China Tour 2011: East Coast

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So I'm gonna do this 2 days at a time to (1) give my fingers/wrists a rest and (2) give your eyes a rest. A lot of things happened on this trip.. and it is going to take a few entries to tell it all.

Day 1: Shiyan --> Beijing 1/20/2011

Well I had my alarm set for 8am.. like I was gonna get up. ha. I knew good and well I would lay there and not get up when I set the alarm. I definitely snoozed til 10:30. I don't know why I do that.

Anyway, I got up and continued packing. I had some stuff set out and put in my big bag I was taking. I talked to Keli some off and on, and we talked about plans.. and about who was bringing the hair dryer and straightener (HD: Me / Straightener: K) Robert sent me a message telling me to be careful in the heavy snow. Yeah, it was snowing. I guess I got a shower and got dressed and ready.

I went to a couple of stores on campus. Goal: Conditioner. Outcome: A bottle of water. Ha. The first store I went

to was the small store ran by a little old couple. It smells funny in there, and every time I go in there the lady follows me around. It drives me crazy. I looked at a bottle of Pantene shampoo but decided not to get it since that wasn't the goal. Then I felt bad because she was wandering around following me and I wasn't going to buy anything.. this is where the water comes in. I went to another store. It's bigger and the last time I went I heard them saying "ting bu dong" and laughing, which I'm pretty sure meant that they were talking about me. Their selection of conditioner was also nonexistent, so I just left.

I went home and gathered everything up and knocked on J & P's door... 3 times. P finally came to the door and got my key. She said she was making brownies for Keli and I (I thought that was sweet.), but they weren't finished yet. I said it was okay, and I told her what I wanted her to do.. feed the cat, try and make sure to sweep up the litter that he would most definitely end up knocking out of the litter box, etc.

I walked down to the front gate and grabbed a taxi. (Side note, my stomach was hurting..) There was no way I was going to ride the bus with all my stuff (Keli did. ha) I told her I wanted to go to McDonalds, and she tried dropping me off at KFC. I told her no, and I repeated McDonalds. Then she tried to take me to the little one that only serves ice cream. I said no again, and she FiNALLY drove me to the right one. It was a little ridiculous.

Keli was already there, and she was sitting down. She hadn't ordered food yet though, so I ordered some food for the both of us so someone could stay with all our stuff. We took turns going to the bathroom, and then we ate our chicken nuggets and drank our drinks.

We left for the train station. We got into a taxi one of her students was getting out of.. we thought that was pretty lucky. Keli was pretty panicky about not making it to the station on time. We decided that we were okay, and we were. We made it with about 20 minutes to spare.

...then the bad news came. I realized at the entrance that I was missing something. I had forgotten my passport. Ninjas on the roof. (

) Keli thought I was joking since Micah had forgotten his passport when we went to Xi'an. I wasn't kidding. She quickly realized that. I called P and asked if she would hurriedly bring it to me. I knew exactly where it was, but I didn't put it on the list of stuff I should pack and completely forgot it. There wasn't enough time for (J &) P (yeah, P apparently can't do anything by herself..) to get there though. We were about to board, and they hadn't even gotten a taxi yet.

Quick explanation: You cannot legally stay in hotels/hostels in China without a passport. The staff has to register your information with the police, and the police have the right to come at any time and check to see if all the guests staying at the hotel have their physical passports.

So we got on the train. We had a soft sleeper compartment which meant we had some privacy.. there are 4 beds in a soft sleeper. We made the plan to fax a copy to the hostel and then have J & P overnight it in the mail to me in Beijing. Oh my goodness. Mess. So Keli called the hostel, and they were only speaking in Chinese. Then we went through a tunnel and the call was dropped, so she called Sean (he's another teacher at the car school where Keli teaches) to see if Shining (his Chinese girlfriend) would call and talk to them for us. He said it would be okay. Keli sent her a message. Dillon called me and said he was sorry he hasn't been patient with me. (I've been sending him messages every now and then asking questions about buses and such...) Keli and I talked and stuff, and another man came in our compartment. He asked if we could understand Chinese (in Chinese, of course) and if we were Americans. Then he climbed on up in his bunk and was pretty quiet. Keli and I both went to the bathroom and then ate cheeseburgers we had gotten from McDonalds and drank some water mixed with Crystal Light. We pretended to be asleep at one stop just in case someone else came in our compartment and tried sitting on our beds. ha. My stomach was still hurting.. I went to the bathroom. Let's just say it wasn't something you want to hear about. Upset stomachs on a train is NO fun and messy. Keli went to the bathroom after me. She said I should be ashamed.. and with that comment, I'm moving on. Shining called and had gotten the fax number and address of the hostel for us. It was like midnight when that happened, so I couldn't call P with the information. Keli complained about being hungry, and then she started cross-stitching. I turned on my newly bought mp3 player and fell asleep.

