We decided to go to the English school and have one of the many students there help us. I thought for sure that they would all be dying to help us. Which was true but it wasn't exactly going as smoothly as I was thinking that it would. We had everything written down but the boy, Beyond (Yeah, don't ask me about his English name. I don't know either. You should hear some of the English names people have over here.), was struggling to find what we needed. He kept assuring us that he knew what we needed but then he made the mistake of telling us that it was his first time booking a flight. Side note: I learned a while back that you never tell anyone when it is your first time doing something. I don't care if it is your first time inserting and IV or booking a flight, once they find out it is your first time, you won't really be wanted anymore. I know that you have to start somewhere, but I wasn't sure about Beyond helping us book our flight anymore. We couldn't read Chinese and understand if he was booking us what we wanted.
Just then Taya, one of the English teachers, came to the rescue. At least that is what I thought. She got on her Ipad and was trying to help us. She got a lot further than Beyond, which was good. I guess she couldn't figure out how to book it online so she called the airlines company for us. Through her translating, she informed us that we couldn't book them online and we had to do it at the airport or over the phone. If we did it over the phone we would have to go to the bank and pay there. She starts texting our passport information to some number but we quickly stopped her because we were confused about what was going on. It didn't really make sense that she was wanting to text our passport information to someone and we had no idea how we were going to pay at the bank without speaking Chinese so we put an end to her helping us. After much convincing she finally let us tell her that we would have another friend help us book the flight. I think she felt bad because she came back with a novel written in Chinese that had exactly what we wanted on it so that we could take to the airport and show them to get our tickets purchased.
Friday rolled around and we had some free time. After we had unsuccessfully looked for Nicole, our liaison, to see if she could help us with the ticket situation, we decided to just venture to the airport to see if we could just get them purchased ourselves. The previous night we had seen a sign pointing us in the direction of the airport so we figured that it was close. (We have been to the airport before but we weren't exactly sure how navigate ourselves there.) We hopped on our trusty little scooter, got some lunch, and rode toward the sign for the airport. Little did we know that the airport was actually about 8 miles away from that sign. Who knows, maybe it did tell us that but if it did, it was in Chinese and we didn't know. So we kept riding. We rode through the longest tunnel of my entire life. Then we realized that our trusty little scooter was going to die on us. Call it stupidity or poor planning but we weren't going to be able to make it to the airport and back home with both of us on it. So we ditched our scooter and decided to walk the rest of the way to the airport. {We successfully got our plane tickets booked! Thanks to Taya's novel that she wrote for us.}
After getting our tickets we walked back to our scooter and decided that I would walk home and Shelby would try to ride the scooter home or a least get as far as she could get. If I got home before she did, I was going to call her on our cell phone via Skype and figure out where she was so I could help her push our scooter home. Finally we realized the down fall of only having one cell phone so Skype was going to come to the rescue. Shelby rode off on the scooter and I continued walking. I walked forever. I thought the tunnel was the longest tunnel of my life when I was on a scooter. Well, it is even longer when you are on foot.
10 miles walking and a bus ride later, I finally made it home. Shelby was sitting outside of our apartment because I had the key. She successfully made it home riding the scooter except for pushing it the last 5 minutes up the hill to the school so she could plug it in for a good charge. She may not have gone very fast but she made it home.
I had no idea that getting our tickets to Guilin was going to be this difficult but we now have our tickets and the trip better be worth it.
On my walk I had a lot of time to think. I thought a lot about the people that I was passing, or who was passing me. I passed a worker picking up rocks on the side of the freeway. I saw a mom carrying a baby on her back. I saw a few people carrying various vegetables in baskets on their backs. I saw a man pushing his scooter up the hill. I saw some guys swimming in a river. I saw a few police officers (who I thought were going to stop me for walking on a freeway but I am not in America anymore so I got away with it). I saw multiple taxi drivers and others in their own personal cars. As I passed these people I wondered what their story was. I don't know why but maybe because it was how bizarre mine was. I was walking home from the airport because my scooter couldn't make it home with me and my friend both on it. Yes, it was silly and a bit ridiculous. But I wondered where other people were going and what kind of journey that they were on.
When we cross paths with someone we rarely know their story and if we do, we usually only know a little glimpse of their story. When I finally got to the bus stop and onto the bus I was tired and I really wanted a seat. I thought to myself about the people sitting down, "I bet they didn't just walk from the airport." They probably didn't but what if they just spent hours on their feet at the hospital helping their patients. Or what if they just found out that their loved one has cancer. Or what if they only have a little shack with dirt floors to go to. Yes, I just walked clear from the airport but I bet they deserved and needed that seat more than I did. We never know what people are going through. We never know what kind of battle they are facing. Nine times out of ten they are probably having a worse day and facing a harder battle than we are. Is it really that hard to treat everyone we cross paths with respect? It might just be giving up the coveted seat on the bus or just a smile walking past someone but we never know, that might just be exactly what they needed to keep moving forward. It was a long walk but I am grateful that I had the time to think.
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