Beijing

I don't really like taking responsibility for my mistakes. If it's ever possible, I will try my best to slyly push them off to someone else. And if my brother is around, it's almost certain that he is the one who will get blamed. And if I'm hungry when I'm doing the blaming, then chances are, it won't be so much "sly" as "overtly yelling that this is definitely the other person's fault."

However, when I began making a series of mistakes yesterday that culminated in Laura, Everett and I standing today in a crowd of about 5,000 Chinese people, not having eaten in 24 hours, having only had half a bottle of water during that time, and not having a single penny of accepted currency to our name, I didn't even have the strength or desire to blame someone else. I just wanted a Big Mac, a Diet Coke and a shower more than I've ever wanted anything in my life.

You see, after all my big talk on this blog yesterday about our going to get snacks etc, we ran out of time. Also, it didn't really occur to us to get Chinese money before we left Hong Kong. Also, it didn't occur to us to make reservations at a hotel or hostel in Beijing before we got here. Also, it didn't occur to us to find the address of a hotel or hostel before we got here. So, you see, we have only ourselves to blame.

Yesterday afternoon, after we'd settled into our rooms on the train, Laura and I were hungry. We hadn't eaten anything since having muffins for breakfast and it was 3 o'clock. Laura went down to check out the food car and was met with a lot of yelling in Chinese and forcing her to go back to our room. Luckily Everett had purchased some random almond flavored cookies at the duty free shop at the train station, so we ate those.

Dinner time arrived and some guy yelling in Chinese came down the hall. We offered to buy something from him in Hong Kong dollars, he shook his head and kept walking. So, Laura and I ventured down to the food car again. This time we sat down at a table and began checking out a menu with photos of food on it. The only problem was that no one spoke English and we couldn't tell if they'd take our money. We also had very limited Hong Kong dollars so we didn't even know if we had enough money for dinner. After a lot of yelling, dirty looks shot our way, and some very exasperated Chinese people, Laura and I spread out our combined wealth of 50 Hong Kong dollars (that's about 7 USD)on the table, trying to explain that was all we had and hoping they would give us some food for it. Our "waitress," who pretty much hated us, scooped up the money and disappeared. Eventually, she reappeared with one dish that we could split between the two of us. Apparently that was all we could afford. We ate as if we'd never seen food.

Back in the room, we all had about half a water bottle left. We rationed them as the night wore on. Due to a severe lack of entertainment and Laura's addiction to ambien, the night was fairly short. We played a few rounds of 20 questions and one game of Ghost, which Laura was a asleep by the end of. We were all asleep before 10:30. And we all slept until around 10:30 a.m. The amazing thing was, the train was still moving when we woke up. I mean, there are long trips, and then there are 25 hour train rides. I feel like I'm still moving and we got off the train 5 hours ago.

By noon, our water was almost completely gone. I just kept mumbling about Big Macs. Everett pointed out that I was past the "angry" stage of hunger and had just moved on to depression. It's true. I felt like I wasn't sure life was worth living anymore. I think my stomach had started swelling from starvation. We all kept falling asleep because that's what happens when you're on a train for hours on end and haven't eaten or drank anything in what feels like eternity.

When we pulled into the Beijing train station, I've never been happier for fresh air. Of course, going through customs in communist China in a train station isn't as simple as one might think. Basically I kept getting moved around to different lines by different people. Like, one lady moved me to one line and then a man came up and told me that line was just for diplomats and yelled at me to get in another line. By the end, when another lady was trying to move me back into the diplomat line I just kept looking around like I didn't hear her, hoping I wasn't going to get thrown into prison before even making it through customs.

Finally, we were out of the train station. Except, not really. Because we had to get money and apparently finding an ATM in the Beijing West train station is like the exact opposite of trying to find a massage on the streets of Bangkok (it's impossible, in case that little reference was too much of a stretch). After lugging our insane amount of accumulated baggage around for about half an hour, I'd had enough. I was weak from thirst and tired of having the thousands of people lounging around the stations stare at me like I was crazy. I insisted that we deposit our luggage in one place where two of us could gaurd it and then the third would go in search of an ATM. I was nominated as that third person.

So, I went on the great search for an ATM. I would equivocate this to how Columbus must have felt going to the New World: discouraged, not sure if he'd ever find anything and weak from long hours on a moving vessel. Also, I understand that I don't look Chinese. I'm 5'9" with blond hair and blue eyes, but seriously, there is a major cultural difference in the amount of staring allowed by social norms here. I walked around for about 20 minutes looking for an ATM and I'm pretty sure I've never been stared at that much in the rest of my life combined.

I never did find an ATM. Well, actually, that's a lie. I did. But it wouldn't take my card. I also had to pass a KFC on my way to it which almost made me cry. I returned back to our spot and sent Everett out. 20 minutes later he returned with money and apple flavored water, which we all gulped down like we'd been in the dessert for days. I also hugged Everett long enough for him to get uncomfortable in the basement of the train station.

The thing is, you'd think this would be the end of the story. But that means that you've forgotten about our lack of hotel and/or hotel address planning. From the train station we ended up in a cab with an extremely friendly driver who spoke no English, but listened to a lot of Bob Marley as we drove through Beijing. It's odd to think that the next time I hear Bob Marley, I'll probably think of Beijing. We stopped at several hotels, drove around in circles and made a lot of gestures before ending up at a random hostel down an alley, which actually seems quite nice. It was 6:30 p.m. before we got to the hostel. I am pretty sure that it is purely through God's good grace we're here and not sleeping on the floor of Beijing West train station tonight.

And, don't worry, after chowing down at KFC (I insisted that we were strictly eating American food tonight) we stopped at a convenience store for snacks. There's a famous scene in Gone with the Wind when the main character, Scarlett, after a rather harrowing day during the Civil War era, starts pulling up dirt at sunset and screaming "I'll never be hungry again." That's kind of what I felt like in the convenience store. I am now armed with enough random food to make it through the four days. Maybe longer. I'll never be hungry again.