day 17: 望都 (wangdu) – 定州 (dingzhou) = 28,4km

The reason for today’s title is this:

“今日不爱” -”no love today” (the translation is a bit rough, I know). Actually, this is supposed to say something like: “if you don’t love your roads today, there will be no roads tomorrow” – but now all that is left is no love today.

I’m sitting in my hotel room right now, with my shoes and my jacket and my hat on, and my hands are freezing while I’m typing this, because I somehow managed to find the only place in town that doesn’t have heating. I’m thinking, was there really no love today?

Basically the only thing I did is walk, walk, and walk. But I think I saw something next to the road:

There it is.

…and then there was the place with absolutely NO LOVE:

I didn’t exactly understand if this was a place that sold pets or a place that rescued pets. And why would they have a scorpion on that picture? I took a look inside:

No scorpions, no birds, just dogs, a lot of dogs. Locked up in their tiny cages, they woke up one after the other and looked at me from bleak eyes. Then they all started barking, so I decided to evacuate myself.

I was still thinking whether or not I should have stayed around to take more pictures of the misery and find out what that pet place was actually all about, when I ran into this little guy:

He was trying to get a drink from the water faucet, but when he noticed me he suddenly just froze up. Neither of us moved, only the shutter of my camera did. Then he somehow decided that I wasn’t so scary after all and had a little conversation with me:

little guy: “?”

me: “What? You go to school, little friend?”

little guy: nods.

me: “Primary school or kindergarten?”

little guy: “?”

me: “You go to school?”

little guy: nods.

me: “Um… okay, see you later, little friend!”

little guy: nods and waves hand.

Well okay, we didn’t really understand each other in some aspects. But we tried.

Soundtrack: Take That – “Never Forget”

—total: 255,3km