From one hotel to the other

October 6, 2011. Written in Beijing, China.

*I wasn't able to post pictures because the WiFi connection is too slow. I will do this on another occasion so stay tuned!

From one hotel to the other.

Once I had arrived at the center of my first Chinese city, Tianjin, my first priority was to find a place to eat. In my eyes, Tianjin was a huge metropolitan, but as my new Chinese friend I had met on the boat had told me, for Chinese people Tianjin is just a small village. Walking randomly through this village filled with skyscrapers, I noticed how big my advantage was of being able to read Chinese characters. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to recognize banks, places to eat, places to stay, nothing. I headed into a random eat house. I really wanted to try out the Chinese fried rice, since I had loved that so much in Malaysia, but the place I went in seemed to serve only noodles. I chose beef-meat ball noodles (yes, even that I could read) for only 10 yuan (which is like 100 yen or 1 euro!)

The taste was good and because I had been very hungry I drank all of the soup. A woman next to me looked at me smiling, and asked me in English if I had enough. She said that she wanted to buy another dish for me, but I said that wasn't neccesariy. 

After I had left the place, it was around 10 o'clock. Now it was time to find a place to stay. My knowledge of Chinese characters helped a lot in this case as well. Only the expensive hotels have English written on them, while most only say 酒店, which means "Alcohol shop" literally translated, but a Chinese Malaysian I met in Seoul had told me that in China this stands for hotel. It came in very handy that she had told me this. There were also other kinds of hotels, such as 住宿 (living hostel) and 旅館 (which is written in exactly the same way as "ryokan"  Japanese traditional hotels). These places also had no English written on them, so I was lucky to be able to find them. But wherever I tried, all the hotels were full. "No room!" people would say the second I walked into their hotel. At around 12 O'clock, I was finally able to find a hotel that had a room left, but the only room they had was a suite! Now that was not exactly what a poor backpacker has in mind. I said no but the lady kept trying to get me in by making the price lower and lower. What had started at around 800 Yuan was now 400 Yuan, but that still was much too expensive for me.  I arrived near Tianjin station at around 1 o'clock. Except for taxi-drivers eagerly waiting for a stupid foreigner to earn some cash on, there was no one outside anymore. Some kept driving after me screaming something in Chinese, and no matter how much I ignored them, they just kept following. At a moment, so many drivers were following me that you could almost call it a parade. So this is China, I thought. 

I tried my luck at a few hotels near the station, but all were full here as well. It was now 2 o'clock. Only a few hours, and I could take the train to Beijing. Maybe I could just wait for that and give up. But right at that time, a lady came to me. She had seen me stepping out of a full hotel, and pointed me another building. 旅館 it said, and I understood that the lady could give me a room, and was not just the wife of one of these cab drivers. I followed her, and got my first room for 150 Yuan. 

The next day, I took the train to Beijing. This was quite the experience. When entering the station, you have to put your luggage on an X-ray security machine (the ones you have in airports). The station was completely full of people. I had to stand in the line for about 15 minutes to even pay for my ticket, and had to show my passport when buying. Now that is what I call a communist country! Everything you do is being watched by big brother.

The train was very modern and clean. I sat next to a Korean family and a Mongolian guy. Were foreigners put next to each other on purpose? The Korean daughter of the family (about 10 years old) was studying English and tried to have a conversation with me. Her younger brother (maybe 6) didn't seem to care about this at all and kept playing Kirby on his DS. 

Just as I had done on my first day in Pusan, once arrived at South Beijing station, I chose a transfer station to get out. Transfer stations are often big stations with many accomodations. It turned out I was right, and my first real sight of Beijing was a huge shopping street. The wideness of the streets in Beijing (and Tianjin as well for the matter) are really something. I tried to find an internet cafe to search for a place to stay, but it took me almost 2 hours to find one. At the internet cafe I had to show my passport as well. As I had heard, pages like facebook and google (for the most part) were blocked. 

I took the train station again to find the guesthouse I had looked up. It was in the area called Chaoyangmen. This was the China that I had imagined. Small streets with fried animals hanging in front of the shops, cheap places to eat everywhere, clerks talking very loudly to their customers and people spitting on the street while making loud noises.

The guesthouse I had looked up was on a distance of about 15 minutes from the station, but as I had feared, they had no vacant dormitory room left. They did have normal rooms left for higher prices, but I told the girl I was not interested and would search somewhere else for the night. I was able to book for the next day though.

"The hostel on the end of the street is completely full you know!" the girl yelled at me while I left the place, hoping that I would come back for the one-person room.

So there is another hostel on the end of the street? Sounds good! 

Just as I had thought, they did have a vacant dormitory room at the hostel of the end of the street! I went into my room. There was an American guy and two Korean guys staying there.  The American guy said that he wanted to go to a club, and asked me if I was interested. Normally I don't like going to clubs, but since I had been feeling quite lonely alone in this new country, I decided to go with him. One of the Korean guys also went with us. Now, I don't know anything about clubs, but this sure was one hell of a place. All the lights! It was really incredible.

After coming back to our room in the midnight, the two went to sleep immediately. I went out for something to eat first.

The next day, I was able to change hostels, and had to take my heavy back again and said goodbye to my new friends.