I have traveled a lot on my own in recent years. I believe that being an only child gave me some “live with yourself” skills that have been invaluable. I don’t choose to travel alone. I do choose to travel instead of staying at home. I have a limited time left on this earth.
1.Four times on this trip I made biking happen. I rode on 10 different days. I arrived a complete stranger in two cites and found a quality bike to rent the next day. I kicked ass on the bikes and got my ass kicked!
2,I went up to Strawberry Blond in Hangzhon and had a wonderful evening conversation. Believe it or not I have high standards of not imposing myself on others. I claim that I usually err on the side of leaving a conversation too early instead of risking being a boor. She was sitting alone. I took the chance to walk down and use my normal China line of I see so few people who look like me that I always try to find out what you are doing here. At the end of the quick “this is what I am doing” I said please join me if you are so inclined or I’ll join you and she said please do.
3.Sometimes buses, sometimes subways, even sometimes taxis. You just get on the damn thing and get off when it goes in the wrong direction. China subways and buses are pretty standardized. Subway maps are good! Often bus maps are non-existent or at least to a non-Chinese speaker. You just have to get off when they turn the wrong way and 50% of the time they do! The good news is that they cost 2 RMB, less than 50 Cents, so you can afford to make a lot of mistakes. The bad news is that the stops are often 10 walking minutes apart so a mistake takes a long time to correct! I took very few taxis. They always worked fine but “getting started” without a Chinese speaker helping was often very difficult, even with the google translator app.
4.After hearing my story they say “how did you find this place?” They are very impressed that I am at the beer bar they just found after years, know about a new one they have heard of but not yet tried, biked to the lake or sea, been to Wuhan, seen the birds in the morning. I definitely have not eaten at the best restaurant or been to the tallest building or the great shrine but what I have done is impressive to the people I am talking to.
5.I think that I have great raps about China. One of my first insights was the use of the translator apps, speak verses read. that I write about in detail in a post here. I am amazed at how the young women dress and seem to “molest” the men with touching but the young men do not “attack”? I discovered, with a little help from a conversation, that the right of way is with the person entering the traffic, not the vehicle already on the road! No one can explain why they CONSTANTLY take pictures of each other, in “staged” poses. In Scotland my 29 year old daughter engaged my wife in helping her create images for posting on dating apps but this is way beyond that. What is going on? One old China hand bar patron, Brendon, postulated that whenever you see the Chinese do something, entertain the idea that they are reflecting a fad from Korea or Japan. I can’t wait to get by son-in-law economics professor friends and other China econ experts to talk about the unbelievable amount of high end female clothing inventory that is sitting in what one has to think are mom and pop shops in Shanghai.