Learning to get Lost

For those who know me, it isn't new news that I have a thing for exploration (or as some like to describe it as 'getting lost'). I think it is the way I learn most effectively. I learn through doing and adjusting to the feedback I receive from doing.

I recently got back into the gear of exploring, and it has served me well while I adjust to Beijing. I have walked home from all the nearby subway stations, wandered through random streets and paths, and peeked around street corners just to see what's happening. Those experiences have all been incredibly rewarding in this city. And more so than my experiences in Shanghai I might add.

Back to learning through getting lost, one of few actually useful ways to get around which has worked like a charm for me in the past is to ask passerbys (compared to deciding based on intuition). Though, I've found that the method has required a bit of tweaking lately. I have received contradicting directions from the locals multiple times and have unconsciously begun to ask different groups of people at once to get a consensus. Maybe it seems like the right thing to do, but imagine an idiot like me walking up to each person and hawking for directions while they all wait at the same crosswalk...