So, I realized that I left my passport in Irvine and therefore ended up going to LA the day after I initially planned. That day was quite possibly one of my most adventuresome days so far this Summer. In total, I think it's quite possible that I rode my bike somewhere between 40 and 50 miles, mostly lost around LA.
I set out somewhat early in the morning. I Rode from UCI to the Tustin Metrolink station, then rode the Metrolink up to Union Station. After that I spent most of my day lost in LA with only a couple Google maps printouts to help guide me. In retrospect, after examining a map and retracing some of my steps, I'm pretty certain that my first mistake was making a wrong turn on 6th street. I didn't find this out until I had passed three freeways; the 5/101, the 60 and the 710. For those of you that know LA, instead of heading West toward the LA Consulate to the People's Republic of China, I was in fact now in East LA. I think I made it about as far as Atlantic Blvd before I found out from a helpful guy at a bus stop that I was very far from where I was trying to be. At this point, he told me to take the bus in the opposite direction. I took the bus probably until somewhere around Alameda where I thought it would be a good time to get off. I then biked back through downtown in the other (correct) direction along 6th and some other parallel streets, past the Consulate. Yes, not only did I manage to go far out of my way in the opposite direction almost straight from the get go, I then managed to go past my ultimate destination near 6th and Vermont until at least a few blocks past Irving Blvd. For those of you that don't know these areas of LA that well, this is difficult to appreciate without looking at a map and seeing how much of LA's width I actually covered and without remembering that I'm on a bike here in the middle of LA midday traffic.
Eventually, I did reach my ultimate goal of the day and I reached the Chinese Consulate's Passport and Visa Office. Although what I found out when I got there wasn't exactly rewarding at the time. I found out that A) I need a job in China before I can apply for a work visa and B) I can't just go to China and then get an employment visa whenever I find a job, I have to actually leave China to apply for a new visa. So, in the end I decided to wait to apply for the visa after all of that mucking about around LA, getting lost, dealing with aggressive drivers, getting lost, finding my way again and getting lost again. So after riding back to Union Station and riding Metrolink back down to Tustin and biking back to my apartment near UCI, I think it's safe to say I probably biked nearly 40-50 miles by the end of the day.
Now, for the final and very recent part of the update:
After going all the way up to LA to find out that I really should get a job before I take off, I made an effort to send out as many resumes as I could to places where I might be able to teach English in Changsha. This ended up being around 7 or 8 so far. The reason I am writing this post right now at nearly 4am is that I've just received my first positive reply to an application.
I found out I'll be scheduling a phone interview to teach at Tongshenghu International Experimental School. It turns out my degree in Music was the primary reason that I am such a strong applicant for the position. They specifically hire teachers with a background in the arts, such as dance or music, thus making me the perfect candidate! I'll end the post with just a bit of information about where this school is:
So in this picture you can see that the school is located a bit South of the main city of Changsha, which is actually even better for me because my friend that I am going to meet up with in Changsha actually goes to school a bit South of the city as well.
In this picture you can see a little bit of the surrounding area on the satellite image. As you can see, it's next to a reservoir and there seems to be some greenery in the area. I think this might provide for a nice balance of natural environment and being relatively close to the city at the same time.
I have to say, if it took riding aimlessly around LA for an entire day in order to get me to apply here and hopefully get a job before leaving the States, then it was a day well spent.
