We have been on break these last few weeks. Many of us have decided to go traveling, myself included. I went to Beijing, Harbin, Mingshui (a town outside of Harbin where Ben, Ben's old friend Garth, and I stayed with a friend, Casey's family for new year), and now, Osaka Japan. I bought a new camera with money I made from tutoring and made sure I had it with me for this trip.
Though I know I haven't put up photos nearly as often as I intended, the original idea for this blog was a place for pictures. I really love taking pictures, and take great pride in them.
Today, in a moment both of great distraction and even greater stupidity, I erased all the pictures on my camera. I have not taken my computer with me for this trip, and none of the pictures I've taken these past few weeks were backed up.
I'm not going to lie. I literally cried when I realized what I'd done. I had to then walk a great deal in order to get back to the train station, which helped a great deal. I've managed to think of a good many philosophical things to console myself. And fortunately, I was already planning to go to Beijing again in the Spring. As for Harbin, I will just wait till Garth and Ben upload their pictures to facebook and look at them if I want to remember.
In lieu of showing them, I am just going to describe a couple that I wish you could see. It may sound a bit silly, but I feel this is the best way to say good bye to them.
I took a panorama shot of the Great Wall, the section beyond the "do not enter" sign, which was overgrown with weeds so high you could easily hide a fully grown person. From there, outside the brush, you could see older parts of the wall, parts that have not been repaired and are too dangerous to climb.
I took a short video of Ben lighting a firecracker and throwing it. Casey had shown us how to take apart a string of firecrackers, light an individual section with a cigarette, and throw it before it exploded. We walked and threw mini-fire crackers in temperatures below zero Fahrenheit.
I took a picture of my friend Ting eating Korean barbecue, looking incredibly happy, even though we spent the afternoon talking about uncertain futures in romance and careers.
I took a picture of my friend Dana, eating pizza. She is busy studying advanced Japanese. As always, she is full of stories that are almost to incredible to believe.
I took a picture of my friends Risa and Yuko, as we ate okonomiyaki together.
I took pictures of Lu Xun's house in Beijing, pictures of strange varieties of goldfish in Zhong Shan park, pictures of various turtle statues in the Forbidden City and in museums.
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Just before I returned home from Japan, two years ago, my hard drive crashed. I lost all of the photos from the whole year in Japan. I remember thinking at the time that I at least had the memories. I can still hold onto that. There's really nothing else I can do.
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