so close, and yet so very far...

i'm the first to admit i have a bad sense of direction...so bad that in the states, when driving to new places and uncertain of my way, i learned to go the opposite way of the direction i would naturally go by instinct. unfortunately, this did not always work as i knew i was tricking myself and thereby got extra confused. thankfully, D has a very good sense of direction. on our way to a wedding last weekend, we came out of a subway station i'd been to before, but he hadn't. the directions we had been given were to go north...he kind of looked around and went "i think that way is north." i had thought north was 180 degrees opposite to where he was pointing. sigh. had i been on my own, i would have gone in the complete opposite direction.

obviously, going the wrong way often happens when i'm on my own. this past week, i had a couple new places to get to on my own and...as to be expected, got really lost trying to find a new friend's house one night. and another time, literally went in and out of the destination subway stop four times before i figured out the right exit (the subway stops here have like 10 bajillion exits sometimes).

the thing is, i would like to think that here in chinar, it is not all my fault. sometimes it's just confoundedly confusing why things are built the way they are. this view, for example, was what i got coming out of a subway stop trying to get to walmart. the walmart sign is smack dab in the middle...


i knew walmart was off this subway stop but had never taken the subway before. every exit i tried to come out of, all i could see was a railroad track blocking me from the walmart. i think it would have been better if i couldn't see the sign at all. but it was there, and i was determined to get to it. so i kept popping in and out of different exits like a meerkat, trying the find the right one. i even asked security guards how to get to "wa er ma." they said, just go out and walk along the road, and you'll be there. so...although that made no sense based on what i'd seen, given that there is a big railroad track in the way, i dutifully popped my head out the exit and tried again. umm...yeah, the road didn't go there. i think he was just trying to give me an answer so i'd leave. finally, i studied the map of the station really hard, and tried going all the way through the subway stop (paying an extra two kuai as if i'd taken another ride). walked all the way through as if i was transferring to another line. went out the tiny exit and around the corner was a small wal-mart supercenter sign. VICTORY!!! i mean, it took going through another tunnel, up another flight of stairs, through a commerce area, through another tunnel, and up another flight of stairs before i actually made it to the store. but it was so worth it.

i took a taxi home.

p.s. D's last day of teaching for the semester is this coming Tuesday. He's been grading final presentation dialogues and some of them are hilarious. you should lobby him for a post...