такой разный Китай such a different China

such a different China
China - Handan, Jiu Da hotel
So, our first departure from Beijing was to the city of Handan. the city was not particularly impressed, it was interesting to see if there was life in the Chinese provinces. she is. and no worse than in Beijing in terms of quality. We arrived at the hotel at night, so we felt all the "beauty" only in the morning. after moving from a Beijing hotel to a Beijing apartment, there was a week of sleep deprivation. because sleeping on mattresses is simply impossible. in the hotel it was only necessary to sit down on the bed, as it was knocked out instantly. I seriously wanted to steal a mattress from a hotel. I felt like I was in paradise, no less. the location of the hotel is strange - there is nothing nearby, a wasteland. the room is good, the beds, TV and channels are good, we personally watched the good old cartoons about Tom and Jerry) everything is clean in the bathroom, one minus - but it's like that almost everywhere in China - there is no shower or bath. next to the toilet weighs rain and no fence. even curtains. You can't smoke in the rooms because there are no balconies, but you can do it on the corridor, where there are sofas near the ashtrays. it's incredibly smoky in there. Of the minuses in the hotel - breakfast and lack of soundproofing. the first night they slept like the dead, but then... a Chinese couple lived nearby. they clearly set themselves the task of prolonging the family, although at first I thought that the girl was being tortured, then I remembered Takeshi Kitano's film "Takeshizm" and was convinced that in life the same as in the movies. when someone walked along the corridor or talked, it was perfectly audible. breakfast. a nightmare. I didn’t even dare to drink tea (photo attached) unleavened bread, some kind of Chinese soup-porridge. hot soy milk and something spicy. no fruits, vegetables, sweet or elemental juices. as well as there are no places to buy it all. thanks, although there is delivery everywhere and we were brought an early lunch at 11 in the morning - for this thanks to the people who met us and translated at the reception that we want to eat because no one knows English in this hotel. like almost all of China. as for the people in the city. it's a circus. in Beijing, somehow everyone doesn’t care about you, but here. as soon as you stop in the city to smoke, a crowd immediately gathered near you. they took pictures of us or asked to be photographed with us. even the police. the shock was endless. although people are kind, unlike the capital, smiling - you are an exotic animal for them. the worst nightmare of the trip was the road to Beijing. forward rode the express train, fast. hours 4. trudged back 9 hours the usual. from horrors - these are reserved seat cars. since there were two of us, we didn’t even talk about a coupe, I’m afraid to ride in a coupe in Ukraine, but here is China. in the reserved seat they have people riding on all three shelves. during our trip, more than half of the car stood near our seats and stared blankly at us. whether they passed by a hundred times. to infuriate me is the beginning of an hour after 2. it stinks wildly in the cars because they eat there all the muck that they buy at bus stops. True, the toilet surprised us - our trains are far from such cleanliness. and the vestibule is more spacious. after the trip, I made the main conclusion - I don’t take a foot on the Chinese train anymore and wherever I go, I will always take food with me...