Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Feb 5, 2012, 5:58 am
Let’s not keep patting ourselves on the back in America and Europe over the end of slavery. Sure, it’s not a major issue in the Western world. We don’t have to look at it, we don’t have to deal with it, and we get Martin Luther King day off work. It seems a universal fact that slavery is bad...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Jan 28, 2012, 1:13 pm
The other day Apple was set to release the new iPhone 4S in China. What transpired has hit news stands around the world, so I’ll only summarize briefly. A crowd of around 1-2,000 gathered in Sanlitun at the shiny Apple store the night before the new phone was set to release. In the morning, having...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Jan 19, 2012, 12:34 pm
... per hour. It’s beautiful, not unlike the motorcycle from The Great Escape. Side note: did you notice that the bike used in the film was ... when she pointed the nose of the busted red beauty directly in his escape path. The man then had no choice but to either face the wrath of a woman wit...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Jan 14, 2012, 1:12 pm
It was in the depths of a dreary and cold winter in Beijing when Christmas hit, almost unexpectedly, amid family visits and mad rushes at the bar. The garland was hung, the lights were strung, and a fake fireplace had been painted on the eastern wall to give the dark living room the feeling of a hom...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Nov 27, 2011, 10:46 pm
When I was in high school I distinctly remember the day we learned about the concept of a Malthusian Crisis. The teacher drew an upward bow on the black board representing population, and another bow, not as bent as the former, representing food supplies. Where those two bows intersected, the teache...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Nov 11, 2011, 1:04 am
A friend sent me this photo recently and as many of you know, this is an issue we’re pretty passionate about. There is crap public transportation in America, and yet we pioneered using the railway to link our two beautiful coasts. Apparently we haven’t updated our trains since they were first ro...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Oct 10, 2011, 11:41 pm
National Geographic released an hour-long documentary titled Stress: Portrait of a Killer. The film follows several scientists as they explain how stress is related to your position in social hierarchy, and how this position can impact your health in serious ways. Stress is a hormone that is releas...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Oct 7, 2011, 1:05 am
We’ve had the bar for a month now, and so far things are going well. We’ve made a few changes to the place that we think is helping, and already we’ve had a record month (ha ha). Below are some pictures of the bar, and more will follow. I’m also redesigning the menu, and we’re adding more ...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Sep 21, 2011, 4:21 am
As many of you already know, Mike and I have taken over management of the famous 12SQM bar in Beijing. Once Beijing’s coziest (read: smallest) bar, it’s now a massive 44SQM and contains enough space for some pretty awesome events and parties. Mike and Lauren have managed the bar for less than t...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Aug 30, 2011, 8:30 am
A recent Chinese census found that 118.06 males are born in China to every 100 girls. This statistic hasn’t changed for the past ten years, but has become less drastic than it was when the one-child policy was originally instituted in 1979. The policy affects some 35.9% of the population in China ...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Aug 29, 2011, 8:19 am
If you want to get PADI certified, you’ll have to find a certified instructor to teach you the basics of scuba diving. This isn’t easy when you live in the middle of nowhere, or in our case in Beijing. While we’re near the coast (5 hours by train) we’re not exactly in prime scuba diving coun...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Aug 27, 2011, 7:52 am
Despite repeated warnings from friends that we’d come back covered in stranger’s vomit, we set out in a group of 12 from Beijing to Qingdao to lie on the beaches and then attend the annual Qingdao Beer Festival. Here is our trip report: 0600: We awoke to the third or possibly even fourth series...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Aug 10, 2011, 3:39 am
Well, a few years ago we did a post on the sink saga, which nearly resulted in the death of several repair men who were standing ankle deep in dirty sink water when they realized all the outlets were about ankle deep plus a half a centimeter. I dove at the shut off for the power and we all made it t...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Aug 7, 2011, 9:02 pm
