The first day of my break I woke up super early to Skype Boba. To my dismay I discovered I had no internet. This happens a lot at my school. The internet will be off during the early morning and will magically turn on during lunch time when we would attempt to use it. Brit and I are convinced that they are turning it off. I went back to sleep to gain some much needed rest. I wasn't able to sleep well the week before Boba's arrival. I think I was super excited and just wanted the day to hurry up and arrive. Monday went by super duper slow!
The next day I woke up early to catch my 8:30 a.m. bus. I quickly found a taxi and showed him a text message Dean sent me last semester with the bus station and Beijing airport in Mandarin. Dongying has two bus stations, and only one has buses that go to Beijing. So, I put my iPod on and lean back and relax. I notice that the bus driver tries to take a wrong turn on purpose. He's trying to turn to the right (which is the opposite direction) rather than turn left. Usually when I talk to the taxi drivers in a normal tone it's like they don't hear me. I don't talk super loud and that seems to be the norm in Dongying. This noise just erupted from my core. You could equate it to "hold on one minute!" Whatever it was he stopped haha I told him to turn left. I don't know if he was trying to cheat me or if he didn't pay attention to where I pointed (the airport is first and then the Dongying bus station), but I said it in Mandarin as well. Either way I wasn't having it. Taxi drivers tend to half listen or act like they can't understand me because I'm foreign even though my pronunciation is on point. It's like they see foreigner and they cannot compute. Taxi drivers aren't the only ones in Dongying guilty of this crime.
I arrive at the bus station without anymore trouble. My bus ride ends up being way longer than it normally should be. The bus was getting super hot, and I wanted to get off asap. When we arrive at the bus station, I rush to find a taxi. It's really difficult to get a taxi at this bus station. You have to wait on the side of a highway and hope that no one takes the taxi you flag down. I have a guy approach me, and I figure he's not a legit cab driver. By this time I am super hot and tired. So, I agree, but I set a fixed amount 60 kuai. I figure that I've being severely overcharged (which I later found out I was, it's supposed to be 25 kuai at the most), but I don't care. I just wanted to take a nap.
I arrived at Sanlitun Hostel and fall out! I managed to take pictures before I took an epic nap.
I was really happy to see that I had a double bed. I was afraid that Boba and I would have two twins bed and have to push them together. In my next post I'll talk about my crazy night on the town in Sanlitun!
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