Yes - like Roger Daltrey, I'm FREE!!!
I managed to squirm out of that dratted, awful, horrible class in Wangjing. Giving up 4,000 rmb has never felt SO GOOD.
[This is the best recording of The Who's classic hit I'm Free on YouTube at the moment, I think - from the 1970 Live at Leeds album, with a cool montage of photos of the band in their heyday. However, you can also check out their Woodstock and Isle of Wight performances of the song, and the sequence from Ken Russell's film version of Tommy.]
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Oh my god - yesterday's experience was almost WORSE than last week's nightmare!!
One of the worst air quality days in Beijing this year, 90% humidity, visibility down to less than half a mile.
And I was trying to find the place on foot, having unwisely decided to investigate the subway route there, after last week's traumatising experience with the buses.
The gormless girl at the client company had told me that the subway station was about a 10-minute walk away. She obviously didn't use the subway herself, but I assumed she at least knew where it was. Chinese estimates of time taken to walk somewhere are usually way on the high side, since most Chinese walk so slowly. "10 minutes away" usually equates to only 3 or 4 minutes at the speed I step out. Even if it really was 10 minutes - or 15 or 20 minutes - it was worth checking out, as a simpler alternative to the 'fight the hordes at the multiple bus stops outside Dongzhimen station, waste 15 minutes doing a U-turn around the Dongzhimen roundabout on the 2nd Ringroad (no convenient alternative, since the first stop on the other side of the road is not for at least a couple of miles!!), go a mile too far, get off, cross the road to another bus stop, get on another bus for a few stops' route that was the best I'd so far been able to come up with for using the buses to get there.
Alas, no, the Wanjing subway station is fully 30 minutes' walk away from my destination. In weather conditions like this, even 5 minutes' walking is unpleasant.
Fortunately - even with an out-of-date map, and few road signs, and the sun barely visible - my dead reckoning is pretty good, and I managed to keep on a fairly direct track there. But anxieties were mounting when, 5 minutes before the class was due to start (and slightly less than 5 minutes' walk away from the building) I STILL COULDN'T SEE IT!
Having learned just before the class that I was to be released from this engagement, I decided to treat myself to a cab back. My luck is clearly on the turn. With the rain holding off until much later in the evening, there was no shortage of working cabs. I got particularly lucky with my driver, who carved through traffic efficiently, kept his foot to the floor, and got me close to home in a little over 20 minutes.
Wandering around Wangjing semi-LOST and semi-BLIND, though, is one of the most unpleasant experiences I have ever had.
I literally shudder at the thought of ever having to go back there.
If I can't get a substitute trainer sorted out by next Monday, I may have to. Oh my god....
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