Yummy, firm, large, juicy peach goodness, the nectar of which ran down my face and hands.
Yes, it was worth the two dollars.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Peaches and RMB
I just paid $2 for a peach. 12.48 RMB, with the exchange rate at 6.9029 RMB to the dollar.
All of a sudden I don't regret having taken an extraordinarily long time sniffing at all of the peaches on display and feeling them to make sure they weren't still green, and that softness was not rot instead of the yummy, juicy peach flesh which I wanted.
I do feel silly, however, for the fact that I didn't transfer the majority of my savings from dollars to RMB (Ren Min Bi, or 'people's money') when I arrived in February, back when rates were higher. On February 13 the rate was 7.1952 RMB to the dollar.
Now for every hundred U.S. dollars I exchange I receive 29RMB less than I would have then. That 29 RMB would buy almost 3 taxi rides, almost 15 subway rides, 20 copies of China Daily newspaper, or 72 of the yummy vegetable baozi (steamed buns) of which I like to have 3 or 4 as a mid-morning snack.
For me this is a simple belt tightening excercise. For people back in the States you can think about the cost of goods imported from China, of which many are sold all over the U.S., and how costs are skyrocketing in terms of both the sinking strength of the dollar and an increase in shipping charges.
That better be one good peach!
All of a sudden I don't regret having taken an extraordinarily long time sniffing at all of the peaches on display and feeling them to make sure they weren't still green, and that softness was not rot instead of the yummy, juicy peach flesh which I wanted.
I do feel silly, however, for the fact that I didn't transfer the majority of my savings from dollars to RMB (Ren Min Bi, or 'people's money') when I arrived in February, back when rates were higher. On February 13 the rate was 7.1952 RMB to the dollar.
Now for every hundred U.S. dollars I exchange I receive 29RMB less than I would have then. That 29 RMB would buy almost 3 taxi rides, almost 15 subway rides, 20 copies of China Daily newspaper, or 72 of the yummy vegetable baozi (steamed buns) of which I like to have 3 or 4 as a mid-morning snack.
For me this is a simple belt tightening excercise. For people back in the States you can think about the cost of goods imported from China, of which many are sold all over the U.S., and how costs are skyrocketing in terms of both the sinking strength of the dollar and an increase in shipping charges.
That better be one good peach!
Monday, June 9, 2008
The American Embassy
The U.S. embassy in Beijing is located off of Jianguomen Dajie (Jianguomen Street), just west of the Silk Market, the most well-known shopping destination for westerners who want to bargain shop for fake or off-label products. When I was here before I didn't register but since I'm now planning to be here for an extended period of time, and am no longer associated with a formal program, I decided that registering my whereabout would be worthwhile in the unlikely case of an emergency.
I went a couple of days after my arrival back in Beijing, on a beautiful afternoon for being outside and walking through the tree-lined streets of the embassy area in Central Beijing. The U.S. embassy is in an area behind the centrally located Silk Market shopping center, off of Jianguomen Dajie. I found the guarded gate to the old embassy area and saw that there were signs saying there were no cell phones or cameras allowed so I walked into the enclosed area where there were lockers for people to leave their things, only to be shooed away by several older Chinese women who looked at me like I was crazy and said "American? No!" while shaking their hands to indicate that I didn't have to leave my things. The guard at the gate looked at my passport, asked what I wanted, then let me through.
One of the first compounds across the street was the American Embassy. There's a guard house at the entrance, complete with metal detector and x-ray machine. I had to hand over my cell phone and camera for safekeeping before being allowed entrance and had to explain the reason for my visit. I said I wanted to register and was given a number, then I walked out of the guardhouse and into the compound proper, over a cement walkway to a side entry manned by a marine behind bullet-proof glass. He buzzed the door open and pointed me down the hall when I asked where to go to register. I found the correct room and entered it to see about fifteen people, children and adults, sitting on the three or four benches or standing at one of the four windows. The windows were covered with (probably bullet-proof) glass. I sat down and observed my fellow Americans - some tourists, some Beijing residents. We each waited for out number to be called and I was happy to only have to wait about fifteen or twenty minutes to be seen.
My main reason to be there was to register my location, in case of an emergency. However, I decided to take advantage of my visit to do something that I used to dream about doing when I was a little kid: get extra pages added into my passport. When I was little I thought it would be exciting and romantic to travel so much that I would need more space for all of the visas and stamps. Issued in August 2001, my passport now houses entry and exit stamps from Canada, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Morocco, Peru, Singapore and Thailand, in addition to the several full-page visa stickers and entry and exit stamps from China, and is nearly full. U.S. embassies add additional pages into valid U.S. passports for free.
