Shout Out to Andrew and Weewee

Beijing, China

We made it to China.

Our last night in Japan was spent in Kobe, on the southern coast of Honshu. There, we sampled the local delicacy of Kobe beef, and it was delicious. I had heard of Kobe beef before, and the ridiculous levels of luxury involved in its creation, but I wasn't ready for it. It was by far the best steak I had ever had. Tender, savory. My mouth is watering right now just thinking about it. The meal was almost worth the $200 we spent on it.
The rest of that night was spent in a simple Japanese "shot bar" on the second floor of a random alley building. It was named Dilse, and it was theme was taken from an Indian film made in 1998. Weird. I tried some of the Nepalese rum they had. And, of course, we drank with the locals, and handed out business cards. Another successful OC operation.

The next morning, we boarded the ferry to China. It was a long two-day tour along the southern coast of Honsho, and across the East China Sea. I spent most of the time reading and messing around with some OC photo albums. There were also some spectacular pictures along the route, and we chatted a bit with some fellow travelers. Canadians, but we won't hold that against them.
Ooh. And there was Karaoke.

Upon our arrival in Beijing, we were blessed with two guardian angels. The first was a Indonesian fellow named Weewee, who was on the shuttle with us from our ferry port in Tengen to Beijing. Well, it was supposed to go to Beijing. It turns out that our bus driver was trying to cheat us, and was only going to take us to the train station at Tianjin. When Weewee found out, he fought the good fight, keeping us all updated on how the bastard was screwing us (WW spoke four languages), and eventually got us half of our money back. We were dropped off at the train station, said goodbye to Weewee, and bought ourselves some tickets to Beijing. That's where we met our second savior.
Andrew (his english name) was a Chinese student who was on the train to Beijing to visit his family. We struck up a conversation almost immediately, and he was very friendly. After the train stopped at its destination, I figured we would part ways. But, Andrew refused to say goodbye until he had helped us work out our accommodations in Beijing. It took us about an hour, but he eventually scored us a great hotel right near the station for a good price (about $40/night for a double). He went way out of his way to help us out, and did it all with a smile.

So, here we are now, in the Sanjuanjingan Hotel, enjoying cheap a cheap room and ample broadband access. We arrived in Beijing two days ago, and spent all of yesterday doing chores and cleaning up. Today, we are off to start our exploration of China.