lijunlaopo.com

Wistful.

I’ve just signed myself up for an Amazon.com account.

I’ve no idea if books sent to our address written in English will make it here, but I am getting rather desperate.

I survived in Japan by borrowing books from other teachers’ collections, but having no English speaking friends or colleagues here makes that just a little difficult in Hefei.

In Melbourne I worked part time at the local libraries whenever I had spare time or felt the need for some extra cash, so always had access to an endless supply of reading material.

FREE reading material.

What a luxury!

Scanning through the books on Amazon, trying to calculate shipping cost, wondering how long I will have to wait for my purchases (up to 40 days they say) and if they will ever even find their way here, is bringing me to realise how bloody wonderful the library really is.

It is unimaginable to me now that I could put a few (or 20) books on hold online, then just wander down to pick them up when they arrived at my branch the next day, not paying a cent for any of them.

Sigh.

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 5th, 2007 at 7:15 pm and is filed under life, miss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Comments

Bobo | October 6th, 2007 | 2:37 pm

Hi dearie… just thought I should share this with you.

I sent a parcel to China before. The address was in traditional chinese characters, which aren’t very different from the simplified ones. The parcel arrived in China only to be sent back to Singapore with a note; That they didn’t understand (refuse to) the address and requested the Singapore Postal Service to provide it in Simplified Chinese Characters. Singpost then contacted me and I amended it, emailed to them again and the nice guy from the post office pasted it on the parcel for me. And… about a month later it reached my friend… parcel half wrecked. some of the contents were spoilt.

This was to Guangzhou… so… That’s my experience. I hope you have a better one though.

lijunlaopo | October 6th, 2007 | 5:15 pm

Hi bobo,
Thanks for sharing.
We had something sent to Hefei by Fedex once and it completely disappeared, Patrick had to call up the company and arrange to meet the courier somewhere as they just didn’t bother contacting us when they couldn’t find our apartment.
It is a bit of a worry getting stuff sent here… I might just have to go to Shanghai and see if I can find a good bookstore!

Baxter Tocher | October 6th, 2007 | 7:39 pm

Sally, it’s worth bearing in mind that you can order from any Amazon store and have goods shipped pretty much anywhere. I’m in the UK and I regularly buy stuff from Amazon UK and Amazon US (some packages from both are sent from Germany).

I’ve also bought from Amazon Germany and considered buying from Amazon Japan, though negotiating through the checkout process might be a bit tricky if you can’t read the language (I can’t read either of those!).

lijunlaopo | October 7th, 2007 | 6:50 pm

Hi Baxter
Thank-you!
It’s worth giving it a shot then, although it seems buying from Amazon may become a bit addictive!!??

Bobo | October 6th, 2007 | 2:37 pm
Hi dearie… just thought I should share this with you.

I sent a parcel to China before. The address was in traditional chinese characters, which aren’t very different from the simplified ones. The parcel arrived in China only to be sent back to Singapore with a note; That they didn’t understand (refuse to) the address and requested the Singapore Postal Service to provide it in Simplified Chinese Characters. Singpost then contacted me and I amended it, emailed to them again and the nice guy from the post office pasted it on the parcel for me. And… about a month later it reached my friend… parcel half wrecked. some of the contents were spoilt.

This was to Guangzhou… so… That’s my experience. I hope you have a better one though.
lijunlaopo | October 6th, 2007 | 5:15 pm
Hi bobo,
Thanks for sharing.
We had something sent to Hefei by Fedex once and it completely disappeared, Patrick had to call up the company and arrange to meet the courier somewhere as they just didn’t bother contacting us when they couldn’t find our apartment.
It is a bit of a worry getting stuff sent here… I might just have to go to Shanghai and see if I can find a good bookstore!
Baxter Tocher | October 6th, 2007 | 7:39 pm
Sally, it’s worth bearing in mind that you can order from any Amazon store and have goods shipped pretty much anywhere. I’m in the UK and I regularly buy stuff from Amazon UK and Amazon US (some packages from both are sent from Germany).

I’ve also bought from Amazon Germany and considered buying from Amazon Japan, though negotiating through the checkout process might be a bit tricky if you can’t read the language (I can’t read either of those!).
lijunlaopo | October 7th, 2007 | 6:50 pm
Hi Baxter
Thank-you!
It’s worth giving it a shot then, although it seems buying from Amazon may become a bit addictive!!??