A funny travel story from an interesting blog.
April 11, 2006
The Discussion: 9 Comments
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A funny travel story from an interesting blog.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
A peculiar hybrid of personal journal, dilettantish punditry, pseudo-philosophy and much more, from an Accidental Expat who has made his way from Hong Kong to Beijing to Taipei and finally back to Beijing for reasons that are still not entirely clear to him…
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1
By OtherLisa
The funny part is how freaked out the guy was. Like he’d been dropped in the middle of Baghdad or something!
April 11, 2006 @ 10:01 pm | Comment
2
By Matt
I could just imagine a mild-mannered software engineer fighting his way out of a Chinese brothel- that was my favorite part.
April 11, 2006 @ 10:16 pm | Comment
3
By OtherLisa
The part where the woman rescued him from certain death!
April 11, 2006 @ 11:12 pm | Comment
4
By Fat Cat
A friend of mine used to run a restaurant in an inner city suburb called Alexandria in Sydney. They had a website with online enquiry. For some reasons, they kept receiving emails about providing catering services for companies in South Africa. Of course they soon realized that Alexandria is also the name of a city in South Africa. I thought they should be ever so glad that they weren’t asked to deliver take away to Alexandria in Egypt.
April 12, 2006 @ 12:29 am | Comment
5
By Liu Yixi
Go easy on the guy. He’s from Little Rock. He would have had the same reaction if stranded in Chicago.
April 12, 2006 @ 10:47 am | Comment
6
By Jing
Call me skeptical, but I’m going to weave my own take on the events. The man was a big goober to mistake a flight for Taiyuan for a flight to Taipei. Second, I find it hard to believe how he would be asolutely penniless in Taiyuan. Any veteran traveler would know to carry emergency money. Secondly, he should have called the U.S. consolate if he was stuck, always carry consulate numbers. I have the sneaking suspicious that he didn’t fight as hard as he claims in trying to get away from a brothel. More likely he blew all his money on one of the girls when the local pimps extorted an easy mark for all he was worth. Leaving him peniless and stranded.
April 12, 2006 @ 4:39 pm | Comment
7
By richard
I am a true veteran traveller. I flew to Hong Kong just last week with only about 1000 NT (US$32) knowing I would have no problem getting HK cash at the ATM. Little did I know the ATMs – and I tried about 8 of them – would not accept my Taiwanese bank card. I presume this is a political phenomenon. Thank God I tucked away my US bank ATM card in my wallet, and thank God there was still a bit of money in it. Purely by chance, I was saved, but I could very easily have been in the same situation as this traveler.
As for your suppositions about what really went on at the brothel, what are you basing them on?
April 12, 2006 @ 8:12 pm | Comment
8
By David
MUCH more likely to be an incompetent Taiwanese banking system phenomenon – I suspect the bank has to explicitly OK overseas transactions. I’d check with your bank when you return.
I’m pretty sure i’ve managed to extract money on my Taiwanese card in HK before…
April 13, 2006 @ 1:31 am | Comment
9
By richard
David, you’re probably right. Some of the machines said, “Your bank has refused this transaction.” How ridiculous.
April 13, 2006 @ 4:44 am | Comment