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I checked out one of the places that serves waffles today, because I happened upon a groupon.
Pleasantly surprised. The waffle was not too dry and served with honey and a pool of what I thought was wilted fake whipped cream but ended up being that salty foam stuff that is all the rage on top of coffee these days. (The seafoam coffee at Cafe 85 degrees and the salty cheese coffee at Rosa, you know.)
Decent 10 kuai snack, but not sure if I would pay full price (16 yuan) for it.
Several places will do a three month season card (季卡), or per visit cards(次卡) . Gym memberships are also usually quite high in bargaining margin, if you enjoy that. If not there are usually groupons available.
In Chengdu waffles usually are desserts, not breakfast, so you will find them on the menus of Taiwanese dessert places. The last time I was in Shangri-la there was a waffle station at the Cafe Z buffet, though I don’t remember maple syrup as one of the condiments.
Suggest going to Lazy Pug for their crunchy French toast and real maple syrup, once they re-open.
You can do like the locals and get it hand chopped to order at your local market. Make the vendor use the double cleaver method not the machine, add as much fat and as you want and get it chopped coarse or fine. The only hassle is getting up early enough. The guy I like to buy beef from, if I go at nine I am lucky if he has anything besides soup bones left.
You could fly into Shenzhen in the evening and book a hotel on the Shenzhen side, which cost me around 150 yuan last time on a tuan gou (groupon) for a decent business hotel close to the border crossing. Then you can get up early, make it across the border to an agency in the morning, chill for a half a day in HK, pick up your visa in the afternoon, and get an evening flight back to Chengdu. I also skip the bus in Shenzhen for the subway, which goes right from the airport to both Lowu and Futian border crossings for a handful of yuan. I think it’s a bit slower than the bus though.
Now paying between 100-200 a month, swipe card system. 3 roommates share this. Previous apartment was smaller and shared with one person but costs were higher, usually 200-300 or more each month. Keeping one of those heating units on 24/7 can easily cost 1000 or more per month. I think we had a thread about this last year.
I noticed ads for this company on the bus – the Black Cat exterminators. They are in the Yulin area.
There is no difference in how to pay. You buy tuangou (groupons) from meituan, baidu tuan, 57tuan, or any of the zillion groupon sites with your alipay account, the same account you charge up with wang hui e’s and use to pay for taobao stuff.
Your apartment’s fee can be looked up very easily online, with soufun or some other site. I’ve never heard of it being different for different units, maybe if it is a mixed complex with some walkups and some elevator buildings?
I would expect to pay within 2-5 mao of one yuan per square meter per month and you are paying close to three. I might go as high as two yuan/metre for a very nice place or lower rent, but it does seem high.
My last trip over my luggage was packed with shampoo, conditioner, body wash, Red Rose tea, a couple of hard Italian cheeses (mozzarella, cheddar, and mascarpone are readily available) and some spices. If I’d been short on luggage space I wouldn’t have bothered with the personal care products, since you can get them here but they are quite $$. Quinoa you can get by mail order (Taobao) but if you want to avoid that hassle bring some.
Re Vietnamese, has anyone been to Parrot Cafe by Carrefour lately? They at least used to serve Vietnamese food. There is the Vietnamese restaurant in Wan Da shopping centre as well, but I haven’t been to either place in at least two years. I just noticed the Wan DA Vietnamese restaurant has a tuan gou (groupon) on right now, might be a nice chance to check it out.
We’ve had a couple of Singaporean restaurants open up this year. The tastier (and much less $$) one is Peacock Pavilion, across from the Chenghua Ito Yokado. You could probably find a Malaysian dish or two there.
Shang Palace dim sum is OK for the price. Lei Garden does beautiful but $$ dim sum that is very consistent with the Hong Kong Lei Garden. The ‘Jingge’ Ginkgo restaurant by Rainbow Bridge is well known for its dim sum.
Most of the sushi and Japanese restaurants I’ve come across have been dismal – poor quality, fish clinging to the plate, etc. Last I was at Shangri-La’s Cafe Z it was cut to order, which is an improvement.
The air has been TERRIBLE for the past couple of weeks. Details here.
After several months of not getting over a cold last winter the doctor advised not to run in the city, so now I check the air quality on that site before going out to run. I go to the university track most often. A park like People’s Park is usually too crowded but the bigger, greener ones like Huanhuaxi park in the west often have runners.
I would also like to find a good spot for longer runs, so hope others chime in.
I’ve used waifood and I think they are decent. (Expensive? What were you shopping for?) The last time I sent in an order at 11:00 at night,chose COD, and they were at my door at noon the next day. They answered the questions I had about the products in English as well. waifood used to have a klunky website and minimum Y300 for free delivery, which was just ridiculous, but now the website is much more user friendly and the free delivery starts at Y50.
I also use taobao (in Chinese) for perishables, search for local suppliers and then go to the places directly to see their wares/storage conditions before getting stuff. One place I trust is http://xiaoshui.taobao.com/, where I buy things like chocolate, butter, cream, dried cranberries, vanilla beans, and MG mozzarella which I really prefer to that Anchor brand everyone else seems to have. Their free delivery starts at Y99.
Yes, you need to show your passport and it’s a good idea to confirm that the bank actually has the currency on hand before sitting down to fill out the paperwork. I would think they always keep high-demand currencies like American money on hand but it’s common to run out of Canadian dollars and then they may send you to another branch, and then that branch may also be out. Not something to leave til the last day before you travel. Also, large amounts are best done by a Chinese friend. If memory serves, for more than 10 000 you need to give some sort of proof that your RMB is legal. A local person can do it without any problem.
Yes, you need to show your passport and it’s a good idea to confirm that the bank actually has the currency on hand before sitting down to fill out the paperwork. I would think they always keep high-demand currencies like American money on hand but it’s common to run out of Canadian dollars and then they may send you to another branch, and then that branch may also be out. Not something to leave til the last day before you travel. Also, large amounts are best done by a Chinese friend. If memory serves, for more than 10 000 you need to give some sort of proof that your RMB is legal. A local person can do it without any problem.
The staff members are usually happy to get a password for you. My problem is that my computer can never access the login page. IKEA is another good spot for Wi-Fi.
The staff members are usually happy to get a password for you. My problem is that my computer can never access the login page. IKEA is another good spot for Wi-Fi.
You’ve covered most of the ones I use, but I’ve also started looking at tuan gou (groupon-like deals) for a particular city when I am looking for a hotel. http://www.57tuan.com has listings from many tuan gou sites and you can group by city and category.
Two of those Taobao results have the COD option (货到付款) as well as the seven day money back guarantee, so you could check the knife out when you get it and send it back with the delivery guy if you aren’t happy.
Even if you don’t use COD you can buy from Taobao without a bank account, just get a voucher (网汇e) from the postal savings bank.
