Day 116 - We arrive in the Olmypic City

Okay, summarise Sam. Summarise. Not much sleep on the very packed 11 hour train from Nanjng to Beijing. Some people stood the whole way. Arrived expecting to jump straight onto a metro from the station. Nothing of the sort. A queue of a hundred stood outside waiting to buy tickets from a single ticket counter. Jumped in a taxi. Broke the poor mans bucket in his boot. He wasn't impressed. Frist impressions were meh. Ian agreed. The say the city is the same size as the country of Belgium. Took twenty minutes to get our Youth Hostel in the Dongcheng District. Now I understand why the driver seemed so disgruntled when we should him our address. We got dropped off in a small side street of old cottages and low buildings. Lugging our bags on our backs we proceeded to search for our PLoft Youth Hostel. Found it after many local pointed the way. The girl at reception looked tired. Got shone where the showers were and then explained our rooms were around the corner. Eh, sort of. A 2 min walk outdoors to our rooms. Room is bare, stark and rather minging looking. Not dirty, just lacking in life. The whole looks a little prison like. As it says on the brochure. Not quite what i expected. We head to the hostel cafe. Watch the end of Boy A. Fantastic movie. Highly highly recommend. The room is cold. The whole place seems cold. We go online. Order some jumbo brekkies. Meh. Expensive the food is here. 40 rmb. over €4 not including coffee. Another €1.10 for this. Go and have a shower and freshen up. Shower is a bloody disaster. You have three settings. Skin scorching hot, ski crawling cold or off. Not impressed. Bathroom is meh. Actually less than meh, its shit. No proper sink and its all placed in the back of a boiler house. Do some research on the China Comm Expo that I want to visit. Can not find the address anywhere online. Websites are terrible. Finally find a listing in Google Maps. Have some trouble getting the staff to work out how to write it down. By the time it is all sorted it is 3pm. Conference ends at 4.30pm. Decide to leave it until tomorrow. Ian heads up to the common room upstairs. Bigger room, more couches and not as cold.

I head out after Ian falls asleep to check out the local area. The block is enormous. I'm lost straight away. Call into a local supermarket to buy some supplies. Have to save on spending so much as we are on a tight budget before our bank cards get delivered from Ireland. Buy loads of junk food. Meet a Taiwanese guy that we met in our hostel who was promptly checking out and into another one aroud the corner from ours. He brings me around to the Lama Temple Hostel. It seems much cosier and colourful. Check the price and availability for the boys arrival tomorrow night. Head of to find my way home. Get lost in a labyrinth of dark side streets. Have no idea where I am. I stop an elderly lady and show here my little map. She takes a moment. Ask a taxi driver stopped nearby. He seems to ignore her and mutters something. She smiles at me and motions me to follow her. We walk around a kilometre through winding alleys and streets. I keep thanking here, Xie Xie and she smiles as she leads the way. I could have being lost for hours in the maze. She brings me right to the door. She was walking in totally the opposite direction when I found her. She smiles as I take her hand to thank her one last time. This is the type of treatment we have found so many times in China. People go so far out of their way to try help you. Ian is still in slumber world when I return. I ring Joao and then my mum, to wish her a Happy Birthday. She is in great form and delighted to hear from me. When Ian wakes we watch some Chinese movies on his laptop, called CJ7. Absolute joke of a movie. Eh, dont watch. Fall asleep and wake ten mins later as Ian is turning off the movie. Head to bed and fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

Now that was me summarising. You see, its hard :)