Today was a pretty long day for me, guest blogger.\u00a0 Whilst Ben and Deb lounged comfortably in bed, I was crammed into a packed airplane with no leg room, next to a woman whose hand sanitizer literally stank so much it roused me from slumber, and in a seat that in fantastic fashion reclined without actually reclining.\u00a0 Today started yesterday at 8pm in Sydney.<\/p>\n
A short trip through quarantine, customs, baggage claim, and grabbing a Chinese SIM card, I was on the taxi to the apartment.\u00a0 Except the taxi driver didn’t know where the apartment was (to be fair, Beijing is big).\u00a0 He didn’t speak any English, and my Mandarin is worse than a 3 year old child’s.\u00a0 So we wandered a bit.\u00a0 Three cell phone calls to the hotel\/apartment later, we find out we were exactly 1 (one as in uno) block away.\u00a0 ‘Nuff whining.<\/p>\n
I greet Ben and Deb with presents from my travels abroad.\u00a0 I was in Sydney exactly 1 day after they left, so of course they needed a souvenir…<\/p>\n
In exemplary mooch fashion, I proceed to sleep on their couch for two hours before we head out to a late lunch.\u00a0 Benjie wanted to go get breakfast right when I got there.\u00a0 We left for lunch multiple hours after I arrived.\u00a0 Poor Benjie.<\/p>\n
China’s consumerist industry is well protected from natural disaster and foreign bombardment.\u00a0 We visited the Beijing under Beijing.\u00a0 An underground mall stretching however many city blocks in all directions.\u00a0 At least two floors below ground.<\/p>\n
The best named shop?\u00a0 Pirate Ship.\u00a0 Sells jewelry, and not that refined stuff.\u00a0 You can guess what it sells.<\/p>\n
The craziest store?\u00a0 Carrefour.\u00a0 Its the Ranch 99 plus Wal-Mart.\u00a0 There are cheap bicycles right were we walk in.\u00a0 A quick ride up the conveyor belt to the next floor (think escalator sans steps) and we are in a bustling food market.\u00a0 I now understand that all those people in Ranch 99 are actually trying to give you personal space.\u00a0 And they are showing significant accomplishment.<\/p>\n
The best item in Carrefour?\u00a0 An ironing board which Benjie bought to use as a keyboard tray.\u00a0 Why is it the best item?\u00a0 Its description is the title of this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today was a pretty long day for me, guest blogger.\u00a0 Whilst Ben and Deb lounged comfortably in bed, I was crammed into a packed airplane with no leg room, next to a woman whose hand sanitizer literally stank so much it roused me from slumber, and in a seat that in fantastic fashion reclined without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109,"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions\/109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}