Our hotel room has a pool...

...of spit in the corner.

Shock! Horror!
We arrived at Beijing airport feeling really ill. The landing took about an hour, and it was incredibly turbulent (rougher than crossing the English channel in a dinghy). The arrival hall was actually quite nice, all tall red columns and golden slats, but we were both feeling to sick to really care. Then we got to a taxi and handed over the map we had been sent by the hostel. The first sign that it was no good was the a taxi driver laughing as he showed it to his mates. We were lost in Beijing for ages, and eventually the driver just took the meter off and started asking people on the road, and in other hotels. It was pretty awful. We eventually made it to the hostel (it seems they'd been telling a few fibs). They're only called the 'Zen Hostelry' to attract westerners, in practice they're called something completely different.
No one spoke any English, and it seemed they hadn't even received our booking (we think maybe their English translator who does the website might have taken our deposit for herself).
We were shown to our room which was flea infested, covered in hair, and, as we have mentioned, had a pool of spit in the corner by Jack's bed (the Chinese just spit wherever and whenever they like). The water wasn't safe, so we went to sleep starving and dehydrated (and in Sarah's case, being drained of blood by fleas and bed bugs).