106. Tuesday tore my climbing harness a new one
This is a continued story from the Crazy people, crazy stories - a week of meeting colorful characters post.
Tuesday
My American friend and I invited the Canadian girl to our bouldering session. It was around five in the evening when we all met up at the climbing gym. I brought my harness and was very excited to go sport climbing.
The Canadian showed up in the most interesting outfit I have ever seen. She was tapping away on her phone, writing to clients, or friends, or suitors (I have no idea!) wearing the tightest and shortest teal workout set I have ever seen. This iconic two piece set with the boob window shows up on her Instagram stories often. Although the outfit is a bit "too much," I absolutely love how unapologetically confident she is, honestly.
During the session, I was very impressed by this girl's determination. She said she hasn't done climbing since she was a kid, but she seemed to have the flexibility and strength to do a lot of the beginner routes. My other friend was doing a lot of the harder boulder routes and tried to flex on us.
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I wanted to get some sport climbing sessions in before we left. I decided on a slightly intimidating route (for the difficulty, it is probably a 6b+/6c in French grading; Yosemite grading is ~5.10c more like!). It was a rather difficult climb for me actually. I watched my friend complete the route before me, but he's a much more experienced and stronger climber. Frankly, I think I was just out of gas. Unfortunately, I heard a loud 'SNAP' while I was in the middle of my climb and looked down at my harness. There was a giant tear on the bottom part of my harness, near the loop where the rope was attached. I felt a great surge of panic and asked my belayer to return me to the ground. God, I was so terrified and went down before anything else happened. I was afraid that my harness was going to rip even more if I were to continue.
The loop where my thumb is next to is ripped here. I had to retire this harness. I’ve had it for about 3 years and have been sport climbing outdoors, so it’s got a lot of usage out of it. I’m happy that it didn’t snap all the way when I was attached to the wall.
I don't know if my companions felt the anxiety I felt at all. I didn't think Canadian girl realized how bad the situation was, which I don't hold it against her since she's just a beginner climber. I was a bit shaken up and sat out for the rest of the session. I was persuaded to cool down with a 15 minute intense ab workout, which I didn't think it was too bad, until the second set of exercises. I pulled up my shirt and hoped that a washboard appeared on my torso based on that intense core workout.
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After our climbing session, we decided to grab dinner at the food stalls at the night market down the street. I was immediately captivated by the potato stand nearby and decided to order their specialty "ice cream baked cheese loaded potato." It was one of the creamiest and oddest potato combinations I've ever had. The sauce was a creamy orange sauce with some spices.
As I shared some of the potato with my group, we were watching two Chinese ladies use this method called "Paida", which involves slapping the person's legs or arms in order to yield blood flow and other therapeutic effects to their body. My North American friends were a little concerned and didn't think that they'd want to get involve with that.
My potato pit stop was a marvelous and kooky idea, but we had to continue our walk. We made it to the night market where Canadian girl bought a $2 potato swirl (she said it was mid). As we were walking, we bumped into three friends that my American friend knew. The first guy that spoke was a Scottish fellow that I saw at the first hostel pub crawl. He was a gregarious guy, if I recalled correctly. While I was waiting at the table, this Scottish guy walked in and everyone immediately shouted his name.
"Aye, what are you lot doing out here? Nice to see ya again, mate." he was smiling at all of us and patted my American friend in the shoulders. Behind our Scottish friend were two people: a Vietnamese-French girl and a Danish-Dutch guy- both of them hung out with my friend before so he knew them quite well too. I was told that my American friend was trying to get better at French, so he would talk with the girl often. He still has a strong American accent when he speaks, but it's nice to hear that he is improving on it.
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Our group was split in two: Canadian, American, and Scot on the left, while I conversed with my new French and Danish companions. We were exchanging stories about the hostel and how the mad gossip related to the hostel own. My new Danish friend was very cheerful while he was talking about the shady stories surrounding the mysterious hostel that everyone met at.
"So, the guy in charge of the hostel... Yeah, he just kicked out our Scottish friend right here." he said, while gesturing over at our group of companions talking closely nearby, "Yeah it was a very valiant act too. He stood up to the owner because he was being rather rude to this blonde German girl and kicked her out for some reason."
"Oh wow! I met her the other day. She was so sweet. What even happened?" I was contributing to the gossip pot and my new friends were getting a bit excited. We continued to shit-talk the owner about how bizarre his behavior has been.
"I'm not even sure! But she was kicked out first, and then our Scottish friend stood up for her- saying 'aye guys let's be reasonable please' and all that. Then he got kicked out and he's now staying at another place. There's something fishy going on, in my opinion..."
I looked back at our Scottish friend, who was keeping the rest of the group entertained and charmed, and was so confused. The German girl was quite sweet and a bit reserved. How on earth did she cause such a big ruckus, which led to to her getting kicked out of the place? Indeed, there was something fishy going on.
We continued with our drama-filled conspiracy theories about the owner of the hostel before we said our goodbyes. I concluded that the owner was very sus. I was roped into climbing (again) the following day- this time, with my new Danish friend. Except this time, it wasn't going to be sport climbing. Instead, we're going to try the ninja course.
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Our groups separated once again, back to the original characters again. After we said our goodbyes, we continued going down the bright streets of the night market. The three of us grabbed dinner at the Thai food stand nearby and I settled with a simple fried rice and chicken dish.
~ Tuesday Wednesday break my heart
<3 K