day 190: 兰州 (Lanzhou) = 22,2km

Anxiety caught up with me again; no sleep until five in the morning.

I was pretty wrecked when I dragged my stuff through the famous 兰州水车博览园 (Lanzhou Waterwheel Exhibition park) on the banks of the Yellow River (黄河):

A couple of things about my outfit have changed by the way, I’m wearing more khaki now and even showing a bit more skin:

As you can probably tell from the clip, walking didn’t go as smoothly as I had been hoping for. Don’t know what it is exactly, but I don’t really feel that comfortable on my feet just yet. Maybe I need more time - and more km?

…

For those of you that don’t know yet, my Chinese name is 雷克 (léi = thunder, kè = overcome). It’s basically taking the first sound of my last name Rehage and shortening it into léi (the Chinese language having no German “R”), and then mutilating my first name Christoph until only the “K” (kè) sound is left standing. Léi kè, 雷克, thunder overcome. Pretty wacky, huh?

Today I found out that I’m not the only one who likes to claim that name though:

I apparently share it with brand of motor scooters. D’oh!

…

Well, I crossed the Yellow River again today:

Then I climbed up to the famous 白塔 (White Pagoda), a place that I had visited before in the summer of 2006.

Interestingly enough, I was only able to find one shot from back then that had the actual pagoda in it, and it’s this one:

Today, I went for a more crisp and clear approach:

(Yes, the tower is inclined.)

The waterfront seemed to have a different feel about it as well, here in August 2006:

…and what I saw today:

Once I had descended from the pagoda hill, I basically just kept walking up the river:

…and it seemed like 兰州 (Lanzhou) was never going to end.

I was taking it slow, aiming for a certain 兰州交通大学 (Lanzhou University of Transportation), while trying to closely monitor foot-pains and stuff to photograph on the way:

Once, there was this long wall decorated by students from an elementary school:

It was all about the Olympics. You know the motto: 同一个世界，同一个梦想 (One World, One Dream).

Well here are some variations that I found, and I’m still not sure whether they were strokes of genius or just accidental misspellings:

“One word, one dream” - now that’s deep, isn’t it?

Even better:

“One would dream” - I just love this one.

Anything I could say would only spoil it.

…

When I got to the university campus, I ran into some students standing around a large red poster:

It’s a donation billboard for the disaster victims in the neighboring province of 四川 (Sichuan): work units from the university (the cafeteria or the library for example) make collective donations, then their names and the donated amounts get written up on the poster to encourage others.

I think it felt good for the students to be able to do something to help.

Soundtrack: Toasters - “Talk Is Cheap”

—total: 2297,7km