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Other entries in Hangzhou

take bus K57 to the 5th dimension

with a free saturday and extra cash in my pocket thanks to teacher's day, i headed for hangzhou for a day of shopping. this week has brought a lot of rain to anji, and i assumed hangzhou would be the same, so i smartly picked up my umbrella on the way out. it turned out to be a very rainy day indeed, which i really didn't mind so much because the weather was cool. i would much rather walk around in wet and rain than in 35 degree humid heat.

after searching through several department stores for shoes - i was on a mission for hot heels - i went into the foreign language bookstore. bookstores are a place i can spend hours and hours, and i think i was in this one for about 2. i bought several classic novels that i haven't read, as well as three english textbooks, a spanish/english dictionary, and a spanish novel. i plan to study language with full resolve this year, so the spanish books are one attempt to brush up.

after the foreign language bookshop, i wanted to get to the opposite end of yan'an lu (a large shopping road that runs for about 5 km) and go to carrefour (like french wal-mart). i figured i could just get on a bus heading in that general direction and get myself a bit closer. so, i got on the first bus that came by - the K57. well, it being so rainy and cool, the windows inside the bus were totally fogged over, blocking my view of where i was. i only went 3 stops, but somehow, i got completely turned around. i exited the bus (having to dodge a HUGE puddle on my way out) and surveyed the situation. hmm. left or right? i couldn't see anything that looked particularly familiar.

now, anyone who knows me knows that 1) i have a pretty fabulous sense of direction (except if you ask todd bernardy, who i once got lost on the shanghai subway and he never let me forget it) and 2) i hate pulling out a map in public. well, as fate would have it, on this day, as i was leaving my house, i debated about taking the map. i decided that i know hangzhou quite well by now, and didn't need it. plus, whenever i have the map with me, i curse myself for carrying around such a bulky thing that i never use. as murphy's law would have it, on the one day i needed it, i was without the map.

i had also worn little ballet slipper shoes because i wanted to be cute and look good when i was shoe shopping. wow, good decision megan. so there i was, mapless and confused, standing in the rain with a huge, heavy bag full of new books. i walked about a block in one direction and decided that was the wrong way, so i turned around. i was not on yan'an lu anymore, but some kind of side street. i couldn't tell if this street was parallel with or would intersect with yan'an lu. i cursed the K57 bus as i walked through the rain, avoiding puddles. how could a bus put me out somewhere so strange? i was only on the thing for like THREE stops! i saw a sign in chinese indicating direction... there was no pinyin, but the middle character was definitely "an", and having no recollection about what the character "yan" looked like, i worked on the assumption that this would lead me to yan'an lu. i began walking up a side street. there were loads of small shops selling car and bike parts and other mechanical tools. with very little business on such a rainy day, vendors were sitting with their shops open, munching on rice and watching daytime television. i began to fear i was getting farther and farther from yan'an lu, so i stopped at one of the idle vendors' and asked for directions (something i hate doing in any country). it turned out i WAS walking in the correct direction, and yan'an lu was just up and a left turn. i am still confused as to HOW the K97 got me so lost, and WHERE it even put me off. it seemed like i only made two left turns before i was back on yan'an lu, but then i proceeded to walk down it, back TOWARDS the area where i was lost. so, really, i should have interersected with the street i was lost on. but no...

finally at carrefour, i managed to procure spaghetti sauce and italian noodles, a bottle of argentine wine!!! (read: not cheap), a real baguette, parmesean cheese, tortilla chips, various western toiletries including razors, and some office supplies. i was back home to anji and enjoying a pasta dinner and wine by 7:30 pm. not too shabby.