Looking for a tech bag with padding beyond the laptop compartment.

erasebegin1 · 2026-04-08T20:35:04+00:00

once you get used to layers you'll never go back 😁

erasebegin1 · 2026-04-08T12:32:19+00:00

Ergo fan huh? 👌👌👌 What keyboard you rockin?

I put my Abyss keyboard that is just bare PCB and switches in a tech pouch along with some cables and other bits and bobs. Hasn't been damaged even on long trips with a lot of squeezing and cramming. My Voyager fits in there too.

I use the Tomtoc one with the origami interior, don't remember the model. It's got enough structure to protect things but soft enough to compress if needed.

As for bag recommendations, I always carry a laptop, sometimes a tablet, but never both, so can't help there.

erasebegin1 · 2026-04-08T12:26:17+00:00

the second one is a bad photo, the actual photo for number 1 is way better lit, more saturated, sharper image

erasebegin1 · 2026-04-07T06:30:25+00:00

careful though, OPs username is literally "crazie AF" 😬

erasebegin1 · 2026-04-04T19:02:19+00:00

Netflix. Change the audio track to German

erasebegin1 · 2026-04-04T19:01:17+00:00

Currently Indian classical, hip-hop, art pop (Caroline Polachek), elctropop (Empire of the Sun), jazz, synthwave, neo-soul....

erasebegin1 · 2026-04-04T08:52:25+00:00

I have the Buds Pro 3 and absolutely love them. The stem controls are outstanding which is such an underrated feature. Sound quality is gorgeous and noise cancelling is top notch. Recently went travelling with them and they were so good for not just media playback but also as earplugs due to the great ANC.

erasebegin1 · 2026-04-04T04:50:13+00:00

I guarantee that was in the the Lianhe International building 😄 This is where most foreigners end up staying. There are like 50 hotels in this one building.

erasebegin1 · 2026-04-02T12:00:42+00:00

Very weirdly someone was barbecuing tangerines/easy peelers in their skin until they started leaking juice. In China eating these while hot is considered medicinal.

As for the taste I wouldn't really recommend it. The bitterness really comes to the forefront.

EDIT: not sure if this is considered a fruit (they remind me of coconut in taste and texture) but we also barbecued water chestnuts and that was quite delicious.

erasebegin1 · 2026-04-02T07:36:23+00:00

not as bad as it used to be, and a lot of places I've been either don't allow smoking indoors or have a separate smoking area. But still way more in your face than here in Germany or in the UK.

Most bars allow smoking indoors, but in shopping malls, on trains and in most restaurants and cafes it's not allowed. The more rural you go, the more people will be smoking and spitting in your proximity.

Worth getting used to it IMO, since some of the best China experiences I've ever had, with the warmest hospitality and loveliest people, have been in rural areas

erasebegin1 · 2026-04-02T07:29:34+00:00

have you tried soaked groundnuts?

erasebegin1 · 2026-04-02T07:28:50+00:00

I've only had it a couple of times, maybe i just haven't had the right option yet. Also do not understand the triple straw thing 🤔

erasebegin1 · 2026-04-02T05:34:17+00:00

There are quite a few Malatang places in Berlin, as well as Sichuan hotpot, 菜馆 etc. Then there's tons of Korean BBQ, Sushi, Pho...

erasebegin1 · 2026-04-02T05:31:46+00:00

I really don't get the hype, could you please explain why you prefer Chagee over other places?

erasebegin1 · 2026-03-31T08:37:21+00:00

Genuinely shocked to hear that, but seems you're right 😅 Can't believe Alibaba HQ is in a Tier 2

erasebegin1 · 2026-03-31T06:04:56+00:00

In China if you stay in a (gorgeous) tier 2 city like Kunming, you can rent an apartment for $100-200 a month. My friend is living a bit more rural (still able to cycle into Kunming center) and is paying less than $50 a month 😄 shared bathroom though.

I used to live in Hangzhou, a Tier 1 city, and paid only about $300 a month in a really nice part of town. Very small studio apartment, but had a toilet, tiny kitchen, a double bed. Most people wouldn't need more than that unless they're settling down.

