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I would be stupid not to stay another day.

DAY 3: New guy in our room, a University of Oregon grad named Sven (who looks nothing like a Sven). Pickle wakes up at 2pm and suggests our little American clique have lunch at a Tex-Mex restaurant across town. I feel guilty not eating Sichuan hot pot like I'm supposed to, but my conscience is quickly lost in a world of melted cheese and refried beans. Nighttime at the Stir-Fry is hopping, the open-air courtyard crowded with people from every country imaginable sitting around drinking and chatting, their accented conversations invariably beginning with "Where are you from?" followed by "Where are you going?" Happy laughter is a constant. Our world leaders would do well to study life in a hostel. A British bloke wearing a polo shirt with an upturned collar alternates between hitting on the Chinese front-desk girls (now uniformly wearing size-too-small summer skirts) and asking everyone "Are you going out tonight?" Me, Pickle and Sven opt for watching the Quentin Tarantino blood-and-breasts fest "Hostel" on the lounge DVD player. It's almost like the Stir-Fryexcept everyone gets killed.

DAY 4: Said British bloke, his collar now only half-upturned, is passed out drunk on the lobby couch till late afternoon. He was supposed to have caught an early-morning flight back to the UK, the receptionist tells us, but they couldn't wake him. Evening at the Stir-Fry once again turns out to be quite the social scene. A French guy with tribal tattoos and a Vanilla Ice haircut queues up a jungle drum & bass mix on the lobby sound system and everyone at once stops what they are doing to dance and bob their heads, like a scene out of some musical. A blonde girl with a nose ring unabashedly drinking backwash out of beer bottles littered around the courtyard convinces Pickle to go with her to a local caf named the Pot Palace. I shouldn't be surprised that such an establishment exists in a province where weed grows wild as a weed. Pickle returns at 4am floating. The last he saw of the drunk nose-ring girl she was fighting with a Chinese taxi driver before running out of the cab without paying.

Day 5: It's too humid outside so I beeline to the air-conditioned lounge, where we watch seven pirated DVDs (technically only four because they kept skipping). During this time we visit Africa, various regions of Europe, Los Angeles and prison; it's almost like traveling! An Italian girl comments, "I shoulda be outsidea meeting Chinesea people anda doinga

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