009 at 4:09 pm (Uncategorized)

My first full day here in LJ my friend took me around the city for a couple of hours. Later that night we played basketball at the court in front of our apartment. The guys really enjoyed me being able to dunk the ball. Then after playing for a few hours we lifted weights at the gym. It was actually pretty nice, certainly functional, and for 100 kuai (15$) you can’t beat it.

On day 2, with a bit more ambition shoring my sales, I set off into LJ alone. I left, road a bus around town, and decided to hoof it for a while to gain some bearings (i still don’t know where north is if the clouds are covering the mountain). So I ended up getting lost. I knew I could call a friend and get directions, but I decided to forego any help and get myself out of the mess I had gotten into. In the states if you’re lost it really is pretty easy to get yourself found…read the street signs, ask an attendant at a gas station, etc. But when you are in the big C no one speaks English and all the signs are in characters of which I have no clue how to read. So what would have probably been a 10 minute ordeal in the states turned into about 3 hours of walking, and walking, and turning around, and walking some more. The one consolation was that even in the midst of being lost and uncertain of how to get home, I couldn’t avoid the shear beauty of this place.

New Town

Old Town

Stream on a back street in New Town

More coming soon!