I’ve been gone for now 4 months. Moved into a new apartment (the less cockroachy kind). I even subscribed to a gym because on heavy pollution days, if you want to keep training, you need a gym, with air filters. I found one. Price was 2400RMB for one year. WAS. Thanks to my friend Kev, we drove the price down to 1500RMB for the year. That’s a decent price for a gym given that a lot of the gyms in Beijing are 3000RMB +. As you can understand from this, I’m starting to settle in with my decision to stay longer more official. Getting my work visa this week too and as you might guess, I will get some little extra work here in Beijing besides my Marketing Director job with Inox Motion. Why? Well, I have personal objectives I want to complete and the faster I can do it, the better.
So, was the towel thing about the gym? No. Sort of. Let me explain. Whene I left, I had the following personal items (among others). 2 pair of pants, one pair of short, 3 polos, 2 t-shirts and a travel towel. Out of my 3 polos, two died on me almost at the same time. By dying, I mean they ripped open where the glue was, in the middle of chest. Not a small hole, a pretty big one. So I couldn’t sow it back together. It was time to do some shopping. I decided to follow a simple rule. For one lost item, I buy one to replace it. No more. So I bought a new polo and a shirt which looks slightly better. (FYI – Picture here is me trying the whole teaching experience. Since I got my work Visa, it took me less then a day and half to get a teaching job. So these are my kids with my new Polo…) While out shopping, I went to Ikea with my roommates to get some stuff for the house, mainly the kitchen.
Ikea is Ikea. Looks the same in every country. Nothing special here besides the fact that the amount of people here was just insane. Almost had a panic attack because there was so many people and it was hard to move around. One fire, everyone is dead. Seriously!
Shopping at Ikea required a good strategy from my roommates and I. Buy stuff that is good enough quality to cook viable food on a gas stove, but not too expensive because none of us will stay long term. We are temporary and so will be our stuff. I was originally aiming at buying a whole kit. One of my roommates was smart enough to notice that we only need two things in our kit… So we saved 100rmb. That’s how it went until Simon (other roommate) and I ended in the towel section… You have to hear me right. We are two guys and two girls. The two guys stopped in the towel section and spent at least 25 minutes “testing” the softness of towels. Girls didn’t want a towel, but Simon and I were both living with our travel towels.
Main difference between a travel towel and a home towel. Well, the travel towel is the same as the towel you use to dry your car after washing it. Very useful, but none of the comfort and it has the weird feel to it. So we both decided to invest in a good towel. Our towels were almost as expensive as the two cookware pieces I mentioned earlier. Insane? People, you need to know that when you are away from everything you know and love, you need to find yourself some comfort and settle in a little. Picture here is with roommates and new friends from the house warming. Can you feel the warmth?
After we got home from our survival day at Ikea, I obviously went for a shower, with the new towel… When I got out of the shower and used it, the softness, the fluffiness and the pure join of experiencing such warmed thanks to a simple towel made me realise how simple life can be… And the price of that happiness and for every upcoming shower I will take from now on is a total of 70RMB… That’s right, happiness can cost only $14 CAN. Next time you take a shower and get your hands on that soft towel of yours, think about enjoying it. For all those travelers, out there that live with a very useful, yet not soft, travel towel.
Dragos out!
Today’s item on the list:
Find myself a new piece of comfort.
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