Day 2: Shiyan --> Beijing 1/21

I got up around 8 and used the bathroom.. stomach was still hurting. I put some water in my bottle, and I came back and laid back down. I listened to music and slept til 10:30. I got up and messaged P the fax number, and she asked if they could just call with the info. Then she said that they would take a picture of my passport information and email

it to the hostel. Her and J's bright idea was that the hostel could print off the picture, and I could carry that around with me. Listen, that's not what I asked them to do AND not going to work. I asked if she would still send it, and she said she didn't want to get Robert involved. I called Robert. He didn't answer, so I sent Shane (one of my students from last year who lives in Shiyan) a message to see if she was in Shiyan. She didn't know who I was, and by the time I had explained Robert had called back. I explained the situation to him, and he said he would do it but sending the passport in the mail was very dangerous.. but he agreed. I asked him to let me know when he sent it. It made me mad that J & P wouldn't do what I asked them to do.. but I got it fixed. The other guy in our compartment talked to Keli while I was on the phone. He was asking what the things I was saying meant. ha. He tried talking to her a lot, but she didn't understand a lot of what he said. He asked for her number. She gave it to him. She said she thought about giving him a wrong number, but it was good that she didn't because he called her right then. ha. He took a picture of her, and she took one of him. Good times. That was about all the excitement that happened on the train.

We got off and decided to take a taxi to our hostel. Keli used the train station bathroom, and then we stood in a SUPER long line to get a taxi. It didn't take as long as I expected it to though. We watched a lady blow a snot rocket on the ground, and some people tried to cut line, but the people in front of us made them go to the end of the line. I was glad.

Our driver had to look at the address of the hostel like 3 times.. he didn't seem sure as to where he was supposed to go. I called the hostel, and they told him directions, I guess. He dropped us off and we headed inside.

The staff said that their computer was broken so we would have to check in later. We paid them and explained who we were, and they said it was okay.

We put our bags up in our room. It was a little bit ghetto, I'd say. The "security lockers" were tiny.. aka we couldn't put our bags in them. They told us we had to sleep on the bottom bunks because they were the only ones that had been cleaned. We had to go outside to get to our room, and the bathroom there didn't work. We had to go downstairs back into the hostel to use it.

We went back downstairs to order some coffee, and Robert called. He asked for the fax number because the one I had given him wasn't correct. So I asked the staff for the number, and they gave me the same one Robert already had. They talked to Robert and then said they'd call him back with it. Then they called their boss to get the number. The boss said I couldn't stay there without my passport. Nice. The staff did say that if I could get my passport the next day that we could stay there that night without paying. I think they felt bad.

Off to the computers.. Keli called and messaged just about everyone she could think of, and I tried finding a guy I met last year to see if he was still in Beijing. No such luck. There was a guy at one of the computers next to us, and he started talking to us. He was like, why'd you forget your passport? That was stupid. Well, thanks. We found out that he was from Florida, and he was a nice guy. Keli and I had planned on going to Outback Steakhouse for dinner, and we were talking about it when Ryan (the guy from Florida) said he wanted to go with us. So we were like, Okay.. sure. Keli remembered this couch surfing website where you stay with people for free on their couches.. but you had to become a member and stuff, so we couldn't really do it. Turns out Ryan had an account, so we used his account to try and find someone to stay with. He let us just use the computer he was on that had his email and everything open while he went and took a shower. Billy (another teacher in Shiyan who works at Keli's school) called Keli and said that he found a hotel who would keep a room for Keli until 7 pm.. and that I would just have to sneak in later. We decided we would just do that.. after we had spent HOURS looking for somewhere to stay and getting no help from the current hostel. Actually one of the staff came up to us as we were looking for somewhere to stay, and she said it was very annoying to travel without a passport. Keli was like, "excuse me?!" She looked nervous and was like, "uhh.. I don't know how to say..." We just let it go. Ryan thought it was funny.

Robert called during all this and said that he couldn't get the passport there overnight.. the post office said it was impossible. So they said that they could get it there in like 4 or 5 days.. or maybe a week. So we decided that we would have them send it to Shanghai since we had the hostel booked there, and we could just pick it up when we got there.

