That's exactly where our stuff came from: Costco. It's like some sort of warped tradition. I think it was a mix of multivitamins, fish oil, coenzyme Q10, glucosamine and aspirin of all things.
Well, I'm back now in the US. It feels like waking up from a dream. The world just seems so different here now. The streets are empty at night, the sky is blue and I can see the horizon... weird.
Inflation has run rampant in China in the last couple of years. Before I could go back, and expect some cheap food and goods but now the prices are comparable to the US, and in some cases exceed that of the US. Property prices in Beijing have skyrocketed over the last 8 years or so such that some places have seen a 10x increase. Pretty soon I won't be able to afford a trip back to Beijing.
The cars on the road are pretty much all-new, and even with cars costing 2x-3x what they cost in the US, you still see a large number of Mercedes, BMWs and even a Lamborghini or two. Evidently to even register a car in Beijing you need to go through a lottery, and a large number of slots have been resold at something like 10K USD per permit. This means if you're wealthy you can easily buy a permit, and if you're not you can make some good cash by selling one. I guess there's also the population to factor in. Even if only 10% are wealthy enough to own cars at these inflated prices, that's still a sizable number given a total population of 20 Million or so in Beijing.
Smoking also was a major difference in Beijing. Unlike the US, smoking is still allowed in public places, and I've been offered cigarettes at least 5-6 times during the time that I was there. A couple of days into it I actually considered accepting since I had picked so much second hand smoke by that time
Pollution is probably as bad as reported. I have this picture that I took at 10am in the morning of the skyline. There's a dimly glowing ball of light in the sky that looks like the moon... but it's actually the sun. I was so weirded out by it when I first saw it because it's not very often you can look at the sun in the day time without protection. Clouds can block the sun but it takes a thick uniform haze to generate the effect that I saw. I had bought a hepa air filter before I left for China but it was large, and didn't support 220v so I left it at home.
On one hand I envy the rapid progress made in the last couple of years there as opposed to the relatively stagnant US. On the other hand it seems like the "Wild West" where unless you can wheel and deal, you'll often be left holding the short end of the stick.
Oh, I came up empty in terms of games of wuxia series. It looks like wuxia TV series have fallen out of favor in the last couple of years, and most games over there are MMOs.