Day 4 - LOST
You may know that my favorite show right now is LOST. There are a lot of different interpretations of what is going on in the show, but one that I am beginning to have more appreciation for is the idea that we are all LOST in today's world, trying to figure out where we are going and needing those around us in order to be found. Whether or not that's what the writers intend, I learned that lesson myself yesterday, as I experienced what it meant to be lost.
We started with breakfast, very tasty and abundant. There were some familiar things like pancakes and fried eggs. There was also stuff that looked more like the chinese buffet for breakfast. I found several things I liked, and others that I couldn't finish. It was a treat to have some coffee in the morning and be able to sort of wake up.
The Internet access for the week has been pretty spotty in our room. There was a WI-FI access point across the street that several of our group were able to use, but it wasn't real reliable in my room. I brought our own router so that we could get online, but I had struggled to get it set up. This is the day that I discovered the problem, but not before I had an adventure. I had enough Internet to get on skype, but that's all I could do, and that just wasn't cutting it. Since the schedule said that we had about an hour until we would go to the orphanage, I walked down the street in search of a computer store where I could get on the Internet. Just around the corner, I found one. It was very humorous to try and explain to them what I wanted: to pay a little money to be on the Internet for 15 minutes. They tried to sell me all kinds of computer parts, even though I had the computer in my hand and was showing them that it worked. Since they had their own wireless access point, I finally was able to communicate to them that I needed the code to get on. They said it was 1234567890. (By the way, that was also the code at the business center at the airport in Beijing. I also think it's the same one that we use at Timber Lake, but that's another story. I guess we're more like the Chinese than we know!)
They told me I could stay 5 minutes, but I didn't even stay that long, because I figured out I could go outside and get some fresh air. I found a bench across the street, opened up the laptop, and was in business. I had a blast for 30 minutes, talking with Adam on video. I was just showing him around the street using the camera on my laptop. People were staring at me as they walked by. It was actually interesting to see the taxis. Since I was on the street corner standing and holding my laptop, I think they thought I wanted a ride. They would stop and stare, until I signaled them to go on. It was so good to see Adam and for him to see the sights and hear the sounds of the street. There were people of all ages, out with bikes, motorcycles. Even a 5 year old kid was scootering down a 6 lane highway, all by himself. I called my parents and by the time I figured out that it was getting close to time to leave, I had a sinking feeling. So I started running back for the hotel. By the time I got there, all of our group was gone. My roommate was gone with the room key. I saw no one that I knew. I felt like I was in "Left Behind."
So I decided to go to my room, where I found a map to the orphanage. I felt pretty confident that I could find it, but first I called Sandy to tell her I didn't know where I was going and to have her say a little prayer for me. I took off to the destination, which appeared to be 3 blocks away from looking at the map. Unfortunately, the map wasn't real clear to me and even less clear to the Chinese people I showed it to. I walked for about 15 minutes, came back to the hotel, and called again, just so she would know I was ok. Once more time around the block the different direction to see if I could find the building. But I realized that I had no one's phone number, no address of the place I was going, and I didn't even know the name of it. The possibilities weren't very great that I would find it on my own. So I came back to the hotel, settled in my room, and thought I could just wait. But I thought that one more time I should try to find someone, so I walked downstairs and saw Drew Smith. Fortunately, he had lived here for 5 months before, so he knew where everything was. He walked me there in about 7 minutes. Turns out I had walked past it twice but didn't know what the building looked like. Up a couple of floors we walked and all of a sudden I was in a whole new kind of lost.
The children at the orphanage were filled with joy, but I wasn't able to do much communicating with them. My team had set up a game that didn't require talking, only hand signals. I didn't do very well at it, but it was good to see the children and laugh with them. We had the older children, while the other team was working with the younger kids. Unfortunately, all my time being lost robbed me of an hour with the children at the orphanage, but at least I got to go and see what it was like there. It's actually run by Koreans and isn't officially part of CRAM. But they do some things together, so they are part of our trip this week.
Back to the hotel, where Ben Wellsand and I tried to get their Internet working. Turns out that they had some wrong numbers typed into their Internet router, and it wasn't letting guests of the hotel connect. I got my computer working by using those numbers that they had, but no one there knew the password to get into their router. So they called some technicians to come in the afternoon, and we decided to return then to help.
Meanwhile, we went to a restaurant for lunch with the team. A whole new variety of food was presented, including donkey dumplings. Since I got there late from working with the computers, I was hungry and just picked one up and ate it with my hands. I think the students were surprised to see me do that. The rest of lunch was really good, and there are some pictures of some of it elsewhere. The donkey was probably the highlight, though.
Back to the hotel, and the technicians were there to work on the router. When they finally figured out a password, there was a new surprise. The router was entirely in Chinese. We couldn't talk to one another, but it was cool that I went to Google translate and typed in English, translated into Chinese. Then they would type it back in Chinese and translate it to me in English. Google is an excellent tool for a lot of things, but it helped us get on the same page in that situation.
Unfortunately, when they went to type in the numbers, they didn't do something right and the whole thing quit working. The whole Internet for the whole hotel. Oops. Now the guys really didn't know what they were doing and there was a rather pointed argument between the girl and the two guys. Good thing I didn't know Chinese, but it looked like she was chewing them out for being incompetent. They left in a huff and I went downstairs. When Ben got back, I was in the lobby, with the manager and another hotel employee down there. I asked him to check if they were upset with me. Turns out, they were actually happy that I was trying to help, but not too pleased with the guys who didn't know how to fix it. They even gave me a frozen ice cream bar, which tasted halfway like banana and halfway like butter.
We had to go to the church to prepare for the service, so I asked if I should stay and help them. Ben said they had contacted another company to come and work on it and it should be working by the time we got back. So I left not knowing what would happen, but glad that I had at least been able to show them what their problem was.
