Behind the Lens in Beijing

My Bags Are Packed

August 27, 2008 · 2 Comments

As much as I’ve enjoyed my experience in Beijing, I’ve been looking forward to tomorrow’s flight for quite some time. In a few days, I’ll reflect on my Olympic experience, but today’s focus has been on getting everything packed into what I hoped would be two checked bags and two oversized carry-ons. No such luck — I started packing early this morning, and soon realized that there was no way to avoid paying the $100 fee for a third checked bag.

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Luckily, I had allowed enough time for a visit to the Tianya market to pick up another bag. I withdrew 700 Yuan (about $100) from the ATM, and went back to the market I swore I’d never return to. After I scored a new suitcase for 140 Yuan, I began picking up even more souvenirs. 500 Yuan in impulse purchases filled half of my new suitcase before I left the market four hours later. I now have well over a hundred sets of decorative chopsticks, but at less than one Yuan each, they’re hard to resist — time to make some new friends?

Categories: Shopping · Transportation

2 responses so far ↓

  • peter h. // August 27, 2008 at 9:57 pm | Reply

    great blog.I enjoyed the reading and photo’s so so much!thanks again.

  • Kevy // August 29, 2008 at 7:07 am | Reply

    I echo those sentiments, great blog and really enjoyed reading it in the leadup to my trip to Beijing – especially you’re updates on the SLR restrictions, or non restrictions as it turned out to be.
    On those restrictions, i replaced the EOS strap with a JORDAN 23 strap that without fail was mentioned each time i went through security – the Chinese love for basketball is huge, something we can only dream of in Australia.
    Didn’t get to the market you mentioned, but also had to buy a suitcase due to my visits to the Silk Market and the one at Sanlitun.

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