The Dungeon

Oh, where to start. I feel I always need to answer this question not only to you but to myself. The funny thing about that statement is that you really is myself. Wow, I just blew my own mind. At any rate I made it back from Xian. You may not have realized this seeing as how there have been very few (none) posts on this exact blog. Luckily those people who worry about me knew - side story: once upon a time I decided to take a trip to the land down under. At the conclusion of my trip and upon arrival back in the US I stayed with my friend Jon in LA. We were having a grand ol time going to the beach and the pool and eating American foods. I decided to call home the third day that I was there and to my surprise home was upset. Why, I asked myself. Come to find out that those who worry most about me nearly called the FBI to go find me in Fiji. Since that day I have learned that i need to keep these people well informed of my whereabouts. Since I don't know Chinese it is very difficult to obtain international phone access here. Luckily, I do know how to use a computer so I can write emails, and believe it or not the keyboards are in Roman characters so the Chinese have to write pinyin to make a character. Ha, America wins again. Side story over.

Before leaving for Xian I realized that I may be running low on monetary units so I did some research and poking around and found a cheap place to stay in my quaint little neighborhood of Wodaoku. This of course is in the Haidian district of Beijing just outside the third loop. I found a hostel with really crappy rooms for 75 kuai a night or a little less than $10. This isn't too bad since I was paying 168 before I left. I figured that since I was only to be back in Beijing a couple of weeks this would be no problem. Come to find out that the act of checking in was nearly too much for me. I didn't check out the room since I had seen one before and decided to go ahead and book it for only one night. The girls behind the counter at first seemed very serious and straight laced but after using an internet translator to try and translate Chinese to English for me they went nuts because we did. The translation ended up accusing us (Mike was trying to help me) of being traitors. We of course took offense since it was so close to the 4th of July and made a big ruckus. Good times ensued and I finally got my room. Go down to check it out and can barely fit in the door since it rams into the side of the bed when I try to push my way through. Let me try and give a layout of the room: size is about 5' x 8' (the ' means ft i think) this is enough room somehow to fit a lofted single bed, 2 chairs with a glass table between, and a desk set up with a phone and TV. These Chinese amaze me everyday with their feats of engineering. So I throw my stuff down and get out of there which would come to be a common theme over the next several days. I don't know if I mentioned the reason for the name of the post but, quite simply, this room is in the basement which is much like a dungeon. Note that it is not cool like the dungeon at Civy that Matt and I forced Nate and Grass into every day but it's more like a real dungeon where everyone is depressed because they have been in the depressing, moldy, wet, dark environment for way too long. I would tell you the name of the place so you could see for yourself but again I am little help. I can't leave off the bathrooms or bathroom rather since it is shared by 2 floors of rooms. There is one girl's and one boy's and they are filthy, nasty, dirty like the south. When we originally went in to check the place out Mike looked in the all squatter bathroom to find a big pile right there. No good either on the eyes or nose. Shower = disgusting and the sandals provided to wear in are covered with mold as well so i don't know if they are helping me not get fungus on my feet. I didn't though and I didn't get sick so I guess it was ok. I quickly learned the area and found a cafe nearby with nice sit down toilets to use until 1230 at night. Worth the price of a coffee for sure. I actually got into this practice a lot - spending as little time in the room as possible. It was depressing so I did more walking and sitting in cafes than I had up to that point. Routine was to go home around 1 in the morning or the time that i was about to fall asleep, jump in bed and sleep. Wake up to the alarm and get the hell out. What a life.

Another problem with this place is that it is illegal for foreigners to stay there. Minor, you may say and I would usually agree in that if they let you in who really cares. But, this time I needed a visa extension and to get such a thing in the land of red tape you need a temporary residence form from where you are staying and to get this form you have to go register at the police station in your district and to do this you have to know freaking CHINESE. Suck. Finally, after talking to the lovely Ms Yang at Tsinghua several times and her making several phone calls on my behalf I decided to move back to He Jia. I didn't want to pay those prices but it's better than paying 500 a day for each day over your visa or going to jail if it's 10 days. Moved back over and the language barrier was still there so I have Ms Yang call them and explain and it all works out. Rewind. I need this because I had gone to the visa bureau the week before and they didn't accept my application because of my place of residence. The manager at the hostel wouldn't let the girls at the front desk give me the paper because my Korean translator told me that they did it before and the black people made them get in trouble with the police so they don't do it anymore. The girls were on my side and told the manager I was American and not black (all, or most of the black people here are from Africa) and wouldn't get them in trouble. Didn't really get what was going on at the time but it all goes back to the fact that it is illegal for me to stay there. Luckily now I am back at the fabulous He Jia that gets better everyday and I share a room with Mike, finally made him give in, so it's not too much more. We now have a separate shower handle and a peep hole. What's next?