A lot of people don’t advise learning to scuba dive in a third world country. It can be a dangerous sport, and saving a few bucks isn’t worth the brain damage if your tank isn’t carrying the right mixture of gasses to sustain you underwater. And then, of course, a myriad of horrors could occur...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Aug 5, 2011, 8:50 pm
The Adventurists are launching a new concept for a rally, this one is so daring, so amazing, so fantastic that once Lauren saw it she hasn’t been able to talk about anything else. She is literally rally racing in her sleep. So, what’s the big idea? Rather than tell you, look at the image below a...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Aug 3, 2011, 5:59 am
We’ve been in Beijing for about a year now and that means we’ve met some amazing folks living in China’s capital city. We’re heading east to Qingdao, an old German concession town on the ocean where they make, what else- beer! And not just any beer, but TsingTao, China’s largest beer expor...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Jul 31, 2011, 8:50 pm
The last couple of weeks have been insane. First, it has been raining non-stop in Beijing. This kind of monsoon season hasn’t hit Beijing in years, and it’s effecting everything in the city because it isn’t equipped to deal with that amount of water that quickly. The subways flood, the streets...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Jul 15, 2011, 11:49 pm
Many people think of Florida as the place to go if you want to escape to theme parks in the blazing hot sun. While the Sunshine State is the kind of place that you take a holiday with kids and grown-ups alike to enjoy Disneyworld, SeaWorld, Universal Studios and others, people may rather enjoy the o...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Jun 22, 2011, 9:31 am
Summer is in full swing in Beijing, with a heat index that is exhausting and humidity so thick it feels like being water boarded every time you inhale. Amid this heat and humidity there rides a lone foreigner on a rickety, poorly-made, death-trap of a bike. I peddle as fast as the fixed gear crap bi...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - May 27, 2011, 9:03 am
Staplers and colleagues and cubicles – oh my! I recently took a full-time (aka: cube) job in Beijing. Yes, I know what you are thinking, “How could you, your whole mission is to Abandon the Cube!” Well my dear like-minded and equally outraged friend, you are right. But every once in a while w...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - May 19, 2011, 4:22 am
Getting a visa in China with a company can be a hassle. I spent several months preparing all the documents needed to get my Z visa. To make things a bit simpler, here is a short list of the items you need for your health check, how to get to the fascilitiy, and what to expect. Items you’ll need: ...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - May 1, 2011, 12:57 am
In December, Mike bought me a kitten for Christmas. It died shortly after of FPV. We named him Nixon, after Mike’s favorite president. That is Nixon in the image (left). The vet who checked the kitten for us offered to find us another cat later down the line. In January, we adopted a stray Beijin...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Apr 21, 2011, 1:36 am
Spring has finally arrived in Beijing, and after a long winter in a Chinese siheyuan (a hutong home) we’re ready for the fine weather and fresh air that spring promises to bring. Pictures of Beijing were recently loaded on our flickr page and available in the gallery. And with the new season, new...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Mar 19, 2011, 2:37 am
Many of our readers have asked us what the impact of the tsunami and earthquake were on China. The simple answer is that there was little to no impact, the USA felt more than China did, as the wave rebounded to the West Coast and killed several Americans. In China, we did not feel the earthquake or ...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Mar 15, 2011, 2:33 am
Beijing is a funny place. If you don’t have a sense of humor living here, you simply can’t survive. Some of the funniest things I’ve seen lately in the city involve food. For example, did you know that the Oreos sold in Beijing have a different recipe than the ones sold in the USA? They are l...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Mar 4, 2011, 2:18 am
Is polygamy coming to China? Thats what some mistresses in the mainland are calling for after the failed ‘Festival of Mistresses’ on March 3 at 3:30 in China, 2011. The number three, signifying the third woman in a relationship, was intentional. But, how can mistresses elevate their status and s...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Feb 17, 2011, 7:00 am
As many of you know, we moved into a Beijing hutong– a traditional single-story home in a traditional maze of houses that makes up a close-knit community. Anyways, its been a bumpy and rewarding ride. I recently painted the interior of the hutong, spending a bit of my own cash to fix up the place....
