Home Alone: Lost in China

JP he wo, Zuotian dao shicheng qule. Women do maile yifu. Mei Chong-guode yifu do hen pianyi.

It's silly to even attempt to write pinyin (The english phonetics of Mandarin) because I am incapable of indicating which tone belongs to each phoneme. However, if I were able to do so, the above would read: Yesterday, JP and myself went to the market. Both of us purchased some clothes. All of the clothes made in China are very cheap.

Until now I've been wearing basically one pair of clothes, and throwing them in the wash was in order, so I had to buy something to wear. I bought an XXL shirt that is by no means too big for me.

We had lunch with a 30-something's couple. He was a plastic surgeon, and she a family doctor. Do doctor's have an outside-of-work dress code? Graham can you help me with this one? They all wear light North Face jackets, relaxed fit slacks, shoes that are bordering on hiking boots, but not quite. They probably straighten the spine. Glasses are a must, and a generally calm demeanor.
I thought of my brother.

I also thought of the how their combined knowledge infinitely exceeds mine, however, in their current field of study, Chinese, they are not much better than I. haha, it was bizarre. I'm sure by next week they will be fluent though.

JP asked Scott, the plastic surgeon..."When did you realize this is what you wanted to do?" (referring to plastic surgery)
He responded..."Don't you mean, when did I realize this is not what I want to do?" (Jokingly referring to his moving to China to learn the language nullifying what he was in school 14 (or whatever) years for)
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By the time we started biking home from the market it was rush hour. It's not entirely uncommon that I will lose sight of JP dodging in and out of autos. Usually when this is happens, he will notice I'm not behind him, and back-track.
-So I lost him, and just stopped and waited. And waited. And waited. For an hour.
There are very few times in my life where I have felt so helpless.
I had absolutely no idea how to get home, no way to contact anyone (no phone or phone #'s), no way of communicating, and the sun was falling.

(I guess that's not entirely true, I asked a bunch of people where 'Bei Chen' was, they all told me to go back the way I came, therefore I didn't believe them, turns out they were right though. For drama's sake, I couldn't communicate with anyone hah.)

I sent up some words, and Dad provided an angel in the form of a stunningly beautiful young Chinese lady. I was able to tell her where I needed to go, and she offered to just walk me the entire way. I was quite relieved. Shortly thereafter, JP, breathless, intercepted us. "What Happened???"

Turns out he was waiting for me too, just around the corner.

Tomorrow, I'm going to bike to the edges of the city, get lost on purpose, and navigate my way back home. It's the only way I'll learn. Wish me luck.
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- It's great to hear thunderstorms again.
- In Chinese, to ask if somebody is lying you say: Ni chuai neo ma? (3rd tone, 1st tone, 2nd tone, neutral tone)
The literal English translation is, "Are you blowing cows??" Which I think is funny, maybe you will too? Maybe not.

Zaijian.