To catch a ferry to
South Korea, we had to travel first to Qinhuangdao (or basically any
of the several cities along the northeast coast of China that have a
ferry connection to Korea; we chose Qinhuangdao because it's the
closest one to Beijing). But because we had such hard time choosing
whether to leave Beijing in the first place, and because arranging
the ferry tickets was a lot harder than expected, making a
reservation for accommodation in Qinhuangdao was left to the very
last minute. This time it really paid off, although in a very
unexpected way.
In booking.com we got a
good last-minute deal in a hotel called James Joyce Coffetel
(yes, the theme of this franchise brand seems to be coffee &
James Joyce - can someone please tell me what they have to do with
each other?). We haven't really been staying in hotels, but in
Qinhuangdao we had very little choice as most hostels and guesthouses
would not accommodate foreigners. This seems to have something to do
with the law of registering foreign visitors with the state
officials, but we haven't understood it completely.
So, after an effortless
train & bus ride from Beijing we arrived at the Coffetel, all
excited about a night in a fancy-ass hotel. The clerks at the
reception didn't speak much English, but managed to advice us to sit
down and relax, coffee would be served in a minute (a stay at their
hotel includes a complimentary espresso - and it was a good one,
too!). As we sat ourselves on the sofa, I admit letting the words
“Not much could go wrong anymore” slip out of my mouth.
As we sat there, the
clerk was constantly speaking on the phone, and when I had finished
my espresso he waived the reciever at us, as to say we should come
speak with someone. Elina seemed nervous as she took the call. It was
a friendly female voice from booking.com, telling us that also this
hotel was unable (“not qualified”) to take in foreign visitors.
The hotel was to blame for the mistake, as they had not made this
clear on their website, and we would be transferred to another hotel
nearby at their expense. For us this was a bit of a bummer, as we had
chosen this place because of its location close to the port, and any
other option would take us further away. We didn't have too many
alternatives though, and so we sat in the backseat of a Toyota, as
they drove us to our new destination.
What we expected, of
course, was some seedy bunker in the basement of the hotel owner's
cousin who farms cockroaches for a living, and thus were, of course,
surprised to find ourselves in the lobby of a James Bond -esque
residence. The people at the Coffetel really did try their best to
make up for the caused inconvenience. One of them even travelled with
us here just to make sure everything went ok. And it did: we got a
room on the 7th floor, one you could imagine sickeningly
rich businessmen and their mistresses using for secret things, and,
what's best, we got a free breakfast.
And what a breakfast.
We didn't taste everything that was served, let alone knowing what
they were, but the breakfast table was long and prosperous, and next
to the bucket of chopsticks, two pairs of forks and knives were
nicely laid out.
We tried:
- steamed buns; a lot like marshmallow
- fried eggs
- fried rice
- fried noodles & onion
- pickled cucumber
- green salad
- roasted & salted peanuts
- roasted sweet potato
- porridge that was more like a soup
- pickled tofu?
- watermelon slices
- orange slices
- sugar cake
- coffee cake
- cookies with strawberry filling
- cookies with no filling
- asian deep-fried dough
- warm soy milk (awful!)
- coffee
- tea
- orange juice
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