Moleskine Tales of #Suspense
A short excerpt from the pages of…
#TalkNerdyToMeLover’s @geekovertravel
…sprained both my ankles hiking more than a thousand steps up a steep mountain. They say if you make it up to the top of the Great Wall you become a Great Man of China. Well, I didn’t want to disappoint the Chinese. So I kept going. I realized I was very out of shape when even old Chinese village peddlers were passing me by selling bottled water and postcards for an American dollar. They ran up those steps like Rocky did before his match against Apollo Creed. My first mistake was carrying only one bottle of water when I should have carried fifty. But I didn’t want to carry any more weight than my guidebook.
When I finally reached the top, I felt like I was going to throw up all the air in my stomach. I was dizzy and the high altitude messed with my motor senses. A cool guy I met at the hostel gave me an extra water bottle. Remember that movie scene in Ben-Hur when he was thirsty for water and no one would give it to him except for the carpenter? That carpenter was Jesus and when He gave him some water, he was rejuvenated. That’s how I felt when I saw…
…spoke a little broken English. I asked him if there were any cool places to eat. Here’s how the conversation went…
Me: Can you recommend any cool places to eat?
Driver: You have Peking duck?
Me: Yes, it’s everywhere in Beijing. It’s like your version of McDonald’s.
Driver: Ha ha… you too funny!
Me: I want to try something Andrew Zimmerman hasn’t tried yet.
Driver: Who?
Me: You know, the bald dude from the Travel Channel? Bizarre Foods?
Driver: What?
Me: Nevermind. Can you just take me to a cool place to eat?
Driver: I take you someplace very special. You wait and see. Chinese favorite. Number one!
Me: Really? Solid, man!
Driver: You will like a lot! Number one!
Me: I can’t wait!
Driver: It is Pizza Hut.
Me: What?!?
Driver: Pizza Hut. Number one! You know pizza?
Me: I know what a pizza is. There are several Pizza Huts where I live.
Driver: Wow, you must be very rich!
Me: Not really. We just have a lot of pizza places. We also have Domino’s, Papa John’s, Little Caesars…
Driver: You lyin’?!?
Me: I ain’t lyin’. When I was in college I used to eat pizza everyday. Pizza and instant ramen.
Driver: What is instant ramen?
Me: It’s precooked dried noodles soaked in boiling water for about three minutes.
Driver: Yuck. You need to eat better.
Me: I know…
…anything that’s Chinese in the U.S. specifically in California is not very Chinese in China like for example: fortune cookies, P.F. Chang’s, and old TV show reruns of Kung Fu. I don’t think they even know we have a Chinatown here.