Indulging in Luxury

I spent the better part of today simply indulging in a bit of luxury. Having failed to wake up at 7 in the morning, in spite of Kamla's kind wake up call, we decided to make a trip to Ikea, after failing to find men's figure skating on CCTV5. We took the subway over to 中华门, and then caught a cab after a confusing set of instructions to the bus stop. I'm pretty sure we were completely ripped off, but I figured there was no point in arguing with the cab driver. It's hard enough finding a cab driver who is willing to go out as far as Ikea, so I just agreed to the flat fee of 20 RMB. It was just under $3, so I figure, it was worth the expense, just relaxing.

As we rushed to the downstairs section of Ikea for the hot dogs, I was struck by how un-American their hot dogs were. It was rather disappointing, all things considered, but it was cheap and good enough to satisfy my hungry stomach. I ate 2 hot dogs and had 1 ice cream cone, all of which came to a grand total of 7 RMB. Haha, I definitely enjoyed it.

There were far too many people in Ikea though. As children crawled between my legs and adults shoved past without so much as an excuse me, the far too intimate surroundings was taxing on both of us mentally. While we were fairly well rested today, we were completely exhausted by the surroundings. I recall mentioning before that it was creepy to be on the streets without any people around, but now that the city has begun to recover its original 面貌, I feel safer, but do not like being in enclosed spaces with the same number of people. I suppose it's a double standard. We purchased a bunch of what I suppose could be classified as "luxury" items, nothing we particularly "needed" but kind of just wanted to just indulge in.

After years of pining looks, I finally bought scented tea light candles. It was heavenly, and the apple-scent has just floated throughout our entire flat. It makes for such a relaxing environment after all our thorough cleaning of the place.

We bought the much dreaded scale, and I am afraid to say my weight is not as low as I would have liked it to be. We also bought a set of containers for our salt and sugar. It was something I avoided buying for the longest time, but recently the humidity has made it unbearable to salt or sugar anything, so it was worth the purchase (plus it was such a steal). We also bought a set of Tupperware for only 19.9 RMB, which was something I wish I had done 5 months ago, as it was an enormous set of top quality. My set of 3 cost about the same, when this set gave something like 6. I also bought a DVD-case for my many DVDs, and I got a messenger bag for the start of my internship. It should fit all my necessities, as well as my laptop. Kamla bought a super cheap thermos. I was tempted to do the same, but I've honestly purchased far too many beverage-holding things this year. I ought to hold off. So all in all, they were of some use to us. I would call them fairly practical purchases, though they sided on the luxury side.

We managed to catch a cab rather quickly back to our apartment, which was a delight compared to my last encounter in the area with Lauren. I suppose we could have taken the bus back to the subway, but we were exhausted just from the people.

We had originally planned for Peking Duck, but decided against it. Instead, we have decided to invest in our "healthy track" and went out and just purchased some nice, healthy foods for dinner. I enjoyed our food, less oil, less salt, healthy. It was a good day~