While I was waiting I filled out the simple one-page form to request additional pages. When my name was called I met briefly with a Chinese woman speaking good but not completely fluent English and she took my passport away to have the new pages added, gave me the registration form and told me to sit back down, fill out the form and wait for her to call me again. The registration form was about half the size of letter-sized piece of paper and asked for my name, passport number, reason for being in China, local and U.S. contact information, and expected departure date. My name was called after about ten minutes; I turned in the form and received my passport back, with 12 additional pages (24 if you count both sides) sewn into the middle. Now I can keep traveling and not worry about whether or not I have enough space to get into or out of countries that have requirements about that sort of thing.
I still don't know anyone from the U.S. embassy. I've socially met people from a number of other embassies, African and European. I have met other Americans, through hiking or social events, but no one from the embassy.
I went a couple of days after my arrival back in Beijing, on a beautiful afternoon for being outside and walking through the tree-lined streets of the embassy area in Central Beijing. The U.S. embassy is in an area behind the centrally located Silk Market shopping center, off of Jianguomen Dajie. I found the guarded gate to the old embassy area and saw that there were signs saying there were no cell phones or cameras allowed so I walked into the enclosed area where there were lockers for people to leave their things, only to be shooed away by several older Chinese women who looked at me like I was crazy and said "American? No!" while shaking their hands to indicate that I didn't have to leave my things. The guard at the gate looked at my passport, asked what I wanted, then let me through.
One of the first compounds across the street was the American Embassy. There's a guard house at the entrance, complete with metal detector and x-ray machine. I had to hand over my cell phone and camera for safekeeping before being allowed entrance and had to explain the reason for my visit. I said I wanted to register and was given a number, then I walked out of the guardhouse and into the compound proper, over a cement walkway to a side entry manned by a marine behind bullet-proof glass. He buzzed the door open and pointed me down the hall when I asked where to go to register. I found the correct room and entered it to see about fifteen people, children and adults, sitting on the three or four benches or standing at one of the four windows. The windows were covered with (probably bullet-proof) glass. I sat down and observed my fellow Americans - some tourists, some Beijing residents. We each waited for out number to be called and I was happy to only have to wait about fifteen or twenty minutes to be seen.
My main reason to be there was to register my location, in case of an emergency. However, I decided to take advantage of my visit to do something that I used to dream about doing when I was a little kid: get extra pages added into my passport. When I was little I thought it would be exciting and romantic to travel so much that I would need more space for all of the visas and stamps. Issued in August 2001, my passport now houses entry and exit stamps from Canada, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Morocco, Peru, Singapore and Thailand, in addition to the several full-page visa stickers and entry and exit stamps from China, and is nearly full. U.S. embassies add additional pages into valid U.S. passports for free.
While I was waiting I filled out the simple one-page form to request additional pages. When my name was called I met briefly with a Chinese woman speaking good but not completely fluent English and she took my passport away to have the new pages added, gave me the registration form and told me to sit back down, fill out the form and wait for her to call me again. The registration form was about half the size of letter-sized piece of paper and asked for my name, passport number, reason for being in China, local and U.S. contact information, and expected departure date. My name was called after about ten minutes; I turned in the form and received my passport back, with 12 additional pages (24 if you count both sides) sewn into the middle. Now I can keep traveling and not worry about whether or not I have enough space to get into or out of countries that have requirements about that sort of thing.
I still don't know anyone from the U.S. embassy. I've socially met people from a number of other embassies, African and European. I have met other Americans, through hiking or social events, but no one from the embassy.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Registering with the Police
In China everyone is required to register their location with the local police precinct. Hotel guests are registered by hotel staff so they may not realize that it is being done. When I arrived here in February one of the administrators of my program took care of the registration. Now I am staying with a friend who is about to go back to her country for a couple of months, enabling me to have a comfortable place to live while I postpone apartment hunting until after Beijing's Olympic-inflated rents have come back down out of the stratosphere, and am required to register so that the local police will have a record of me.
After a lunch of some of my favorite Chinese foods at Luogo we took a stroll to the local precinct, located in a one story cement building. Three uniformed police women sat in front of computers in a large room. When we walked in my friend explained that we needed to register me, and one of the officers got up and took my passport before sitting down at a panel with two large monitors. She started putting information into one of the two computers, then moved to the other. There she entered information and pulled up a scanned photograph of me that was already in the system, though from 10 feet away I couldn't tell if it was the photo from my passport or the one that I submitted as part of my visa application.
