Wednesday, January 2, 2008

It Can't Get Any Worse


We awoke in the dark single room on the third floor of the giant hostel refreshed. A good 12 hour sleep will do that to you. Spirits had risen as our internal body clocks were starting to change. We started walking early and walked a good 20 kilometers by the end of the day. The walking day was tiring, but satisfying. We passed lots of interesting things: Shrines on moutain tops to our right, the ocean, beaches, temples, taj mahal looking structures, and boats to our left.
Oh you shouldn've seen the pictures, they were wonderful.

Now your thinking, "but steve, you have a camera, and internet access, why should wonder what the pictures look like when you could just show us?"

The answer lies in The Great Nikon Tradegy of January Second Two Thousand and Eight.
We were taking a look over an beach and Jeff started asking some people for directions.
A few minutes later he came over to me and said, they can give us a ride to Ilan (pronounced ee lon). We were tired and needed to get to Ilan to meet a relative's friend's mother, so we accepted the offer. (Note: this was done with careful planning and we figured we needed to get to Ilan sooner than later so that we could get to the South quicker, past a dangerous section of highway. We really are walking!)
So they picked us up at a small restuarant. I had my pack and a Nikon Digital SLR camera. I got distracted. The camera stayed behind with the asphalt. The car left for Ilan. We got to the city of Jiaosi to go to hotsprings. At this time the Nikon was no longer hugging the asphalt. A truck driver was hugging our Nikon. The truck driver got something to eat. Then he sung a Karoake song. Our theif was a singer. Jeff says: Where's the camera. I check the car. I Freeze. That deep freeze that you freeze when something is terribly wrong. We return to the restaurant. The restaurant owner tells us all. A survallence camera is nearby. We drive to the police station. I am silent. We ask to see the camera footage. They drive with us back to the restuarant. They speak to the man. They are getting angry. I don't know why. I hope I havn't caused more trouble. They talk. I stand silent. We leave. They will call us to tell us if they can access the camera footage. Phone ring. The speak Chinese. I can't interpret the sentiment. Then.
Tiang gi mey yo jo le.
Jeff turns to me and translates:
There is no Hope.

The camera is lost.

They friendly people that had picked us up had bought coffee and popcorn for us. I didn't eat.
Jeff later called it "the saddest popcorn".

We got to Ilan later, ate, drank "Taiwan beer" and slept.
I realized that the Beatles song "It's getting better" is about failure.
So indeed I have no hope for getting the camera back, but there's always hope for things
getting better since as the Beatles say in the same song, "It can't get any worse."

Today's famous doctor: Dr. Doom

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