Inn of the Wandering Dragon

So I have successfully re-arranged the furniture - I'm still working on the de-cluttering. This is going to have to be broken down into pieces I can tell. It may be a small house but it can be overwhelming when you still have a busy life to deal with. But durring this I have dug out my old travel journals from years ago, I was looking for entries about language.
While the majority of my travels have been through english speaking countries I have spent some time in Indonesia where most people did not speak english and I had to learn at least some basics to get around. One of the first phrases I learned was to say was, 'I'm sorry, I do not understand'. Needless to say at the very start of my trip I used that a lot! One man in the market loudly berated me and while I did not understand the words I picked up the tone and rough meaning quick enough (something along the lines of I should not be traveling if I do not know the language). But for the most part people were patient with me, corrected me when I needed it and we tried with some humour to make ourselves understood.
I have forgotten most of what I learned, mainly from lack of use, but I did take notes back then so I have been re-visiting them for a project I'm currently working on. There is something facinating in text that I do not understand, especially trying to puzzle out the meanings and relationships of these essentially abstract symbols.