Thursday, July 10, 2008

Chinese Lesson 1: Economics

Everything is so cheap!

My breakfast this morning was noodles, a large dumpling filled with beef and onions, and some chicken and peppers piled a few inches tall on a plate the size of a frisbee (actually looks eerily similar to a disk) and it all cost me 5 yuan. The exchange rate here is roughly 6.8 yuan to the dollar... if I master the art of the chopsticks (there's more to it than you might think), I'm coming back as a sumo wrestler. Our meal at the 5 star restaurant Din Tai Fung ended up at 1002 yuan, this sounds like a lot of money. Split between six people is 167 yuan per person, divided by 6.8 makes it less than $25 per person. Did I mention this was possibly a Top Ten restaurant in the world with fantastic dumplings. The amount we pay in yuan, we would probably pay in dollars in the States; this may sound obvious, but with other items I get even better deals. Our 24 pack of water cost 21 yuan. I don't know if you can get a bottle of water for under a dollar back home, but here I don't even drop a yuan for one (our pack was roughly 13 cents per bottle). I have yet to be to the silk or soap market, to get incredible deals on stuff, but its on my list of things I will do soon.

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