"Knee How" AKA "Ni Hau"

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So we have finally made it... and it sure was a long drawn out trip. Originally we were to arrive in Beijing at 9pm but due to delays we didn't arrive until after 11 or so. The worst part was we were not aware of the delay until after everyone had already boarded the plane at 7:50pm so that made for a bit of an uncomfortable waiting period of 2 1/2 hours. To add to that, I was sandwiched between a Korean mand and Chinese woman and not sitting next to Adele😞 Adele was in the middle seat across from me with a very kind western man who was helping her with our plans... thank you sier! I was a little jealous of this man making plans with Adele instead of me😊. But, it just so happens that the Chinese lady sitting beside me spoke full English so I ended up talking to her the entire way to China. She was interesting to talk to, she went to Med School to practice Traditional Chinese Medicine and is now a pharmaceutical sales woman working for a German company (Bayer and Bayer I think). So I had a lot of questions seeing that is the kind of stuff that interests me. I even learned a few things and want to go and get a full body traditional Chinese massage for a hefty price of $15 US!!!
So the lady said she would do her best to help us find the hostel we were looking for. She arranged for one of her colleagues to take the taxi with us in order to make sure we made it safely to where we were going (and not get ripped off and driven in circles). He also spoke English and gave us his number in case we needed help with anything and paid for our taxi too! So far so good! Got to the Hostel which was down about 4 flights of stairs below ground level in a dirty ass basement! Very random and not what we expected but it made us laugh and giggle hysterically all night (not having slpet for so long didn't help with the excessive laughter)! It was a room for 9 but luckily it was only Adele and I (until some early hour in the morning when people came in and threw there bags around only to leave 5 minutes later, but just enough time to wake us up). The washroom was like nothing I have seen (even in Korea), Adele and I were too scared to use it... but the Chinese girls weren't scared... whip the pants down, don't close the door, forget about all the bugs buzzing around and just go! What the ? Early in the morning I caved and had to go... not a good morning experience. Next up was the showers... again with no doors, dribbling water, no place to put my stuff and almost wiping out on the soaking wet, dirty floor! Did I mention they were communal (no one was there when I went thank God). So we got out of this hell hole around 10 and attempted to find our next venture which first on the list was to find a NEW hostel. We carried our 35 pound bags about 30 minutes, stopping to ask about 10 people where we were going and finally made it...what a relief! 4 person room, cheaper, cleaner, friendlier, English speaking people working, foreigners like ourselves...tralaaaaa!
Lots more to tell but running out of time. I'm sweaty from the crazy amount of walking we have done so far and need to shower, tired from no sleep for the past week and hungry because I am not sure how I feel about the food tasting just yet. Hopefully I'll get the chance to write in a few days before we leave Beijing. We have booked our train for Xian on Monday night... and still have the entire grounds of Beijing to cover first! Sorry for the novel and I hope it doesn't deter you from reading again! I just had a lot to share with you!

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