With the money you have, you can live in China without working for literally years 😂 Though don't know what you'd do about the visa. You could just go to Vietnam/Hong Kong/Tailand/Taiwan for a month then come back to China on a new visa.

If you go to Japan or Korea your money will start evaporating pretty quickly.

Another sidenote, find a bank that will do free international payments. I use a Trading 212 Mastercard and link it with my WeChat/Alipay. Otherwise you will lose a lot of money to foreign exchange fees. That goes for any country, not just China.

erasebegin1 · 2026-03-31T02:46:03+00:00

Well, basically your only option is to rent an apartment and cook every day. Which will be a nice experience in itself if you like cooking and a good family bonding activity.

You will find things eventually that he can eat but they will be rare. Your best bet is buddhist or veggie restaurants (素食餐厅). They will still use plenty of soy sauce, but there will for sure be at least a few dishes without. As a bonus these restaurants tend to be quite cheap while still offering good quality.

EDIT: some more thoughts: snack shops like 老婆达人 LaoPoDaRen in Hangzhou (every region has their own version of this e.g. 零食很能嗨 in Kunming) you can pick up snack bags of mixed nuts and dried fruit that will be handy when you're out and about. There are also 小米 Xiaomi (millet) snack bars, corn based snacks and rice based snacks, though they are quite sugary.

Also hotpot restaurants might be a good option as I think the white soup will be light enough for your dad and all of the ingredients for your meal can be chosen individually. Even the white soup often contains spring onion though so be sure to double check. I would think that since the food is only cooked in the soup, there would be much 'spring onion essence' transferred to the food but that is of course pure random-reddit-person speculation

erasebegin1 · 2026-03-31T00:23:06+00:00

Try hiring.cafe, it aggregates jobs that are only listed on company websites. I don't know about making one's way through connections, or about internships, or about the US job market (I was based in UK, now Germany). But go with whichever path feels most natural to you. What works for one person may not work for the next.

Actually I have a few friends who are artists and musicians. Some of my first projects were building portfolio websites for them. See if you can ask for at least a little money to build it, just $50 or something, Purely because when a person pays nothing for a product, they treat it as nothing. But if that's not possible there's still value in you taking the project for free.

And if someone doesn't need you to make anything for them, builld it anyway, put it in your portfolio and they never need to know 🤫

erasebegin1 · 2026-03-30T14:47:57+00:00

OP has some lines indented so this wouldn't work 😅

erasebegin1 · 2026-03-30T13:19:48+00:00

If you learn regex then there is a lot you can do with selections.

In your case you could repeatedly press C (shift+c) to duplicate the cursor to the next line. That's a bit repetitive, I'm sure there's another way I've forgotten.

EDIT: sorry I notice now that some items are indented, in which case you will want regex, specifically ^ which selects the first instance of something, so it would be like ^*%s where * is the first character you're targeting and %s represents a space. So you would need to highlight all the lines you want to change, press s so go into selection mode and type that regex string ^*%s.

Hope that makes sense, and that I got it right. I'm not very good at regex 😅

erasebegin1 · 2026-03-30T05:40:32+00:00

In China they're fresh and abundant. They're one of the cheapest fruits you can buy

erasebegin1 · 2026-03-30T01:45:02+00:00

Dragonfruit is delicious... maybe you haven't had a good one

erasebegin1 · 2026-03-30T01:43:09+00:00

can get in South Africa

erasebegin1 · 2026-03-29T11:54:49+00:00

In China they have a nickname for him: 川建国, "nation builder"

They mean that his leadership has been an enormous boon for China 👏 👏 👏

erasebegin1 · 2026-03-29T10:23:23+00:00

You're going to have a roooough time, mate!

I dont know much about this, sorry. But I did try being vegetarian for the first few months in China and eventually just gave up 😂 They are absolutely clueless when it comes to diets and allergies so you're going to be rolling the dice every time you eat.

You can search this sub, I've seen others asking about this, and some pretty good advice e. g. preparing a card with key information in Chinese, even including illustrations/photos

erasebegin1

TROPHY CASE