It’s my last day in Beijing, my flight leaves at 11:55 tonight, so I have almost the entire day to myself. I just had a few things to do. I needed to send off the postcards and the quilt back to the US, and I wanted to get a lighter quilt to take to Yemen. Went to the post office, turns out that they are full service here. They wrap and package your packages as well as send them. There was only one guy working the package counter (post offices are the same everywhere it seems) so it took a while. I needed to get some cash so I started looking around for an ATM. Yemen has spoiled me when it comes to exchanging money. There, you walk up to the shop, hand them your money, and they give you riyals. I brought cash with me to China, what a pain. First they tell you not to take your passport with you when walking around due to pick pockets. Then when you need cash, they want to see your passport… The banks have an incredible amount of paperwork and they scrutinize the bills throughly. I tried to change $150 US into Yuan, it took me a half hour at the counter window. I had to fill out two forms, sign three, and the clerk used two different stamps on 6 different pieces of paper. In the end, they wouldn’t take two of my 20’s for some reason.
Anyway, I got to the post office and realized that I’d need more cash. I wasn’t going to walk all the way back to the hotel room just so I could enjoy sitting at the bank counter again being treated like a criminal. I popped in my bank card and… nothing. It wouldn’t accept it. I went outside and used another bank’s machine, nothing again… I ended up using my Visa card, God oly knows what they’re going to charge me for that connivence…
The stuff got mailed out alright. I sent the quilt with the proverbial slow boat from China, it’ll take a couple of months for it show up in the states, but it was cheap. I then ate and got a taxi to a place that sells quilts. I wanted a lightweight on to take back to Yemen. Well, it turns out that they only make the light ones in single and double sizes. I had already bought a queen sized cover for it, so I didn’t want to have to buy another cover… In the end I decided against getting the other quilt. I wandered around a little and found more markets with amazing assortments of cheap junk. It has become clear to me that despite the fact that some very nice things are made in China, not many of those things makes into the domestic market. Maybe if I went to Shanghai…