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It was New Year’s Eve. It’s easy to forget New Year’s on the mainland because it’s not celebrated there. Easy to forget, that is, unless your visas are about to expire and you need to go to Hong Kong to renew them. We had to take the overnight sleeper train from Nanchang to Shenzhen. We found our car, despite knowing minimal Mandarin. We stowed our luggage and climbed the ladder to the top berths. There, we spread out our things, arranged the pillow and blanket, opened our snacks. Everyone below hustled, squeezing past down the narrow corridor, settling in for the twelve hour ride. A confused woman explained to us (through a good deal of pointing and the little bit of dictionary in the back of our Hong Kong travel book) that our tickets were for the berths down below. She had the narrow upper one. She pointed to the characters on the ticket. One for up, one for down. We told her to keep the comfortable spots below. She was so thankful, she insisted on feeding us. Though we didn’t share a language, she shared her peanuts for the rest of the night. It was December 31st when we got to Shenzhen. We had the name and address of a hostel our co-worker Harry had recommended to us. Our Mandarin was poor; our Cantonese was non-existent. After slogging through the militarized border at dawn, we found the metro. Of course, we didn’t know where we were going, so we got off early. No problem—we had a suitcase and walking shoes. We got a map and hoofed it through empty streets and bare alleyways. The city was still waking up. A warren of electronics shops, convenience stores, jewelry stores, tourist shops, and food stalls filled the ground floor of the cement building at the hostel’s address. We found a dark hallway that led deeper into the building. The hallway opened to a stairwell that wound up through an HVAC well at the heart of the building. We began the climb. One flight up: small tailor shops and a nail salon. Two flights up: empty store fronts and specialty mechanics shops. Three flights up: no stores, but cat’s eyes glowing from down the hallway. Four flights up: the wheels on the luggage mocked us, more glowing cat eyes, closer and from all sides. Five flights up: we put down the bag and wheeled it down the dark hallway to find… the hostel! We stopped to catch our breath. As our eyes adjusted, we saw more cats and people sleeping on the floor. Exhausted, we entered the hostel. A middle aged woman asked for our reservation in broken English. …reservation? Harry assured us we didn’t need one. No reservation? No room. It’s New Year’s Eve—good luck finding a vacancy! We climbed down again: wheels up, cats close, cats far, empty storefronts, tailor shops, electronics shops. We emerged on the street, dumbfounded. The march began. With no cash and a debit card attached to an account we couldn’t access, we marched. We walked into every hotel we could find. No reservation? No room. We marched away from the city center. No reservation? No room. We went into small hotels, big hotels, fancy hotels, boutique hotels, dirty hotels, hole-in-the-wall hotels—no reservation? No room. We marched for hours, the wheels on our suitcase whirring with increasing frenetic energy. We marched the length of Kowloon Island several times over. Our feet burned. Our eyes stung. The lodging section of my now tattered Hong Kong travel book was all but crossed out. One hotel remained: the YMCA. The YMCA. A strange American export for such a prime location on Kowloon Harbor. We rolled our luggage through the sleek, modern lobby to the counter. This was a far cry from the camp YMCA of my youth. “I know it’s New Year’s Eve, and no, we don’t have a reservation…” One room left. Relief surged through me. My legs turned to jelly. I handed the clerk our emergency money, afraid the offer would disappear if I looked at it too hard. We collapsed on the bed. New Year’s Eve and a room at last.