After requesting additional information about me from my friend (it's good to have friends who are fluent in the local language) the officer took a copy of the foreigner registration form and put it through the printer to have my data printed on it, in triplicate, then stamped it with a red stamp (all official documents here are stamped, usually with large red stamps), told me to sign it, and gave me a copy. The "Registration Form of Temporary Residence" has my name, gender, nationality, date of birth, passport number, type of visa, arrival date, visa expiration and departure dates, type of residence and address. The form is written in Chinese, and all of the information is also in characters with the exception of numbers and my name, though the labels for each data point are in both characters and English. The characters for 'Surname' and 'First Name' actually say "English Family Name" and "English First Name," which is in line with most things here which treat all languages other than Chinese as English.
I am to carry a copy of the registration with me at all times, along with my passport. If I leave the country for vacation and return I need to go back and re-register. Most countries where I've traveled require you to carry some form of ID (usually your passport or a locally issued government ID card for foreigners) but this is the first time I've ever had to register with the police. It was quick and easy, and the officers were pleasant.
After a lunch of some of my favorite Chinese foods at Luogo we took a stroll to the local precinct, located in a one story cement building. Three uniformed police women sat in front of computers in a large room. When we walked in my friend explained that we needed to register me, and one of the officers got up and took my passport before sitting down at a panel with two large monitors. She started putting information into one of the two computers, then moved to the other. There she entered information and pulled up a scanned photograph of me that was already in the system, though from 10 feet away I couldn't tell if it was the photo from my passport or the one that I submitted as part of my visa application.
After requesting additional information about me from my friend (it's good to have friends who are fluent in the local language) the officer took a copy of the foreigner registration form and put it through the printer to have my data printed on it, in triplicate, then stamped it with a red stamp (all official documents here are stamped, usually with large red stamps), told me to sign it, and gave me a copy. The "Registration Form of Temporary Residence" has my name, gender, nationality, date of birth, passport number, type of visa, arrival date, visa expiration and departure dates, type of residence and address. The form is written in Chinese, and all of the information is also in characters with the exception of numbers and my name, though the labels for each data point are in both characters and English. The characters for 'Surname' and 'First Name' actually say "English Family Name" and "English First Name," which is in line with most things here which treat all languages other than Chinese as English.
I am to carry a copy of the registration with me at all times, along with my passport. If I leave the country for vacation and return I need to go back and re-register. Most countries where I've traveled require you to carry some form of ID (usually your passport or a locally issued government ID card for foreigners) but this is the first time I've ever had to register with the police. It was quick and easy, and the officers were pleasant.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Home to Beijing
I'm back in Beijing. My flight arrived a half hour early to a beautiful spring day, and I am now sitting in my new home getting ready to go buy some water and fruit for tomorrow - both because they are needed and to keep me awake until 9pm. I'm exhausted.
The in-flight entertainment system made it way too easy to watch films the entire flight, which meant that I only slept for about an hour on the flight. I'm sure I'll sleep well tonight.
My arrival back to Beijing was quick and relatively painless. The one nerve-wracking moment was when I was going through the immigration line and the official took my passport, decided it didn't look like me, and asked for an id card. I quickly dug my driver's license out of my wallet, explaining that it is my only other identification, even thought it's not an official identification document here. Apparently that didn't look like me either. I put my bags down and used my hands to pull my hair back off of my face, similar to the way it looks in a ponytail, as it was in my passport photo. That did the trick, he nodded his head and picked up the stamp.
After that I was able to give the cabdriver my address in a manner which he understood and he drove me to my complex. I waved to the guards to open the gates to let the car in and they did it, so the cab was able to drop me directly in front of the steps to my building and I didn't have to carry my bags all the way from the curb.
It's good to be back.
The in-flight entertainment system made it way too easy to watch films the entire flight, which meant that I only slept for about an hour on the flight. I'm sure I'll sleep well tonight.
My arrival back to Beijing was quick and relatively painless. The one nerve-wracking moment was when I was going through the immigration line and the official took my passport, decided it didn't look like me, and asked for an id card. I quickly dug my driver's license out of my wallet, explaining that it is my only other identification, even thought it's not an official identification document here. Apparently that didn't look like me either. I put my bags down and used my hands to pull my hair back off of my face, similar to the way it looks in a ponytail, as it was in my passport photo. That did the trick, he nodded his head and picked up the stamp.
