Day 184, China day 6

Woke up feeling like crap. My head was pounding and I caught a cold. I felt hungover even though I didn't drink a sip of beer last night, just lots of OJ. But I will feel much better today anyway, since today is the last day of Tianjin, thank god! But I'll feel a little sad after what Su's family did last night. They told me that I had earned their respect, and there was also a feeling I can't describe. I wasn't related by blood and yet I was treated like a family member. The elder at the table toasted me at least 3 times and had said he was proud of me for coming back to China even though I was born outside, since not a lot of Chinese, like me, come back and visit their homeland.

And I found out about this today: Apparently Su was a little too drunk last night to translate what most of his family members were saying, but many of them wanted to introduce their daughters to me. No one wanted to introduce their daughters to Su though...damn Su doing that :P I heard one of the daughters were really beautiful too...TT

I just can't seem to have enough good things to say about Tianjin (rolls eyes)... Almost missed our train back to Beijing. Su's cousin didn't know where the station was, so we got out of his car when we were stopped at a red, and we ran across a street to catch a taxi. Frankly, to sum up Tianjin in the past 2 days: I'm sore, tired, dirty, caught a cold, freezing so had to sleep in my jacket...Tianjin was for the most part a complete waste of 2 days. Spent more time walking between bus stops, and train stations than really exploring. But there were some really good things there too, best described, those things were the flower that grew out of that pot of dirt.

After getting back into Beijing, praise the lord!, we checked into the 7 days inn/motel. For 3 nights it's $132 CDN but it's worth every cent since it felt like a 3 star hotel. Su, who had been advocating we stay at that bunker at the Chinese academy of Sciences again because it was cheap, did a complete 180 and said he'd never stay at that place ever again xD. But I had left luggage back there so we had to go back and get it...

Later in the evening, when I was looking forward to taking my first shower in a couple days, I couldn't effing believe it. The shower didn't have hot water...Actually, it turns out we needed to let the water run for 5 mins to have hot water. Never heard that before at all, but only in China.

I'll end day 6 with this: It's wonderful to be back in Beijing and feels great to be clean again. The day started off crappy but ended really good. Today was a rest day but it sure didn't feel like it. I'm tired, and sore all over.