China so far

Back to the travel aspect.

I got off the ferry and I had absolutely no money. Not a single Chinese Yuan. I found some ATMs and they had the little Cirrus and Maestro logos but no money came out. Some kind of error. I still don't know what the problem was. I could understand my Korean account not working since I've never used it outside of Daegu (Korea at least). My Canadian one worked in Korea though.

Then I remembered that I had about 70,000 Korean won ($70). I found a bank but they wouldn't change it since it wasn't a major currency. Not a dollar, euro, pound, or a yen. They told me to go to the Bank of China to exchange it. I thought I had found one and they refused it. It might have been a different bank. They are all Bank of China. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Agricultural Bank of China. Commercial Bank of China. Anyways, the logos for some are similar. I was really discouraged though and imagined either becoming homeless in Weihai (already penniless), resorting to begging and thieving, selling my camera, or using my credit card to stay at a nice hotel and having my parents wire me money. I guess only 1% of China has a credit card so the last plan may have been iffy, that's why it needed to be like a 4 star hotel.

I walked down the street going the wrong way of course since I did't imagine it was down the other way since it was short and people kept pointing up this other street rather than down the one I was on. Eventually, I found it though and all that wandering around for ATMs with my logo that would actually work and for the mythical Bank of China let me see enough of the city so I took a taxi from the bank to the bus station.

I'm such a retard here. I can't speak the language and am totally illetirate. That doesn't look like the right spelling but unlike in Korea I wouldn't even be able to sound things out. I should've learnt more Chinese. I had my bus ticket and I had no idea what it said. The door number, bus number, time, anything. I'll just have to get good at place names. That was all I could manage in Weihai (too bad I'm not a pothead, that name could've meant much more) in order to get to Yantai.

I arrived in Yantai and was looking for this hotel. I was sure I was near it but these girls decided to help me and told me I needed to get on this bus and the driver would tell me when to get out. I don't know who didn't know what they were talking about but I ended up in the middle of nowhere really. Actually it was a nice drive, the coast was on one side and some building being guarded by military police. I got back to where I had been and being on the other side of the street can grant so much perspective sometimes. In big letters on a sign I must have walked by 5 times but invisible when you walk right under it, the name of the hotel.

I bought a bit of food for very little money and then came here. Nearly $0.50 for 2 hours of internet. Anyways, that's what I've done today. I also slept a bit on the bus ride over and depressing thoughts I had been having in Korea have stopped because I've been actually doing things that require way to much mental energy for what I'm actually trying to accomplish. Getting on a bus at home or the subway require virtually no mental effort whatsoever. I've also felt much more confident in my Korean since that is what I want to speak now. There's not even a word for no in Mandarin. You have to take the verb and add a negative modifier. How I'm to decipher the verb when I can't distinguish words even will be impossible. Good old headshake, it'll have to be. I should buy a phrasebook probably. This is the least touristy city I will probably visit though (transit point to Shanghai) so I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S WORTH IT. Time to go, sorry for the caps there.