@“yeso”#p90510 It‘s not actually Tomato Convenience Store, it just has a tomato for a logo. It’s “C-Store”, AKA “Xishiduo” (喜士多), which is a transliteration for C-Store, despite not immediately appearing that way when you type it out. The nerds of the Western world need to start putting Chinese transliterations of random words on their t-shirts instead of boring katakana.
I was flying home yesterday and I opened the window shade and thought that looks like Iowa. And then I checked my GPS. It was Iowa [upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/wY2Qq1O.jpeg]
@“treefroggy”#p90105 Yeah “stayed here” is weird, I basically used that for if I've spent a few weeks someplace, consecutive or cumulative
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Almost thought I had 69 but forgot I'd stopped in a few places on the way to other places
@“captain”#p90516 @“treefroggy”#p90105
I‘ve never been to North America so there’s no point in me doing one of these – however I would differentiate “stayed here” from “visited here” somewhat along the lines of whether or not where I was sleeping had a kitchen and/or laundry that I used. No idea if that is the intention or not, but “I cooked and/or cleaned” feels like a natural enough separator.
I think “staying” means several days, and visiting is more like stopped to see something and moved on
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@“treefroggy”#p90105 @“captain”#p90516 while filling this out I realized the difference between “visited” and “stayed” is deeply personal and philosophical. There were even places I also pondered “lived in” too. For me it came down purely to my associations I had of that place, or rather, my time in that place. How connected did I feel to that place? For example I stayed in NJ for almost an entire year, but i don‘t consider it living there because I was simply waiting to move back west. I’m still on the fence with California.
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Can you tell I drove from NJ to OR from this map?
@“yeso”#p90518 Mr. I've been everywhere here!
Though I'd advise you to go to Delaware some time. It needs the touch of Yeso.
@"RubySunrise"#p90519 I'd have a very similar map if I'd fill it out since I've taken the bus from Maryland to Oregon to visit my friend, though my bus journey was more northerly, going through WI, MN, SD, WY, MT and ID.
Is there some canonical best latitude to drive cross country through the United States at?
@“yeso”#p90518 Dang at this point I‘ve got to wonder what’s your beef with southern New England and the Carolinas? (no love for Delaware)
no hate, just haven‘t been out there. And my travel around north america is balanced by the fact I’ve only been to one country in europe. I'll leave it a mystery which one
Well for everyone not from the East coast, Delaware is the best mid-atlantic state. If you want to be a cool person when filling out one of these maps, put Delaware as the only state in the east you've ever visited.
(Rhode Island is similarly the coolest state in New England. New Hampshire is number 2.)
@“saddleblasters”#p90520
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@“saddleblasters”#p90520 Is there some canonical best latitude to drive cross country through the United States at?
Not that I know of. Interstate 80 goes across nearly the whole country. I imagine it depends highly on where you start and where you're going. The route I took was roughly I70/76 > I80 > I84. This was all decided in part because of pals we could stay with along the way, not because it's the most direct or best, though it might also be those things.
@“Syzygy”#p90529 Come to think of it, I remember my dad mentioning he can‘t drive through Delaware anymore because of some similar exhorbitant fine that he refused to pay. I would think the states communicate with each other about this stuff though? So maybe my dad’s just been driving around with a revoked license for the past 5 years.
Hum, I guess I have been to a bunch of states (I used to travel for work a lot). Funny to see how the ones I haven't been to are in pretty discrete clusters.
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Filling this out sounds like a depressing exercise
Yeah it’s highly subjective what your interpretation of “stayed” is. For mine it’s places I visited many times to stay with family. As a child I “stayed” at chincoteague island Virginia for over a month but I consider that a visit. ALSO I believe that people should not be defined by what they dont have IE homelessness. Living places vs staying is such a societal construct to a nomad. So what really matters is do you feel orange about the state of Nebraska or is it more red? for the time being I am alive everywhere I go.
@"rejj"#p90517 there’s UK version at the link too.
I went to Pudong today, which is the place with all those big buildings that you‘re familiar with if you’ve ever seen a picture of the Shanghai skyline. It was kind of boring. Extremely empty, despite being a Sunday afternoon. I get the feeling that no one actually lives there.
