day 56: 灵石 (lingshi) - 南关 (nanguan) = 29,8km

This morning I made a mistake.

I looked at the map and thought: 15km is not that much, I can easily walk it off in the afternoon!

So I wasted a long time doing nothing, looking at magazines, not realizing what a long day lay ahead of me:

Even though some of these covers might seem somehow promising, but you’re not going to find any nudity in these.

China is officially porn-free.

Well, I didn’t want to buy any reading materials anyways, instead I went and had lunch in a place that I thought was interesting:

Looks somehow familiar, doesn’t it?

It’s CFC - Chicken Of California.

Then I checked out the meteor (or is it a comet, or an asteroid?) in a local park:

They call it 天石 (tianshi) here, “sky stone”, and it impacted during the Sui-dynasty (隋 580-618).

Must have been quite a shock to the people back then.

You see, I was off for a slow start today. I walked and I took my time, all the while not realizing my mistake.

I marveled at smallest Karaoke-bar I’ve ever seen:

KTV. This means hanging out in a little room looking at a screen, drinking beer, singing songs.

I didn’t go in. I’m not a good singer.

A little while later I saw a building with a cross on top and decided to check it out:

The place turned out to be a little shop - owned by a nice old lady, overseen by J.C.:

刘灵芝 (liu lingzhi) is a firm believer in Christ.

When I asked her why, this is what she said:

- “Because I used to have a bad temper!”

- “You, Aunt Liu? I can’t believe it!”

- “Seriously, I would always get into fights with everyone over nothing!”

- “But you seem so gentle and kind!”

- “Well, it was only my temper that was no good, but my heart was never bad!”

- “Oh… and then what happened, Aunt Liu?”

- “I changed, with the help of God, I slowly changed.”

A good reason to believe.

Actually the best reason I’ve ever heard.

Anyone with a bad temper himself will understand.

I liked Aunt Liu’s bible, because she had made the embroidering on the cover herself, so I asked if I could take a picture:

And I could.

We had lots of fun taking photographs, Aunt Liu even put on her uniform:

What a nice lady!

Besides a thousand blessings, she also gave me a cup of noodles, 4 pears, 2 apples and 2 bananas; then she sent me on my way.

It was already getting dark outside, but I still wouldn’t speed up the pace.

How could I, with a wedding ceremony to be witnessed?

In an area covered this heavy in coal and dust, I guess partying needs to be a bit heavier than in other places:

The groom was already totally wasted and barely able to stand on his own two feet, but still his entourage made him carry along his bride.

Lots of laughter.

One poor groom.

It was about that time when I realized not only the groom was in critical condition, but I was, too:

15km somehow had somehow turned into a winding 30km, with rocks on the right hand side and cliffs on the left.

A damn long way, alongside of what seemed to be a thousand trucks roaring through the cold and dark:

The road was terrible. At some points the truck drivers really had the chance to show off some skills to the weird foreigner with the flashlight on his forehead.

But I wasn’t in too much of a mood to appreciate meticulous driving; I was finally just happy to be able to see the lights of 南关 (nanguan) glowing somewhere in the distance:

When I finally got there I was sure I had got myself a cold.

Soundtrack: Manowar - “Black Wind, Fire And Steel”

—total: 836,1km