After that I was able to give the cabdriver my address in a manner which he understood and he drove me to my complex. I waved to the guards to open the gates to let the car in and they did it, so the cab was able to drop me directly in front of the steps to my building and I didn't have to carry my bags all the way from the curb.
It's good to be back.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
I'm Packed!
Two suitcases sit beside me: one weighs 48 pounds, another weighs 49. They are both under the weight allowance of 50 lbs per bag. I just hope that there isn't a problem and I don't have to leave anything behind. Some of my friends in Beijing have never had a real New York bagel and I want to rectify that.
My mouth is full of toasted sesame bagel and scallion cream cheese from Bagel Works on 1st Ave. I can't think of a more appropriate last New York meal.
My flight leaves at noon. I'm looking forward to being back in Beijing.
My mouth is full of toasted sesame bagel and scallion cream cheese from Bagel Works on 1st Ave. I can't think of a more appropriate last New York meal.
My flight leaves at noon. I'm looking forward to being back in Beijing.
Last Day in Town
Today is my last full day in New York until....I'm not sure when. Tomorrow I'll fly out on a one-way ticket.
The day started with breakfast at Barney Greengrass, fried eggs and a side of lox on a toasted pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese, accompanied by wonderful companionship and conversation from a good friend and her husband. From there I went for one last visit to my storage space, then back to the apartment where I'm house-sitting to pick up some things which I'm giving to a friend this evening.
This afternoon I'll see the Sex and the City movie with one friend for a dose of absolute silliness, then go off for dinner at my favorite Indian restaurant with others. There are still a few more errands I need to run (i.e. I've only been able to fund one tube of Alba Terra Tints lip balm in 'Blaze' and that will not last me more than a couple of months so I'd like to buy another one, unfortunately almost every store in town seems to be out at the same time - I think I bought the last one in Manhattan.)
It's been a good trip back, though busy: a wedding, meetings, tea at the Waldorf Astoria, time with friends, restaurants (Ethiopian: Queen of Sheba; Indian: Madras Cafe and Curry in a Hurry; Mexican: a tiny place in Astoria whose name I forget even though they were good; Macrobiotic: Souen; New York bagels: 2nd Avenue Deli and Barney Greengrass; Vietnamese: Nha Trang; cheesecake: Junior's), a Broadway show (Nathan Lane is fantastic in David Mamet's new play November); shopping for clothes or other items that I can't easily find at a reasonable price in Beijing; and finding time on the subways and buses to read a copy of Katha Pollit's Virginity or Death that was waiting for me at the Tompkins Square branch of the New York Public Library when I arrived in town. There are people I didn't get to see, restaurants where I wasn't able to eat (how oh how did I not have dinner at Picholine while I was here?), and things I wasn't able to do but all in all it's been a good visit back.
The day started with breakfast at Barney Greengrass, fried eggs and a side of lox on a toasted pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese, accompanied by wonderful companionship and conversation from a good friend and her husband. From there I went for one last visit to my storage space, then back to the apartment where I'm house-sitting to pick up some things which I'm giving to a friend this evening.
This afternoon I'll see the Sex and the City movie with one friend for a dose of absolute silliness, then go off for dinner at my favorite Indian restaurant with others. There are still a few more errands I need to run (i.e. I've only been able to fund one tube of Alba Terra Tints lip balm in 'Blaze' and that will not last me more than a couple of months so I'd like to buy another one, unfortunately almost every store in town seems to be out at the same time - I think I bought the last one in Manhattan.)
It's been a good trip back, though busy: a wedding, meetings, tea at the Waldorf Astoria, time with friends, restaurants (Ethiopian: Queen of Sheba; Indian: Madras Cafe and Curry in a Hurry; Mexican: a tiny place in Astoria whose name I forget even though they were good; Macrobiotic: Souen; New York bagels: 2nd Avenue Deli and Barney Greengrass; Vietnamese: Nha Trang; cheesecake: Junior's), a Broadway show (Nathan Lane is fantastic in David Mamet's new play November); shopping for clothes or other items that I can't easily find at a reasonable price in Beijing; and finding time on the subways and buses to read a copy of Katha Pollit's Virginity or Death that was waiting for me at the Tompkins Square branch of the New York Public Library when I arrived in town. There are people I didn't get to see, restaurants where I wasn't able to eat (how oh how did I not have dinner at Picholine while I was here?), and things I wasn't able to do but all in all it's been a good visit back.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
