Tag Archives: Beijing:Raleigh
Extreme Shopping
Cooking Mama 3’s shopping game is uncannily like shopping in a Chinese supermarket. Mama sends you out to find 4 pieces of unwrapped, unrefridgerated meat, but as you search the store to fill your reusable carrier bag, you’ve got to avoid oddly familiar store characters — shouting shop assistants in pastel uniform aprons or a girl with a basket of squid, shellfish and other distinctly Yantai seafood — who’ll slow your shopping progress by trapping you into minigames. Higher levels add loose eggs, heads-on fish and mushrooms to your shopping list, and more people to the store. I keep trying for the elusive perfect score, since I imagine it’ll unlock a “Sunday In The Auchan” extreme challenge level. Continue reading
Scenes From Imaginary China
I came across this book when I was home in New Jersey cleaning out my old room. (Yeah, my mom said something about how I haven’t lived there in ten years and she’d really like a guest room and that … Continue reading
Tarheel Road
Just another blue-sky day in North Carolina. (I mean, it’s no Awesome Street…)
Apex
Buckwheat Farm is out in Apex, so we drove through old Apex on the way home. Last summer, when we were looking for an apartment, I secretly wanted to live in Apex. Not because I know anything in particular about … Continue reading
Vocabulary Building
“Look, Stick, I got spam in Chinese! It says: I…. good…. mine…. you… not or no… please… compare or comparison… net… not have… you… Um, that’s all I can read.” “You clearly need to learn the Chinese for ‘Nigerian royalty’ … Continue reading
Ex-Expat Thoughts
I was listening to Obama’s Cairo speech on NPR the other day when the radio cut out and it went to static. My first thought was not that I was driving through a radio dead zone, or that NPR might … Continue reading
Suprising Advertising
Looks like American battery manufacturers are taking a cue from their Chinese counterparts! Now you won’t have to buy a duckie bath thermometer separately!
Southern Mandarin
Raleigh graffiti artist Wang tags a downtown street.
Disconnect
We found mangosteens in the supermarket today! I recognized them from the Yihai market, but I really didn’t expect to find them in such close proximity to drive-thru hush puppies.
Victory Milk
Coupons depress me. If you summed up everything I loved about our expat adventures, clipping supermarket coupons would be the opposite. It seems to sum up the repetitive mundane side of life in the US, which is of course made … Continue reading
