Kind Employees at McDonald's

Last night, S and I got on the 9:30 overnight train from Kaifeng to Nanjing. Having spent the last 3 days in smaller cities and getting harmless constant stares and friendly "hellos" from everyone we walked by, I was excited to be in a big city again and not stick out as much. (It is exhausting to have people staring at you all the time and feel that you have to be friendly to all of them.) We arrived into Nanjing at 4:30 AM and jumped in a cab to the Fuzi Temple area, which is where a lot of hostels and hotels, according to Lonely Planet, are located. We normally don't like to stay places recommended in the guide book because they are more expensive and we want to see China ourselves, not through Lonely Planet's eyes. But it was too early and dark to be picky about accommodations. The cabbie dropped us off in front of some hotels, which were out of our price range so we started to use the guide book's recommendations. Of course, the directions and the map in the book were awful and we get lost and had no idea where the hostels were. The only thing open that early in the morning was a 24-hour McDonald's. We decided to go in and ask the employees for a particular street. Shortly after we asked the cashier, he called to his fellow employees in the back and, in a matter of moments, there are 4 guys looking at our guide book trying to help us. The manager sleeping in the corner also got up and started overseeing the matter. One of the guys, named Ming, asked us in English where we wanted to go. We pointed to a hostel in the book and he said he would call the hostel. After a several minute conversation on his cell phone, Ming told us to follow him. With the manager trailing behind us supervising the escort, the kind McDonald's employee led us on a 10-minute walk to our hostel and told us where we could get good veggie dumplings that S and I have become obsessed with. As we stopped in front of the hostel, Ming wrote down his phone number in my notepad and told us to call him if we had anymore questions. We can't see the rooms yet and so we are using their internet until 8AM.

Nanjing