Hua Kai Hotel

I've talked somewhat about my hotel in earlier entries like when I first arrived here, but I'm going to start from the beginning, mainly for the flow of the story:

The Hua Kai Hotel is in the Dongcheng district on a hutong, right off of Nanluogu xiang, which is a well-known bar street, with all the buildings in old Chinese style. The location is great, about a 5-minute walk from Houhai and Beihai Park, however, the hotel itself is another story...

When I first arrived at the Hua Kai, I was put in a room at the end of the fourth floor. Within 10 minutes, I discovered that the toilet was broken, and the hotel staff, which consists of two young-ish girls and the owner (Lao Li), told me I could pick any room on the floor. They started opening doors and showing me different rooms. At this point, I just wanted to put my stuff down, so I chose the room next door.

Let me pause here and give you a general description of the rooms in our hotel: Every room consists of minimum 2 beds, a desk, some cabinets, a closet, a coffee table with two chairs, a small water cooler with hot and warm water, and a bathroom with sink, toilet, and tub/shower. Beyond those common items, there are very few other similarities. The rooms on the right sides of the hallways are smaller, and generally have a green-ish bowl sink, whereas the ones on the left sides have an entire black marble counter with an inset grundgy tan (maybe it used to be white) sink. Some of the larger rooms have 3 beds, and one of them even has one huge (like bigger than king-size) bed and then one twin. The AC also varies from room to room, some with individual units and some with somewhat central-air that is controlled by the floor, not to mention the fact that the functionality of both types is sporadic.

Within a couple of days in my new room, I realized that the window wouldn't close all the way, the water heater for the shower constantly got unplugged, and there was no curtain on the shower (this was the case in everyone's room). After someone complained, a curtain appeared on my shower, and I managed to get the window fixed, but not the outlet for the water heater. I found myself standing on the toilet (it was plugged into the ceiling) fixing the plug about twice a week. There were also three light switches in the room, one of which turned on all the lights (bathroom and main room), one of which turned on the fan in the bathroom, and one of which did nothing. This made it extremely frustrating to pee in the middle of the night.

As far as sanitation goes, it doesn't really exist in the Hua Kai. Our program director told us we were supposed to have our rooms cleaned every day and sheets changed once a week. The first week or two, they were pretty good about emptying the garbage and taking the dirty towels (but not giving us clean ones), but then it slowed down. They will also come into the room while you're sleeping on weekends and just do such things without even recognizing your presence. Anytime you need anything, you need to go downstairs and ask. This includes: toilet paper, new sheets, new water, towels, a broom to sweep your room (I'm sure none of you are surprised I would ask for this), etc...

Since we've been here, the hotel staff has set up a convenience store in the lobby, which is relatively convenient (duh!). It sells cold drinks including 3 kuai beers, bowls of instant noodles, cigarettes, sanitary napkins, condoms, etc...

Onto the hotel staff: The two women who work in the hotel most definitely live there 24/7. One of them sleeps on the bench in the lobby every night, and I'm not sure where the other sleeps. I'm assuming the owner, Lao Li, lives elsewhere since he's usually not around at night. A new woman started working there a few weeks ago who wears dresses all the time and looks a lot less rugged than the other two. The other two also got into some sort of catfight last week, and are both covered in scratches and bruises on their faces and arms. It's kind of absurd, and we've all been somewhat scared of them since.

About the other people in the hotel: The second floor of our hotel we're all pretty sure is some sort of brothel/KTV (karaoke television). We all pretty much avoid it by taking the elevator, but noises from there definitely float up to the third floor. Additionally, there are a bunch of Chinese drama students who live in the hotel. One of them in particular is probably the most dramatic and rude person I've ever met. She borrows people's phones and laptops all the time, and will use them for hours without getting up. She had 2000 kuai stolen from her room at one point and accused one of the guys on our program who ended up getting taken to Chinese jail and questioned for a couple of hours (luckily he's Chinese and speaks fluently). She has also on two occasions had extended screaming/crying phone conversations, the first of which was at 5pm, and the second on which woke us all up at 3am.

This past Monday morning, at 9:30am, I was on skype with my parents when the power went out. I went out into the hall and in my best Chinglish asked when it was coming back on. I was told to wait a little bit, and then about 15 minutes later, the woman comes back to my room, wakes up my roommate, and informs us that we need to move upstairs because there's no power on the fourth floor. When do we need to move? RIGHT NOW!! It's 9:30 in the morning, and we'd lived in this room for 6 weeks! She then reasoned with us and said we could move at 10 or 11, but she wouldn't give me the key to the new room. After packing all of our stuff up (luckily Callie and I are pretty organized), we moved it all upstairs, and then I managed to explain that the hotel woman had to give me the key to our new room before I gave her back the old key. She finally gave in...

Our new room is on the opposite side of the hall, so it has the different bathroom, and we now have three beds. It also has the central air, but it's worked out so far (the two nights we've been there that is). Our group now is awkwardly split between the 5th and 3rd floors with four people still on the 4th floor (somehow they didn't have to move). My stuff is still somewhat in suitcases, but I guess I'll be a bit more organized when I leave in three weeks now...