We also had some more drama going on.. J and I were texting back and forth earlier. He told me he had taken a picture of my passport and sent it to my email. I checked it. It. was. ridiculous. The passport wasn't even open all the way. But that's not the point.. I told him Robert would come by and get my passport to fax and send it like I had asked. He wrote back and said okay and then sent another that was like, "Oh you're welcome by the way." (for emailing the picture.) I said I appreciated it, but I wanted it sent because the hostel was doing me a favor by accepting a copy. He said I should lose the attitude because he didn't have to help me. He chose to.. and next time he wouldn't. I told him that attitudes were hard to figure out through texting (as it seemed he had one...) and that I was just stating a fact. He said, "Fine. Enjoy your holiday." I said, "Thank you. I will." (I had an attitude there for sure.) And that was the end of that.

Oh we had gotten a response from a guy on couch surfing. He was from like Italy or something. His picture was sketch.. it was him holding a miniature couch with toy mushrooms on it. ha. He wanted to meet us at 7:45 at some theater. We said that maybe 8 would be better, and he said that we should meet at 7:45. That would be a better time for him unless he was late. (which made no sense) He said that he might be able to host us, but he might NOT. (He definitely capitalized the not...) He said he had 2 friends who might be able to let us stay. We asked him to send our numbers to his friends, and we said we wouldn't need him. He wrote back and gave us their profile links and said, "see you at 7:45." Umm.. ok. We thought it was clear that we said no to meeting him.

So Ryan from Florida had google maps on his phone, and he led the way to the hotel that Billy got for us. Ryan was really smart and got the idea to take my things with him and check in with Keli with his passport. Then I could sneak in later without all of my things. I was impressed. So I waited in a different hotel for them.

They came back with good news of checking in, so we headed to Outback Steakhouse. It was in Beijing Hotel. It. was. nice. We went in and sat down. We ordered cheese fries, and they brought us a loaf of bread. We talked and got to know each other a little bit. Ryan works for a company that installs touch screen computers in restaurants. He installs them and travels all the time for work.. but this was just a vacation. He decided to spend 8 days in Beijing so he could just "live". He said he wanted to relax instead of go go going. So we ordered steaks, baked potatoes, salads and steamed vegetables. It. was. amazing. We ate everything we ordered and we were stuffed. The waitress tried to take our cheese fries but Ryan was like, "Uh.. we'll eat those." We paid (205 yuan a pop.) and decided to go walk around.

We hit up Starbucks, and I got a drink. I was super miserable after that because I was so full. We walked around the walking street, and we went to The Gap. We went to this cute little alley, but everything was closing down. We did see some sea horses, scorpions and some other gross stuff on sticks. SICK. We walked back to the subway, and on the way Keli dropped her camera. She screamed for some reason. Ryan was walking in front of us, and he jumped like a foot in the air and yelled, "WHAT?!?!" Best. Reaction. Ever. I mean, we were like doubled over with laughter.

While we were walking back we called the hostel and told them that we wanted to do the Great Wall tour that was really touristy because, let's be honest, all I really wanted to do was see it and take some pictures. We told them that we would give Ryan our money and he would bring it to them. They said it was fine. When we got to the subway exit I gave Ryan 520 yuan for Keli and me to do the tour. Good thing I trust random strangers I meet in hostels. ha. We parted ways, and he said that he might join us on the tour. Turns out that when you're leaving the subway you have to put your subway card into the little machine.. if you don't, it's gonna beep REAL loud at you. Yeah, I'm speaking from experience. Ryan was like, "You have to stick it in." Keli said, "That's what she said."

Keli and I walked back to our hotel, and I walked in really quickly with my head down. No one said anything. Keli and I both grabbed showers, and then we laid down. It was crazy hot in that hotel room because we couldn't adjust the heat in the room. We turned on the air conditioner. We talked til it was past 1 am, and then we finally went to sleep. P.S. We had to be at the hostel the next morning at 7:30. In the middle of the night we heard dripping.. it was the air conditioner leaking onto the back of the tv. I'm sure that's not good. Keli put a cup on the back of the tv to quieten it down.

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Photos

To Beijing
Me sitting on my bed on the 20 hour train

Bed Buddy
This guy was in the soft sleeper with us.

Outback Steakhouse
Yummmmmmmm

Outback Steakhouse
Keli and me at Outback.. after we had eaten.

Beijing Subway
This is what we had to face almost every time we got on the subway.

Around Beijing
The Gap on the walking street

Around Beijing
Scorpion on a stick, anyone?

Around Beijing
More Creatures on a stick...

Around Beijing
Creatures on a stick..

Around Beijing
Street food...

Around Beijing
The cute little street we found.

Around Beijing
The cute little street we found.

Around Beijing
Rabbit Lantern

Around Beijing
Keli said, "Hey Ryan!" This was the result.

Around Beijing
And I didn't get a warning..