Our awesome Diplomatic Security guys, Chip (L)and Garrett (R-duh), have given me a lift to BNU over the last few days. It's been great. The ride is much better than the bus, and the company is fantastic. These guys are a lot of fun to hang out with and have shared lots of information on Beijing and China with me. And a few jokes too. Some of Chip's are actually funny.
Know what kind of car they drive? A minivan. A BUICK minivan (Note 8/11 post).
The best part? They have "Dip Tags". DipLOMATIC tags. Which means they can park almost anywhere.
Their boss (Shawn's a great guy!) has the coolest of cool car Olympic credentials. He can go anywhere, park anywhere and they cannot search his car. I bet that causes some confusion at security gates across the region!
What was I writing about? Gas.
The Buick was on fumes. Went to one station - closed. Went to another station and a conversation began. The attendant pumps the gas. Garrett speaks fluent Chinese. Chip speaks a bunch too. It still took forever to get them to pump the gas. There was concern that they were going to put diesel in the blue Buick. No worries in the end, and off we went.
This all with 2 Chinese speakers in the car.
Lesson here is don't rent a car in China. Or, if you do, hope you don't have to get gas.
PS - The station was on the OLD road. I've not seen any gas stations on the new main highway between here and Shunyi.
Oh, and the station that was open didn't sell beef jerky or Icees. We don't appreciate what we've got in the good old USA.
Know what kind of car they drive? A minivan. A BUICK minivan (Note 8/11 post).
The best part? They have "Dip Tags". DipLOMATIC tags. Which means they can park almost anywhere.
Their boss (Shawn's a great guy!) has the coolest of cool car Olympic credentials. He can go anywhere, park anywhere and they cannot search his car. I bet that causes some confusion at security gates across the region!
What was I writing about? Gas.
The Buick was on fumes. Went to one station - closed. Went to another station and a conversation began. The attendant pumps the gas. Garrett speaks fluent Chinese. Chip speaks a bunch too. It still took forever to get them to pump the gas. There was concern that they were going to put diesel in the blue Buick. No worries in the end, and off we went.
This all with 2 Chinese speakers in the car.
Lesson here is don't rent a car in China. Or, if you do, hope you don't have to get gas.
PS - The station was on the OLD road. I've not seen any gas stations on the new main highway between here and Shunyi.
Oh, and the station that was open didn't sell beef jerky or Icees. We don't appreciate what we've got in the good old USA.
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