Vella_Malachite
2008-09-19, 09:18 AM
This afternoon, I got lost in China.
My friend and I were wandering around a couple of streets of shopping strips in China, and we managed to get disoriented (somehow), and we ended up wandering the streets of China for an hour and a half before being found.
The moment we found out we were lost, we were s***ting ourselves. We went from "wait, was it this way?" to "crap, we're lost" to "We're gonna get massacred alive when we get back" in less than five minutes. Our group were supposed to meet at the KFC on the corner, but there were about three KFC's in the area, and we were quickly directed by some helpful locals to completely the wrong shop.
[dramatic retelling]So my friend started crying when we found it wasn't the right one, so it was up to me to effect a daring plan (or at least affect one), to get us back to where we were supposed to be. I quickly remembered that my father, back in Australia, had the contact numbers for our teachers. From there, I figured that if we could get an international call somewhere, we would be OK. My friend was not exactly confident at that point in time, so to cheer her up, I came up with the *cough*original*cough* one liner "It's OK, I have a plan".
I walked into the KFC, and, with her in tow, asked where I could get an international call (thank all that is good and righteous I had my Mandarin phrasebook; I am not letting it out of my sight for the rest of my trip), where I could get an international call.
Of course, my language skills being what they are, they completely misunderstood and directed me to a phone booth (which, by the way, did not, in fact, have a phone in it at all. Go figure).
The plan required some tweaking; I spotted a hotel across the street and knew I could get an international call there. We hurried across and, after some communications difficulties, we managed to procure our phone call.
Dad, of course, had forgotten to bring the numbers with him when he went on his holiday. He began to make some phone calls, and told us to call back in ten minutes.
In ten minutes, we couldn't get onto him again.
We tried to think of what we had to work with. We had enough money for a room for the night, and a card to get more cash if need be. I had some food in my bag, enough to see us through one night, although none of it was the most nutritious food on the planet. We had some Panadol, a couple of bottles of water and a Mandarin phrasebook (my best friend ever). We had moral, emotional and linguistic support from each other, and we had a phone while the cash lasted. We figured we had enough to stay at the hotel for a week if it was necessary. We began to relax as we decided that we were lost for long enough that we were going to get sympathy rather than deep trouble when we were found.
I looked for a while at room prices; we decided if it came to that, we'd stay in the cheapest room to save money.
Eventually, we found a number our tour guide had given us in her notebook and decided to call it, just in case.
It worked, and we were found.
It turned out my dad had rung the school principal, who had rung my Chinese teacher. The Chinese teacher was nearly in tears when she found out, and the other two teachers nearly had heart attacks (one of them, a library attendant, felt the need to hug us both when she got to us). So a lot of people got very worked up about us, and we were probably the most calm.[/dramatic retelling]
Interesting, isn't it, how we were the ones who were actually freaking out the least. I, personally, truly panicked once; when Dad said he couldn't find the number. I didn't really get emotional or start to hyperventilate or anything until afterwards.
It was actually a really, well, not good, but worthwhile experience. The "I can survive this" confidence boost you get is really good.
I'm gonna get hell for this for months now, though. Only us two, of the whole group, could possibly get lost. Only us.
We're probably the only ones who could think our way out of the problem, too, though.:smallbiggrin::smallwink:
So, yeah. Just needed to vent that. Anyone else got any scary moments of the sort? (sympathy is also good:smalltongue:)
My friend and I were wandering around a couple of streets of shopping strips in China, and we managed to get disoriented (somehow), and we ended up wandering the streets of China for an hour and a half before being found.
The moment we found out we were lost, we were s***ting ourselves. We went from "wait, was it this way?" to "crap, we're lost" to "We're gonna get massacred alive when we get back" in less than five minutes. Our group were supposed to meet at the KFC on the corner, but there were about three KFC's in the area, and we were quickly directed by some helpful locals to completely the wrong shop.
[dramatic retelling]So my friend started crying when we found it wasn't the right one, so it was up to me to effect a daring plan (or at least affect one), to get us back to where we were supposed to be. I quickly remembered that my father, back in Australia, had the contact numbers for our teachers. From there, I figured that if we could get an international call somewhere, we would be OK. My friend was not exactly confident at that point in time, so to cheer her up, I came up with the *cough*original*cough* one liner "It's OK, I have a plan".
I walked into the KFC, and, with her in tow, asked where I could get an international call (thank all that is good and righteous I had my Mandarin phrasebook; I am not letting it out of my sight for the rest of my trip), where I could get an international call.
Of course, my language skills being what they are, they completely misunderstood and directed me to a phone booth (which, by the way, did not, in fact, have a phone in it at all. Go figure).
The plan required some tweaking; I spotted a hotel across the street and knew I could get an international call there. We hurried across and, after some communications difficulties, we managed to procure our phone call.
Dad, of course, had forgotten to bring the numbers with him when he went on his holiday. He began to make some phone calls, and told us to call back in ten minutes.
In ten minutes, we couldn't get onto him again.
We tried to think of what we had to work with. We had enough money for a room for the night, and a card to get more cash if need be. I had some food in my bag, enough to see us through one night, although none of it was the most nutritious food on the planet. We had some Panadol, a couple of bottles of water and a Mandarin phrasebook (my best friend ever). We had moral, emotional and linguistic support from each other, and we had a phone while the cash lasted. We figured we had enough to stay at the hotel for a week if it was necessary. We began to relax as we decided that we were lost for long enough that we were going to get sympathy rather than deep trouble when we were found.
I looked for a while at room prices; we decided if it came to that, we'd stay in the cheapest room to save money.
Eventually, we found a number our tour guide had given us in her notebook and decided to call it, just in case.
It worked, and we were found.
It turned out my dad had rung the school principal, who had rung my Chinese teacher. The Chinese teacher was nearly in tears when she found out, and the other two teachers nearly had heart attacks (one of them, a library attendant, felt the need to hug us both when she got to us). So a lot of people got very worked up about us, and we were probably the most calm.[/dramatic retelling]
Interesting, isn't it, how we were the ones who were actually freaking out the least. I, personally, truly panicked once; when Dad said he couldn't find the number. I didn't really get emotional or start to hyperventilate or anything until afterwards.
It was actually a really, well, not good, but worthwhile experience. The "I can survive this" confidence boost you get is really good.
I'm gonna get hell for this for months now, though. Only us two, of the whole group, could possibly get lost. Only us.
We're probably the only ones who could think our way out of the problem, too, though.:smallbiggrin::smallwink:
So, yeah. Just needed to vent that. Anyone else got any scary moments of the sort? (sympathy is also good:smalltongue:)