12 hours in Beijing

After exiting the train station in West Beijing, I realized i was ALONE. I knew I had to catch bus no. 823, but it was no where insight. With my kindergartner level chinese, I asked around and got a lot of finger points in the direction I was supposed to go. I found it just when I was about to give in to one of the taxi drivers. I got off at the stop the directions said to, but nothing looked like what was on the map. I asked a nice lady where the street I was looking for was and she ushered me on to another bus and 5 minutes later told me to get off. Lone and behold I was right next to the street I had been looking for! 10 minutes of walking with my 70 pounds of luggage and I had finally found the hostel. It was my first hostel experience where I actually stayed in a dorm and I was expecting the most dingy place I could think of when I only paid 8 dollars for the night. It was really nice though, like a hotel room but packed with 4 bunk beds to sleep 8. No one was in the room when i came but I saw all their luggage. I fell asleep only an hour later to be woken up by "Hello my beautiful new roommate!" This old guy with a Hungarian flag painted on his head was looking up at me. he was very talkative, but after a little bit I convinced him I had to go to bed.

at 5 am I woke, showered, saw that the room I was in was filled with men, packed, and left for the airport. Again the directions I was given were wrong to the airport shuttle, but i was able to find the subway, take the subway to the airport shuttle, take the airport shuttle to the airport, get through 6 security check points, wait over an hour in the S. China Air check in line and make it to my plane. Phew!