Just caught myself bouncing up and down.
Mar. 12th, 2003 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynAnd do you know why? I'll tell you why. It is because, on a hunch, I tapped 'Hostelling International' into Google. I found the organization's main web site at http://www.iyhf.org. I was remembering my trips to Canada fondly - the hostels in British Columbia were quite nice, whether they featured the Magic Triangle or not - and thought perhaps there might be something of that nature available in China. I truly mean no offense to the hotels in the Frommer Travel Guides, since they're evidently places of some quality and good value, but ... well, I'll explain later. Anyway, I went to http://www.iyhf.org.
Link on the home page: Focus on China. Hosteling is not all that common in China but a number of places have been built in some of the cities, sez the page. Not in Hong Kong or Wuhan - where I have penpals - but quite a few in Beijing, where I have got to visit 'cos there's enough museums and historical stuff there to make even my head go 'splodey. They're located all over the city, one near the airport, one in the town center. The Zhaolong International one is an annex of a five star hotel. There are rooms with two beds, rooms with four beds, and rooms with six beds...
... all of which cost six dollars American a night.
Let me repeat that. $6.00. As in, I could stay for a month and pay no more than I would to spend two nights in the Parsippany Sheraton. Yes, I'd have to share a room with strangers, but so what? I did it in Canada. And do you know why I did it in Canada?
Because I hate hotels. The rooms are too big. I have always had a very small room; my largest room came when I was in freshman year of college, at a time when I had a Schroedinger's roommate. (She was technically there if you looked on the office records, but since I never actually saw any evidence of her being there, she existed in an indeterminate state that would have been collapsed by the observation of an outside entity.) I didn't mind that too much, but that was because I lived there. That space was mine and I could claim it. A hotel's different. You aren't going to be there long, and there's going to be someone else there soon, and when you leave you come back only to find that the room's been reset to its original state. It isn't your space and it never will be, so when you lock the room door at night and finally turn off the TV there is no way of avoiding it: you're not in your territory. It's big, empty, and quiet; it's unnerving. Even when you're there for three weeks straight.
Hostels are different. There's people. They're interested in roughly the same things you are: travel and sleep. At least, in my experience they were. The hostels themselves are interesting, not mass-manufactured egg crates for humans. And they don't carry the same vague feeling of 'I should probably be doing more for my money than just sleeping and storing my things' that hotels do; when I spend $60, $80, or whatever per day on something I feel a bit odd about not getting more out of it than a bed and cable TV. I have very little use for my hotel room except as a safe place to sleep and a place to store my clothes. If I want to meet someone or entertain them or be entertained by them, there are places for that. Why bother if I can get the same level of shelter from the elements at a price I can afford? Sharing a room with strangers who just want to sleep is a small thing, hardly worth mentioning. $6 American a night is less than you'd spend on food here.
Well, anyway, that's why I was bouncing up and down and squee-ing. Cheap place to stay in a decent part of town. Now if I can find some tour or something that'll get me to Wuhan and HK, I'll be golden. I want to visit my penpals as well as all the rest, but for now, things just got a lot easier to deal with.
Link on the home page: Focus on China. Hosteling is not all that common in China but a number of places have been built in some of the cities, sez the page. Not in Hong Kong or Wuhan - where I have penpals - but quite a few in Beijing, where I have got to visit 'cos there's enough museums and historical stuff there to make even my head go 'splodey. They're located all over the city, one near the airport, one in the town center. The Zhaolong International one is an annex of a five star hotel. There are rooms with two beds, rooms with four beds, and rooms with six beds...
... all of which cost six dollars American a night.
Let me repeat that. $6.00. As in, I could stay for a month and pay no more than I would to spend two nights in the Parsippany Sheraton. Yes, I'd have to share a room with strangers, but so what? I did it in Canada. And do you know why I did it in Canada?
Because I hate hotels. The rooms are too big. I have always had a very small room; my largest room came when I was in freshman year of college, at a time when I had a Schroedinger's roommate. (She was technically there if you looked on the office records, but since I never actually saw any evidence of her being there, she existed in an indeterminate state that would have been collapsed by the observation of an outside entity.) I didn't mind that too much, but that was because I lived there. That space was mine and I could claim it. A hotel's different. You aren't going to be there long, and there's going to be someone else there soon, and when you leave you come back only to find that the room's been reset to its original state. It isn't your space and it never will be, so when you lock the room door at night and finally turn off the TV there is no way of avoiding it: you're not in your territory. It's big, empty, and quiet; it's unnerving. Even when you're there for three weeks straight.
Hostels are different. There's people. They're interested in roughly the same things you are: travel and sleep. At least, in my experience they were. The hostels themselves are interesting, not mass-manufactured egg crates for humans. And they don't carry the same vague feeling of 'I should probably be doing more for my money than just sleeping and storing my things' that hotels do; when I spend $60, $80, or whatever per day on something I feel a bit odd about not getting more out of it than a bed and cable TV. I have very little use for my hotel room except as a safe place to sleep and a place to store my clothes. If I want to meet someone or entertain them or be entertained by them, there are places for that. Why bother if I can get the same level of shelter from the elements at a price I can afford? Sharing a room with strangers who just want to sleep is a small thing, hardly worth mentioning. $6 American a night is less than you'd spend on food here.
Well, anyway, that's why I was bouncing up and down and squee-ing. Cheap place to stay in a decent part of town. Now if I can find some tour or something that'll get me to Wuhan and HK, I'll be golden. I want to visit my penpals as well as all the rest, but for now, things just got a lot easier to deal with.
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Og make mistake.
Date: 2003-03-12 11:36 am (UTC)Most expensive youth hostel in HK? The Mt. Davis Youth Hostel (sponsored by Jockey Club, apparently.) Highest price I could find for shared accommodation was $65 HK a night. That translates out to $8.50 American at current exchange rates.
Daaaaayum.
no subject
Date: 2003-03-12 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-12 11:50 am (UTC)