(By the way, everything is fixed and working great now.)
Gotta go. We just made it to the ranch.
We started with breakfast, very tasty and abundant. There were some familiar things like pancakes and fried eggs. There was also stuff that looked more like the chinese buffet for breakfast. I found several things I liked, and others that I couldn't finish. It was a treat to have some coffee in the morning and be able to sort of wake up.
The Internet access for the week has been pretty spotty in our room. There was a WI-FI access point across the street that several of our group were able to use, but it wasn't real reliable in my room. I brought our own router so that we could get online, but I had struggled to get it set up. This is the day that I discovered the problem, but not before I had an adventure. I had enough Internet to get on skype, but that's all I could do, and that just wasn't cutting it. Since the schedule said that we had about an hour until we would go to the orphanage, I walked down the street in search of a computer store where I could get on the Internet. Just around the corner, I found one. It was very humorous to try and explain to them what I wanted: to pay a little money to be on the Internet for 15 minutes. They tried to sell me all kinds of computer parts, even though I had the computer in my hand and was showing them that it worked. Since they had their own wireless access point, I finally was able to communicate to them that I needed the code to get on. They said it was 1234567890. (By the way, that was also the code at the business center at the airport in Beijing. I also think it's the same one that we use at Timber Lake, but that's another story. I guess we're more like the Chinese than we know!)
They told me I could stay 5 minutes, but I didn't even stay that long, because I figured out I could go outside and get some fresh air. I found a bench across the street, opened up the laptop, and was in business. I had a blast for 30 minutes, talking with Adam on video. I was just showing him around the street using the camera on my laptop. People were staring at me as they walked by. It was actually interesting to see the taxis. Since I was on the street corner standing and holding my laptop, I think they thought I wanted a ride. They would stop and stare, until I signaled them to go on. It was so good to see Adam and for him to see the sights and hear the sounds of the street. There were people of all ages, out with bikes, motorcycles. Even a 5 year old kid was scootering down a 6 lane highway, all by himself. I called my parents and by the time I figured out that it was getting close to time to leave, I had a sinking feeling. So I started running back for the hotel. By the time I got there, all of our group was gone. My roommate was gone with the room key. I saw no one that I knew. I felt like I was in "Left Behind."
So I decided to go to my room, where I found a map to the orphanage. I felt pretty confident that I could find it, but first I called Sandy to tell her I didn't know where I was going and to have her say a little prayer for me. I took off to the destination, which appeared to be 3 blocks away from looking at the map. Unfortunately, the map wasn't real clear to me and even less clear to the Chinese people I showed it to. I walked for about 15 minutes, came back to the hotel, and called again, just so she would know I was ok. Once more time around the block the different direction to see if I could find the building. But I realized that I had no one's phone number, no address of the place I was going, and I didn't even know the name of it. The possibilities weren't very great that I would find it on my own. So I came back to the hotel, settled in my room, and thought I could just wait. But I thought that one more time I should try to find someone, so I walked downstairs and saw Drew Smith. Fortunately, he had lived here for 5 months before, so he knew where everything was. He walked me there in about 7 minutes. Turns out I had walked past it twice but didn't know what the building looked like. Up a couple of floors we walked and all of a sudden I was in a whole new kind of lost.
The children at the orphanage were filled with joy, but I wasn't able to do much communicating with them. My team had set up a game that didn't require talking, only hand signals. I didn't do very well at it, but it was good to see the children and laugh with them. We had the older children, while the other team was working with the younger kids. Unfortunately, all my time being lost robbed me of an hour with the children at the orphanage, but at least I got to go and see what it was like there. It's actually run by Koreans and isn't officially part of CRAM. But they do some things together, so they are part of our trip this week.
Back to the hotel, where Ben Wellsand and I tried to get their Internet working. Turns out that they had some wrong numbers typed into their Internet router, and it wasn't letting guests of the hotel connect. I got my computer working by using those numbers that they had, but no one there knew the password to get into their router. So they called some technicians to come in the afternoon, and we decided to return then to help.
Meanwhile, we went to a restaurant for lunch with the team. A whole new variety of food was presented, including donkey dumplings. Since I got there late from working with the computers, I was hungry and just picked one up and ate it with my hands. I think the students were surprised to see me do that. The rest of lunch was really good, and there are some pictures of some of it elsewhere. The donkey was probably the highlight, though.
Back to the hotel, and the technicians were there to work on the router. When they finally figured out a password, there was a new surprise. The router was entirely in Chinese. We couldn't talk to one another, but it was cool that I went to Google translate and typed in English, translated into Chinese. Then they would type it back in Chinese and translate it to me in English. Google is an excellent tool for a lot of things, but it helped us get on the same page in that situation.
Unfortunately, when they went to type in the numbers, they didn't do something right and the whole thing quit working. The whole Internet for the whole hotel. Oops. Now the guys really didn't know what they were doing and there was a rather pointed argument between the girl and the two guys. Good thing I didn't know Chinese, but it looked like she was chewing them out for being incompetent. They left in a huff and I went downstairs. When Ben got back, I was in the lobby, with the manager and another hotel employee down there. I asked him to check if they were upset with me. Turns out, they were actually happy that I was trying to help, but not too pleased with the guys who didn't know how to fix it. They even gave me a frozen ice cream bar, which tasted halfway like banana and halfway like butter.
We had to go to the church to prepare for the service, so I asked if I should stay and help them. Ben said they had contacted another company to come and work on it and it should be working by the time we got back. So I left not knowing what would happen, but glad that I had at least been able to show them what their problem was.
(By the way, everything is fixed and working great now.)
Gotta go. We just made it to the ranch.
posted by Central Christian College of the Bible at
2:45 AM
