Bootstrappin’

I just got my first haircut in China, for the outrageous price of 10 RMB ($1.47 US)! It was at the sketchiest back alley barber shop in Beijing, a two-seater about the size of a walk-in closet — and I was pleasantly surprised by the service. The woman working there spoke no English, but I [...]

China’s got the most diverse array of food in the world, and the Donghuamen Night Market in the heart of Beijing is the largest street food market I’ve ever seen. It took me 12 minutes to walk from one end to the other! Here you can find treats here like fried scorpions, snakes, ostrich heads [...]

Beijing’s got a soundtrack right now, and boy is it catchy! The Olympics may have the most upbeat, cheesy and sickeningly happy collection of songs ever recorded. And everywhere you go in Beijing right now, you’ll hear them, played ad-infinitum. Every store, every train station, every TV station, and every cell phone ring tone…it’s inescapable. [...]

The official line from the Olympic organizers is that all Olympic tickets are SOLD OUT, but that certainly doesn’t mean every seat is filled. Here is the row of seats behind me at the BMX Cycling event I attended today: The number of empty seats is painful, especially when the demand is so strong. I [...]

I arrived in Beijing at the Olympics on Sunday, exactly one week before the end of the games, with no tickets, and not much of a clue on how to get them. But it didn’t take more than a few minutes on the streets to figure out where to buy tickets — albeit at ridiculously [...]