A word about hostels (it’s all part of the adventure! :) At least at THIS hostel! Because they messed up our reservation, 3 of us are staying in a dorm room, along with 3 guys! First night, no problem, except one of us had to sleep on the TOP bunk (me!), difficult when getting out of bed during the night. But we managed- (we’ll be moving to our reserved room tonight for the last 2 nights here). There is a locker for each of us to store things so am able to lock up passport and the iPad I’m carrying to deliver to Wei Yuan in Yangzhou.
In the morning, however, one of us got ready to use the shower, had soap and towel (which we leave a deposit for) on her pillow. When she goes to have her turn, only the soap is there. She searches EVERYWHERE, turns the room upside down. The only thing we can think of is one of the guys had gone out and he must have taken the towel with him. So that night he hasn’t shown up again. But when we return to the room, there is a smaller wet towel on her bed so the sheet (a lot) and the duvet (slightly) is damp. Also the curtain has been taken off the window and draped around the bottom bunk of this guy. The other two guys in the room are chatting and speak English. They say he probably had his girlfriend in the room during the day and wanted privacy!! She is furious at how inconsiderate this guy is of anyone else in the room! She goes to the desk and the non-English speaking clerk comes up with a fresh sheet and hands it to her to make up the bed herself! Says the curtain is “broken” and refuses to rehang it (too high for us). The guy doesn’t come back until midnight or so when I was awakened by the locker opening, light on and him fumbling around in the locker. When I just got up this a.m. I look over and there is a woman sleeping on the edge of this bottom bunk (and I assume the guy is on the inside) with the curtain still draped around!! Don’t want to miss being back in the room when our group member and the guy and girl wakes up!! Don’t think she will just let it all pass without saying something!! In all my years of hostel stay, I’ve NEVER had anyone so rude and inconsiderate like this!! I don’t really care if he sneaked in his girlfriend, even if he isn’t paying, as long as he was considerate of the rest of us. But he’s just plain rude!!!
This hostel has a lovely cafe, however, with an inside bar, computer and tables and an outside and upstairs lounge area for people to spread out and hang out. We all got some dinner here after our boat trip last night and it was delicious! Breakfast yesterday was so-so. We all chose the French breakfast, described as egg with toast and fruit, which turned out to be French toast, a bit dry with no syrup! No one ate the watermelon as were worried about fruit.
Today we might opt for the Big Red Bus tour around Shanghai today with an on/off feature. We can get a good overview of the city and get off at YuYuan Gardens, JinMao tower on PuDong side to go up to the 88th floor hotel for the view, maybe at sundown (although you NEVER see the sun here, it just gets dark and the lights come on), Jade Buddha temple, Shanghai Museum (although that’s right near here at the hostel), and any other sites people want to get off to see. Our other day will be spent on a 1/2 hour train trip toward Suzhoui to the canal town of Zheziang, I think it’s called, to walk around a smaller city near the Grand Canal.
We are going first thing to the train station to purchase our tickets for Tuesday for Yangzhou so I can e-mail Liu Renjie what our arrival time will be. Hopefully there will be an English-speaking line at the station!
Such fun, the hostel experience reminded me of college!!!!
ReplyDelete