Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
deal from expats selling off their wares before they leave. Email group Beijing Café and
website The Beijinger are good places to look.
If you're a keen cook you may want to bring your specialty gadgets with you. Mi-
crowaves, toasters, blenders, juicers, and even espresso machines can all readily be bought
from markets, supermarkets, and department stores, but particular items relating to
Western-style cooking often cannot. Kitchen stores that focus on Western products are start-
ing to make a showing, so Western knives, pots and pans, hand mixers, cake pans, and so
on are available, but items such as slow cookers, sandwich makers, and health grills can be
almost impossible to come by. If you do plan to transport items with complex mechanical
components, such as stand mixers, verify first how to ship them correctly so as not to dam-
age them.
SHIPPING OPTIONS
Your shipping options will vary greatly depending on if you are moving everything you
own or just a few items, and then whether or not you need the complete services of a relo-
cation company or just a moving company. A good relocation company should be able to
make your move to Beijing as stress-free as possible. They can offer such things as storage
and housing and school finding. Moving companies simply get your things from A to B.
THINGS TO BRING FROM HOME
While you can buy most lifestyle products in Beijing, sometimes it can be difficult
to find specialty items that you're used to having back at home. Some of these are
simply not available at all, or they are, but just inconvenient, highly overpriced, lim-
ited in range or variety, or the quality is below the par that you know. Surveying a
diverse group of expats, I found the main complaints were large sizes, quality chil-
dren's products, and specialty ingredients. If you live in Chaoyang or Dongcheng,
you'll have fewer issues, but the farther you get from these two districts, the fewer
Western comforts you'll be able to get your hands on. One tip: Get to know websites
such as Amazon China ( www.amazon.cn ) , http://tmall.com , www.jd.com , and, if
you've really got it going on and are willing to risk fake items, Taobao
( www.taobao.com ) . View them through web browser Google Chrome, which can
translate the whole page, and your world in China will open up. They're much cheap-
er, and most deliver free of charge within a day or two.
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