(read with chinese simplified font!) for the 2 days that i was in hangzhou the last weekend, i went to the toilet for a total of 2 miserable times. i’ll spare you the gory toilet details here, but i must say i’m now trained to take the smell of fermented beancurd with a pinch of salt. the trip was quite an adventure and i had a very good experience. the fun index wasn’t very high, probably due to the fact that things were very cheap, and yet we didn’t bring enough money at all! sigh! ok, we were stupid enough to each buy one packet of miserable tea leaves for 250 yuan. the tactics they used were really hard sell! grrr… thinking back, i can only feel stupid. each of us were thus left with about 350 yuan for visiting the attractions and accommodation. i learned that even though my travel mate, noelle, is a very nice and easy-going girl, both of us have very different traveling styles. she is the really garung type, while i was more cautious, and the important thing on my mind was how were we going to find a place to sleep with only about 100 yuan to spare. i almost fainted when she suggested spending all the money we have on sight-seeing, and at night, we can sleep by xi hu, on her poncho. xi hu is the main attraction in hangzhou. it is a very very big lake, and in the daytime, temperature is about 16 degrees celsius. the wind is quite chilling cold. stay by xi hu and endure temperature of below 10 degrees celsius?! the only warm piece of clothing i had on was a lotto jacket! i managed to persuade her that we really needed to have at least a roof over our heads at night. but alas, with our tiny budget, we have the problem of where to stay. in china, it is illegal for foreigners to stay in budget hostels, commonly known as 招待所. such budget hostels are reserved for locals, and foreigners are allowed to only stay in hotels (宾馆、饭店). after one whole day of traveling by foot, sightseeing the “mountains and waters”, we were very tired. but the only hotel we saw when we came to the city area was fully booked! we walked and walked for a few streets, and after asking several people, we managed to see 2 words on a red signboard�C 住宿. yeah! we followed the signboard to a small street, then we turned into a small, dark, quiet alley. then we turned into a smaller, darker alley. the people we passed by stared at us, the drains stank, and the alleys were wet with no lighting except for the dim orangey lights from some shophouses. we finally came to a dim dark shophouse, where an old lady was sitting behind a small counter. she showed us to a very small room with a sad looking wooden bed with a thin quilt covering, and a small tv (wow, there’s tv!). the price she quoted us, which was the best thing about the hostel, was 60 yuan for 2 people! either the mandarin we spoke was impressive, or we looked just like one of them, but she hasn’t realized we were not locals! she was very shocked when we took out our passports to register for the room, and told us where to find hotels where foreigners should rightfully stay in. we were really desperate then, and spent 10 minutes standing there, begging her to take us in. in the end, she sort of took pity on us. but she upped the rental to 100 yuan, we had to go out and not return before midnight, and she even gave us a long and weird address to memorise in case someone came to check. we had to plan a complicated story… but at least we had a place to stay in. so that was how i spent my night in hangzhou, in a small, dark room, all dirty because i hadn’t dared to used the bathroom with slimy walls. i took one visit to the toilet, where big cockroaches threatened to climb up my feet as i tried to pee as fast as i could. it was, on hindsight, pretty funny. i am so used to clean toilets and decent beds that i cannot adapt dirty environments, but this is how the majority of the world lives. and well, they are still alive and kicking! but here i am, typing a long blog on something which would probably seem quite silly. hai…! am i a spoilt brat or what?! great thing is i picked up some bargains for my friends. wahaha, got 2 orange t-shirts for 2 friends who like the colour. the tees looked nice in the shops, but somehow, became pretty gaudy and tasteless when i took them out from my bag last night. (i don’t care, i give, you must take!) got a cheena poster, one tank top, a pair of 3/4 pants and a cheena blouse. and of course, the tea leaves. so it was, in all, a fruitful trip. i think i am really richer with the experience, though a lot poorer in the pockets. (anyone got the hints?) ok, that’s about all for the long entry. and really sorry for the non-replies to the emails. i must be really really tactical in using the computer, because a dozen people pass by my desk every hour or so. and my computer screen faces the walkway, thus it can be seen by anyone kpo enough! i can’t help grinning at the monitor as i type, which makes things all the more worse. give me time, give me time, ok? ;)