I began this exercise from my home, right after work. I have recently moved and fairly new to this area. I also barely walked around the neighborhood and mostly drive the distance between home and work. I began walking inside the parameter of my apartment community, and the exercise’s directions led me towards the streets outside of my residence community. The late hour, darkness and my unfamiliarity with the area made me scare a bit at first. At the beginning, wandering in the streets of Irvine was a little confusing, especially since I was trying very hard to identify something interesting to use as my decision point. Later, I decided to reduce my walking speed and began pacing with the intent to enjoy my surroundings.
Soon after changing my speed and spending some time pacing around I began noticing the buildings and structures that I have never paid attention to before. They all are designed beautifully and it surprised me how I have missed them during my daily commute to and from work. Most buildings near my neighborhood is very well designed (i.e. artistics arcs over the front gates and doorways, trees, plants and other greens in front of the buildings), and I am still in shock how I have missed these scenes while driving by them in daily bases. Soon after, I realized that I stopped following the original instructions from the exercise and am creating a path in the opposite direction of the suggested path. This was because I became curious to further explore beautiful things I saw, and I lost track of original instructions. Later, I returned to the point where I began deviating from the original instructions of the exercise and continued my path according to the exercise’s guidelines. This exercise was very useful to me when exploring my neighborhood, since I found places that I were not aware of at all and would have never find out about them if it was not for this exercise.
Later I arrived at an apartment community not far from where I currently live, realizing that I have been walking around this neighborhood for nearly 3 hours, without realizing it.
Nice.