I guess it was interesting how little it felt like, say Manhattan, or the Chicago loop. Much less density of buildings, but every single building is massive. I knew the Shanghai Tower was going to be tall, but I didn't realize how big its floor plan was. From the outside it kind of reminded me of the Thompson Center in Chicago, with how the inner construction is very visible. I didn't actually go inside, though I guess at some point I will have to do the touristy thing of ascending to the observation deck and looking down upon all the tiny people below me.
I then took the subway to a place called Aegean Sea, which was more along the lines of what I was hoping to find in Pudong: A massive 8 floor mall filled with consumeristic excess. It had all the varieties of cafe you could hope for: maid cafe, cat cafe, waiters wearing frog costumes cafe, etc. Lots of claw machines and gacha machines. The third floor was the toddler floor, so they were all running around, driving miniature cars, swimming in ball pits, roller skating, etc. It was the first time in quite awhile that I wished I were 3 again.
The reason I went to Aegean Sea specifically was that I'd hoped the bookstore would be really big. It definitely wasn't small -- it took up about half of the mall's 7th floor -- but unfortunately it wasn't the kind of five floor massive bookstore I'd encountered in Beijing.
I always have this strange desire to go to malls, but once I'm actually at one I just feel like a weirdo walking around aimlessly. I never actually feel like I can go into any of the stores (with bookstores being the one exception). I didn't even eat anything there. I just walked around for an hour and went home. Oh well.
They seemed to have phased out 1 yuan bills since I was last in China. Now it's all 1 yuan coins. I still don't have a bank card yet (though I applied for one on Friday), so I have to use cash everywhere, which is increasingly inconvenient.
I guess my Chinese is significantly better than last time, since I was able to answer all the various barrages of questions necessary to set up a phone plan and apply for a bank account without anyone attempting to use English with me -- but I suppose that makes me all the more conscious of how limited my ability to express myself is. I think last time I just felt happy anytime something resembling communication successfully occurred in Chinese. This time, well... there is just all this tiny stuff that comes up in daily interactions with strangers that you don't get much practice with if most of your exposure to the language is via books, podcasts and talking to people you already know extremely well. It's stuff that I understand when I hear it, but when it comes to expressing it myself, I end up using weird overly long alternative phrases that while understandable to others, are definitely not what any actual Chinese person would say.
Next on the agenda is convincing someone to do karaoke with me (or KTV, as it's called here). We'll see how that goes.
@“saddleblasters”#p92742 i had the same experience in Pudong when i was there in 2011. the empty, cavernous lifelessness of the place felt so stark in contrast to the rest of Shanghai, which was constantly buzzing and lively in my experience.
@“whatsarobot”#p92809 yeah, I had heard warnings along these lines, but I really wasn‘t expecting it to be that bad! It felt like part of an open world game where they ran out of money before they could actually populate the city. It was of course neat/fascinating to see all the architecture up close, but it felt so disconnected from reality to a degree that I’d never experienced before in the financial districts of other cities (which really says something, since pretty much all financial districts tend to feel a little otherwordly/sinister).
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@“exodus”#p88097 Hongdae - this used to be the cool area
This was where I used to hang out... checks calendar... 12 years ago :((( I guess it was probably still cool back then.
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@“saddleblasters”#p88058 I was curious if anyone had any recommendations.
Recs:
Obligatory DMZ visit, it's pretty cool.
Obligatory War Museum visit, some good propaganda there. Best part for me, tanks you can climb into and fighter jets you can touch.
Eat noodles and drink beers really late at night or in the early morning at convenience stores to meet weirdos.
I wish I had more recs, but I was mostly blind drunk when I briefly lived in Korea. I do have some fun anecdotes though.
During one of my regular late night convenience store visits I met a man who claimed he was the most powerful fist in Korea, and that he would defend me. This guy was great. He didn't speak a lick of English, but thankfully I had a friend who spoke Korean with me.
I once stayed in a single room hostel with 5 bunks located in a fish market in Busan. One time returning home (through the stinky fish market which we named Eel Alley) I decided to buy and drink some banana milk, which I think is for children? An old woman started laughing at me and said to me "You drink milk like baby! Ahahahahahahha" which was real good.
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@“matt”#p92856 I decided to buy and drink some banana milk, which I think is for children? An old woman started laughing at me and said to me “You drink milk like baby! Ahahahahahahha” which was real good.
https://youtu.be/T-0py62rbm0