Day Seven - On my own

I've been officially turned loose. This morning Skyler was groomed and ready to go at 9:30 AM, rushing me out the door and down into the streets of Chong Chinq. His hurry? Getting me a cell phone. With Yue Li's number programmed into it I can call her to talk to any taxi driver or shop clerk when I need directions or help. "So," I said to him in the elevator, "You're tired of chaperoning me around?" He looked a little rueful. "No, I just don't want to do it twice when dad gets here."

Fair enough. We board bus #135 and get off at the Red Bank. (There are also Blue Banks and Green Banks. I believe they have names but this is enough for me right now.) We turn at the rounded black high-rise building and descend into a supermarket, well, a sort-of wal mart. There Sky has a full-on conversation with the clerk about cell phones while I admire a plastic ball that Leeannette would like. Won't fit in the suitcase though so I take a picture of it for her instead. Then we're out and back on the street, headed up to Starbucks, his dropping off point for me. "Wait!" I look around, disorientated. "I'm already lost. I don't recognize this place." Turns out the store is located in the top part of a V formed by two roads and we entered from one street and exited on the other. "Use the black high-rise as a landmark, mom," Sky tells me patiently. A group of young people walk by, calling his name. Some of his students. He has one write in my little notebook the name of the neighborhood that he and Yue Li lives. "Just show this to the taxi-driver if you can't get hold of Yue Li, ok?"

It's almost 1 PM and I've been here at Starbucks three hours. The hiss and bang of the coffee machine is the same as the ones in the U.S. Starbucks easy listening music plays in the background. I eat banana bread and drink my second latte. Glass walls separate me from the street and the masses of people. Two security guards from the department store on the other side of the side glass wall where I sit look over my shoulder and watch my computer screen, but I'm safe here and even that doesn't bother me. In the seven days I've been here I've seen 4 other foreigners on the streets and 3 of them were Skyler's friends. I cannot read or speak Chinese and apparently here in Chong Chinq few people speak English. This gives me a taste of what it must be like for anyone going to the U.S. without being able to read a Latin-based language. Wow.

I lay out the three -or was it two? - yuan for the bus. I'll hold out three and see what the driver takes. I carefully write "181" for the bus number and "Ting", the word for STOP! on the inside of my wrist. I review the visual landmarks in my mind to get to the bus stop and the ones to get off the bus.

I think I'll get another latte before I head out... :)