Mistake #1: Accepting help from seemingly well dressed very insistent strangers
The second I started down the sidewalk looking for the taxi queue area I was approached by a professional looking man who spoke some broken English. I said "taxi" he said "free airport shuttle". I had printed directions to my hotel from the airport in Chinese from google.com/cn and he read them and nodded. I followed him a few minutes then spotted a group of taxis. After waiting about 10 minutes for this "free shuttle" I decided I probably needed to figure out how to take taxis anyway and I really just wanted to go to bed, so I headed over to them. I handed them my piece of paper with the directions and the group of 5 Chinese men took a couple of minutes I'm guessing to discuss where it was (it was only 13-15 minutes from the airport right off the expressway). After they came to a consensus the guy with the paper looked at me, I asked how much USD, he apparently didn't understand this so I said U.S. and showed him a dollar bill, and he said $100. I laughed and said $20, by the look on his face I think he didn't expect I was going to haggle with him. We continued to haggle until I got him down to $25, which I think was still rather high but whatever. I agreed and the men put my bags in the back of one of the taxis. At just this moment the man from earlier who was with the "free airport shuttle" rushed up and began yelling at the taxi driver, of course I had NO idea what was going on lol so I just played on my phone.
Mistake #2: Letting myself be pushed around
When they stopped yelling the taxi took my bags out of the car and the shuttle guy led me back to the curb, after which a very old white shuttle pulled up that said "100% perfect airport shuttle" on the side though I could barely read it from the weathering. I got in this thing greeted the driver and in a few moments we were off. I was following where he was going on the English version of my directions and was not really paying attention to what we were passing...and therefore didn't realize we had passed the Days Hotel and had turned off down a backstreet further down. In an enclave there was the entrance to a hotel, which did actually look like the only picture I had been able to find online of the outside of the Days Hotel. A bellhop helped me get my bags to the front desk at which I encountered an associate who spoke NO English. I said I had a reservation and pointed to the Chinese translation in my phrase book. She looked at me funny and asked for my passport. I handed her my passport and watched her fill out a little piece of paper, after which she photocopied my passport and handed me a carbon copy of what she had written down. She handed a key to the bellhop and he escorted me to the room. Upon entering I noticed an intense smell of smoke. I really didn't care I just wanted to sleep.
After settling in my luggage I began to explore the room. The DVD player had no parts inside, the sheets were stained, it was definitely not a western mattress, and the full length mirror was clearly half caulked into what used to be the doorway of a two room suite. I walked into the bathroom with some surprise, the whole bathroom was the shower, and had apparently not been cleaned in a while. This all seemed strange but I overlooked this and took a sleeping pill and laid down on the non-stained side of the bed. Two hours later I awoke much more calm and conscious. I began to really scrutinize, having worked in a Days Inn owned hotel I know firsthand how they brand EVERYTHING, from the towels to pens in the room. I saw none of this in the room and for the first time it had dawned on me, I was definitely in the wrong hotel. I grabbed my backpack, my hotel directions, and my phrasebook and headed downstairs. I eventually came across a bellhop who understood what I was trying to convey and immediately flagged a man over, with whom I negotiated a $5 price to take me all the way to the front desk of the hotel on the paper. I was skeptical when I got in the car with him seeing no displayed taxi license or meter, turns out he was just the friend of the bellhop lol but he got me there. I was fortunate for the rest of the night my next taxi driver was very kind though he didn't speak a word of English, the phrase book/dictionary really came in handy. He successfully got me a refund at the first hotel and got me and my bags back to the Days Hotel, where the rooming situation looked much more like what I had seen online and THEY HAD INTERNET. After over 24 hours of travel I had finally arrived lol.
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