Taking Flight

Wednesday the 26th was, I believe, the day I arrived in China. Yesterday made one full week in China. Being confident and "experienced" by now, a friend of my, Elise, and I decided to go out together to West Lake. That is, without the help of any of our Chinese roommates.

Our stated objective: take pictures of West Lake for our Hangzhou studies class.

Our real objective: go off on our own and prove to ourselves that we could do it.

Our starting location: Zhejiang University of Technology

We had to get from Zhejiang University of Technology to West Lake, and then from West Lake back to school. The challenge was set. And we were off...

It started off very well, actually. After having consulted our handy-dandy bus guide we decided to take bus #12 exactly 12 stops to a West Lake pagoda, get off, eat lunch, take pictures, and take the bus home early to rest up, have dinner, and do homework. We navigated ourselves to the right bus stop at the University's west gate and managed to even get on the right bus.

Packed with people already, we had to huddle near the front of the bus, being jolted around by the many stops and jerky avoidance of traffic violations. The ride was fairly pleasant otherwise, having managed to snag a K12 bus, the K standing for "kongtiao" or air conditioning.

And then, suddenly, peeking between two blocks of city buildings, was West Lake! We had successfully completed the first step of our multi-step operation, and we were feeling confident about it. Confident, but very hungry.

As the scenery took us in, we had no choice but to amble around for a bit, taking pictures and admiring the lake-side activities. Finally, though, the hunger became to prominent to ignore, and we gave into the idea of lunch. Having found a reasonably priced restaurant/hotel across the street, we sat down, once again enjoying the welcome air-conditioning.

What to order? Well, how should we know? We still can't read a lot of food words, and even the words we can't read don't necessarily mean we know what exactly the dish is. We decided on an interesting looking meat soup, a plate of dumplings, and a dish I picked more or less randomly based on looks. The dumplings were divine. The soup, not so swift. Thankfully, though, Elise liked it enough to fill up on that because the second dish we ordered was too spicy for her. I, however, thought it was a dish sent from heaven. Teensy shrimp embedded in a tangle of spicy noodles over thinly chopped greens. Beautiful.

Having been rather conversational with the waiter, and having eaten well, we thought of lunch as a success, too. Now onto the homework goal: the picture taking.

Elise had yet another hidden goal: taking a boat ride. Well, I'm in China, right? Better take advantage. So we found a reasonably priced boat-rower and hopped aboard with a Chinese couple across from us. We not only got to see the beauty of the West lake on a relatively clear day, but we also got to talk to the boat-rower and the two other visitors! It was great being able to understand what they were saying and, even better, having them understand us! What a success this was turning out to be.

Once our cameras were full of pictures it was time to return back to school. We headed towards the bus stand...but couldn't find it. Elise's words "I KNOW it was here because I remember seeing that sign behind us". Well, no worry, there are plenty of bus stops around, and we had barely walked more than a minute or two in either direction of our original spot, so we just went to another bus stop. But, the thing is that the bus only goes in one direction. It can't just make a U-turn in the middle of the street, so if the bus stop on is on one side of the street the bus goes one way, and if its on the opposite side of the street it goes the other! Easy as pie. Only, wait, not all the bus stops have the same buses running through them. And there wasn't a bus stop around that had our bus. What to do??? Well, for the first time in my life I pulled out a map. And, what's even more amazing, is that I UNDERSTOOD the map. This is a revelation, people. I simply looked at the street signs and figured out exactly where we were. The great thing about the map that we have, too, is that it lists all the bus stops and which bus numbers you can take. All you have to do is find where you are, where you want to go, and the number that the two places have in common. Then, hop on that bus and ride away into the sunset.

Nope.

I swear, there was no bus 12. No worries--there are tons of different buses and bus stops...and lots of them are very close to our school! No. Zilch. Really. Not a single bus stop near where we were had a bus that would take us to where we wanted to go. Our self confidence was dwindling, our wasted time growing longer, and Elise's desire to master our knowledge of the city growing fainter and fainter. She wanted to take a taxi, but I was set on figuring this thing out. As stubborn as I am though, I'm not always completely stupid, so I did, at least, realize that we needed help. Naturally, I called my super-hero roommate. She very patiently began to search around on her maps and computer, but to no avail. She said she'd call me back with an answer. In the meantime I called our activities advisor, Amy, and after she located us on her map she began to dictate to us where to go to pick up the right bus. She said we weren't far. There was still hope.

I knew where we were. I knew the street name and the nearby street names. I knew where we were in relation to West Lake and in relation to the school. I even knew, thanks to the genius of Chinese street signs, which direction was North. I was not lost. But that doesn't mean I knew how to get home... and began like Amy didn't either. Many many turns later, each with Amy still on the other end keeping up on our locale from a mixture of street signs and landmarks, we were still not there. However, with just a little more persistence she said that we were very close and just one more turn would land us in the right spot. I thanked her profusely for wasting her time, and dragged along a now very unwilling Elise. But at least I knew where to go. And sure enough, there was the bus stop! Oh...wait... it was a bus stop with no numbers on it! There was no possibility of knowing this was the right one, or even which bus we were supposed to take! Our hope was once again dimming and the sun was now fading. So, after all of that, we decided to take a taxi home. During rush hour--the hardest time to find an empty taxi.

Well, needless to say, we did make it home. And I'm sorry it couldn't be by bus, but I can't say we didn't try our hardest. Like the awkward baby birds who flop out of their nest on first flight, we did in fact master our fear to jump. We got bumped around a bit, but we did get some flying in. Better luck next time.

Epilogue: My roommate was waiting for me when I got back, both with an absolutely delicious home-cooked dinner, and with the news that the bus stop we were supposed to be looking for WASN'T ON MY MAP AFTER ALL! There was no way we could have known it was there! She found it on the blown up Internet-map on her computer, but Elise and I were just wandering around in the dark with no hope of finding the right place. The good food and knowledge that I at least didn't fail because I did something wrong lifted my spirits considerably.