Last night we checked into our hotel in Ying Tan City in the middle of nowhere.
The hotel is known for being the best hotel in the city... But it had some odd quirks. The entire hotel reeked of cigarettes. None of the workers spoke english... Which is pretty unusual for hotels where businessmen travel. When I checked into my room I noticed that there were only 3 squares of TP on the roll and no extra. The tv only had chinese channels. The view out my window was basically piles of trash. I literally woke up to the sound of someone shoveling a pile of trash.
That night we went to dinner at a tiny local restauant. It was DELICIOUS. I tried something that ive always passed up until now. Chicken foot. Basically it tastes fine, but you are just scraping the skin off the bone with your teeth, so theres really nothing to it. Struggling with bony meat is my least favorite part of chinese food however, so after i finished my bony foot, i didnt bother with any more chicken and i just ate tofu and veggies... Which... Truthfully were really delicious.
After dinner we just walked the streets of the city. Our Chinese guide, Mark Yang tried to find the shopping district of this small city, but we didnt exactly find anything except trashy shops of no interest, chinese salons, and food. It was fun walking through the city and seeing what I call "real" china. None of these ppl ever see white men. Many pointed and stared or took our picture. Some little girls in gradeschool said "Hallo!" to us... and burst into giggles when i greeted and waved at them.
The next morning Cody and I had agreed to go running in the city before breakfast... So we met in the lobby at Dawn. Except last night's dinner apparently was reeking havok on Cody's stomach, so we agreed it may not be a good idea to go running through the city in that kind of shape. So I look at the lobby map and see that the "fitness center" is on the seventh floor. We go to the elevator and find that it only goes to the 6th floor.... Confused we started to search for a second elevator that may go higher in another part of the building, we go to floor 6 and look for stairs.... no luck. So we go back to the lobby and flag down one of the girls behind the counter. She speaks zero english, so i make her follow me to the map sitting in the middle of the lobby and point at the area that clearly says "Fitness center 7F" and then something in Chinese which i presume is the translated version of "fitness center"....
The girl looks extremely confused so Cody and I start acting out working out... running in place, lifting weights, doing squats.... Her eyes light up and she waves for us to follow. She takes us to a service stairwell and leads us UP... I start thinking that we just had to take the stairs to the 7th floor. I'm like "Well, the whole point of this, is to get a workout, i dont mind climbing 7 flights of stairs!" But we only go up two flights of stairs and she leads us to the hotel restaurant, which has no lights on and clearly is not open yet. She points for us to Sit down at the table.....
Cody and I are perplexed. How could she come to this conclusion? I can't figure any possible way she could have connected 7F... Fitness center... workout motions.... AH these giant white freaks must want BREAKFAST!...
So we just said no thankyou and went back to our rooms.
By the way, the breakfast restaurant had a roof so low that Cody and I have to duck.... nothing here is made for Tall white guys.
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