one would dream (Yellow River hop 2)

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

I was pretty wrecked when I dragged my stuff through a place called Lanzhou Waterwheel Exhibition Park 兰州水车博览园 on the banks of the Yellow River:

Lanzhou Waterwheel Exhibition Park

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:

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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.

Leike, 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:

Leike

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

Well, I crossed the Yellow River again today:

Zhongshan Bridge

Then I climbed up to the famous White Pagoda 白塔, 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:

White Pagoda in 2006

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

White Pagoda

(Yes, the tower is inclined.)

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

Lanzhou in 2006

…and what I saw today:

Lanzhou skyline

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

river bend

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

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

reflection

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

drawing

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

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

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

Even better:

one would dream

“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:

love China

It’s a donation billboard for the disaster victims in the neighboring province of Sichuan 四川: 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.



  • Lilu

    Ha, wie cool, das 雷克-Gefährt! Gesehen, daß da unten rechts VIP draufsteht? 😉

    Reply

  • Barry

    Im Video könnte man fast meinen, dass Du ein bißchen humpelst.
    Sicherlich musst Du erstmal wieder rein kommen, nach Deinem Kurzurlaub. Und dann noch so Faktoren wie Schlafmangel und neue Stiefel.
    Aber am wahrscheinlichsten liegt es wohl daran, dass Du jetzt so viel Khaki trägst :-).
    Lass es langsam angehen und pass auf Dich auf!

    Reply

  • ataraxia

    your name sounds pretty "foreign" to me…but that's a good one…
    Many students donated for victims in the earthquake, either blood or money, or both…
    Here in Beijing, my schoolmates donated so much blood in one day that the Beijing Blood Centre cannot contain any more…and we raised over 7 million RMB in the school from teachers and students in two days…

    Just wish they can be saved…

    Reply

  • Florian

    Immer einen Fuß vor den anderen, das Humpeln gibt sich von allein, wenn man einfach an was anderes denkt!

    Reply

  • Christoph

    Lilu: Vielleicht finde ich auch etwas wo 李露 draufsteht, ha!
    Barry: Jo, es muss das Khaki sein.
    ataraxia: Donating seems like a very sensible thing to do under these circumstances.
    Florian: Ah…

    Reply

  • 王玮

    Nice to ‘meet’ you, 雷克

    我叫王玮。

    I often find having the donations displayed in public is a rather daunting thing. 当然,不可否认其初衷是好的——如你所言,鼓励大家继续捐款。这个方式还是有点让人不舒服。

    Reply

  • Niuroumian

    从老雷眼中看到了自己的家乡,欢迎再来👍🏻

    Reply

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