The talk last night at UCLUG about Zenoss went well, with the exception of finding the place a little after the meeting had already started. Fortunately I was the second act, so nobody noticed.

I was fired up about speaking and it showed. I was funny and engaging and improvised a few clever wisecracks here and there. It didn’t hurt that there was a familiar face in the crowd: my former Raritan coworker Wes Yates, a wisecracker himself.

I’ve got to find more speaking gigs, or join one of the Toastmasters groups here. Speaking to groups (and especially interacting with them) is a heck of a lot of fun.

I had a great day at the Great Wall of China. I’ll post about that in a moment.

On the way back, I took our tour guide’s advice and gave up a ride back to my hotel in favor of walking around the local markets. I had an enjoyable time browsing the stores, bookstores, and malls. I ate some decent pizza at the food court before hopping on to the subway for a trip back to my hotel.

The subway was easy to navigate. Soon I was at my stop, one block from my hotel. At that point, however, I was stymied. I had no idea which direction to go and could not find anyone near the subway stop who spoke English.

What’s more, there were fireworks going off everywhere, celebrating the end of Spring Festival. And I’m not talking little bottle rockets or sparklers here, either. I’m talking huge, commercial-grade rockets and firecrackers. It was like frickin’ downtown Baghdad! Dark sidewalks would explode in a flash of light as another meter-long package of firecrackers went off. Bottle rockets screamed above my head. A gale-force wind is also blowing: perfect for sweeping out the Year of the Dog and ushering in the Year of the Pig, but not conducive to navigating an urban fireworks battlefield.

I walked as many blocks as I dared before deciding I was hopelessly lost and in danger of losing a limb or eye. The next stop was to flag down a taxi to shepherd me back to my hotel. I got a card from the hotel with a rudimentary map of the city and some Chinese phrases. I’ve been keeping it with me, thinking the Chinese characters on it was enough to get me back.

I was wrong. The first cabbie shook his head and kicked me out of his taxi. The second was more accomodating but equally clueless about which direction to go. After stopping his cab three times to ask directions of passersby I finally pointed in a direction and said “go.” I pointed right a the next street and lo and behold the Holiday Inn Central Plaza appeared on the horizon. I’ve never been so happy to see a Holiday Inn!

I’m back in my hotel and the war is still going on outside. The wind is gusting so strongly it is making my window whistle louder than the din outside, if you can believe it. I can see now I took the wrong card: there is a taxi card the recptionist gave me for my trip to dinner last night which has detailed hotel directions in Chinese. I’ll know now to take that one with me on my journeys.

I’ll also remember not to choose to wander around on the last night of the Chinese Spring Festival!