Vagabonding begins!

Im sitting in the Beijing West train station with mixed feelings.

The vagabonding part of me is on fire, my backpack is sitting beside of me, well organized and ready for action, and a ticket to the south is burning a hole in my pocket. The hair is standing on the back of my neck just thinking about being on this poopy 3rd class train for 10 hours which is a one way ride back to my mountains and even closer to my jungle in Laos. I have been in the city for so long that the thoughts of swatting at mozzies as I sweat in a bungalow is actually appealing to me.

At the same time, I have grown comfortable here in Beijing, have figured out how to get around, and have made some great memories with people that I hate to leave. I will never forget sitting in the 365Inn Sakura cafe on Dha Zha Lan talking and listening to CCR until 04:00am. I think sifu was right, I have grown “soft like the noodles”. I am going to miss it.

My train leaves in 1 hour.

It has been an amazing 9 days, which a good blog writer would have probably shared on a regular basis, but who knows…maybe I can dig myself out of this hole yet.

October 1st was National Day in China, and everyone was on holiday. I guess I decided to take a week off as well, and spent my time running around this crowded city and making some incredible memories. The internet cafes were bursting with Chinese kids playing loud games and my patience and motivation to do any writing was low. I do have some great pictures and journal entries though that I hope to trickle out to the web.

Everyone in China came to Beijing for the National Day holiday!

Somehow this week, I found myself singing karaoke in a small private room, which is my worst nightmare come true, but it actually turned out to be fun. I was lost at least a dozen times, eating snake, grasshoppers (again), and even dog which was exciting. (especially when I walked outside the restaurant and a small dog was barking at me in the street!). I even made it to the Great Wall and although it was raining, sat literally in the clouds and listened to Chinese music drift up from the valley below me.

Sitting in the clouds

The good news is that I feel well rested and back to 100%, actually better, after a month of Shaolin. My left foot which was almost broken still hurts now and then, but my knee and shoulder are all healed up.

I will write more about my week when I get to the south and have some positive chi.

For now, I have a train to catch.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 2:34 am and is filed under China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.