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Feb 10, 2011, 7:00 am
There are over 300 million Americans. Less than 30% of them have passports. That means Americans are not traveling abroad. And 50% of those who do leave the USA are traveling to either Canada or Mexico. So, why is it that Americans are not traveling overseas in larger numbers? Realistically, money ...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Feb 7, 2011, 7:00 am
In 2008 we lived in Shanghai and had the amazing opportunity to stay in the city over the Spring Festival (the Chinese lunar New Year). Since so many migrant workers and others had fled the city for the holiday (which is akin to Thanksgiving where everyone goes to their home state for the festivitie...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Feb 3, 2011, 11:20 pm
Folks are talking about the environment in a new way. Global warming, greenhouses gasses, Co2 emissions, and our dependency on a depleting oil supply, dependency on mass produced and imported foods. While there aren’t many people out there who think how we treat the world we live in is acceptable,...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Jan 30, 2011, 7:00 am
The State of the Union Address was January 25th, 2011, ATC reviews the plans behind President Obama’s speech. Transportation: One issue we’ve always been open about at ATC is transportation in America. While traveling around the world, we found America to be one of the most difficult places to...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Jan 28, 2011, 1:35 am
From the most populated country in the world plans to build a mega city to house some 42 million doesn’t seem that surprising. China is already home to the largest port and biggest city (Shanghai) as well as home to the 1/5th of the world’s population. Costing 2 trillion yuan, the project to mer...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Jan 24, 2011, 9:43 pm
I live in China. I’m an American. You’d be surprised at the number one question people ask me from back home. Simply put, they ask why China owns America’s debt, when they will call it in, and why the Chinese are buying up property in the USA. They are fearful of what China will do, and frankl...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Jan 21, 2011, 8:52 pm
Recently, CNN ran an article asking the question, “Should You Look for Work in China.” The article follows the story of two Texan-Americans, the Summer family, who decide to head to China for high tech jobs. It goes on to highlight that the number of Americans working and living abroad has incre...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Jan 17, 2011, 7:00 am
Today, I was walking down Nanluoguxiang when a women in a new model Audi decided to take a short cut out of one of the many side alleyways and turned south on Nanluoguxiang, which is a one-way road going north. She pushed her fist against the horn and honked without letting up as she forced her way ...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Jan 12, 2011, 8:47 am
Beijing has many amazing attractions. The Great Wall is a short ride away, the Forbidden City is at the epicenter, the entire city is flush with history and culture. One of the things that Beijing has that many other cities are lacking in China is a survival of the traditional hutong homes. The ...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Jan 7, 2011, 7:52 am
Happy New Year! With the new year comes a barrage of newly affirmed goals and resolutions. Living in China isn’t always easy, there are sundry problems, including the fact that our landlord refuses to fix anything broken in our hutong apartment, which is basically everything.  I resolved to deal ...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Dec 22, 2010, 7:00 am
Dear Friends, Family, Fellow Travelers, and Random Readers, Merry Christmas from Beijing, China! We’re thrilled to be celebrating Christmas from the Middle Kingdom this year. Its a different experience than Christmas back home. For starters, Santa is only featured in a few select Western shopping...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Dec 16, 2010, 4:34 am
We recently did a visa run. As with many people who live in China, we have to leave the country every 60 or 90 days to reactivate our 1-year visas. We recently decided to try the Beijing-Erlian visa run rather than the traditional Beijing to Hong Kong run. Here are a few details on how to make your ...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Dec 13, 2010, 5:13 am
We recently signed a one year lease on a local hutong home called a ping’an. A hutong is a cultural community of homes in the traditional style, single-level and with minimal amenities. We decided that if we were going to live in China we should experience life like a local, and thus we moved into...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Dec 8, 2010, 5:08 am
As many of you know, we were recently evicted from our apartment in Beijing. This stellar nightmare had a surprisingly happy ending when we recently signed a one-year lease on a hutong ping’an in Beijing. The misery of finding a new apartment in Beijing in the middle of the freezing winter time w...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Dec 3, 2010, 5:02 am
First, a little background information on rental practices in China: In general, you sign a lease and pay your rent whenever you move in. No one waits for the first of the month to move. We signed our lease on a three-bedroom apartment in Dongchang district on the 21st of September, for example. You...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Nov 24, 2010, 7:00 am
The Long Way Round We recently watched the series Long Way Round, where Charlie Boorman and Ewan McGregor ride their BMWs from London to New York– the long way around. They cover some 19,000 miles in around 3 months. This show was of interest to us because we recently completed the 2010 Mongol Ra...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Nov 22, 2010, 7:00 am
Abandon the Cube has undergone changes…for the better we hope. Be the first to check it out! We’re excited about the changes we’ve made and can’t wait for you to browse around the new stuff! As I said, we added a few new pages– the foremost of which is a page of Top Ten lists about variou...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Nov 18, 2010, 7:00 am
We’ve been looking all over for a place to buy a ferret. Yeah, I know what you are thinking, why buy a pet when you will just have to leave in a few years and possibly leave it behind. The quarentine process for brinign animals from China to the USA can’t be easy, and besides, ferrets are just g...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Nov 15, 2010, 7:00 am
A lot of people are interested in how much money our website makes, how we acquired so much content for the blog, and how we created the various destination and other pages on the website. It is, actually, one of the most common questions we get about Abandon the Cube. We had a lot of learning to do...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Nov 11, 2010, 7:00 am
Since it was my birthday week we got to do a lot of really fun stuff. After all, you only turn 27 once! Mike decided to take me to the Beijing zoo to celebrate. With the new apartment I was hoping to get a cat but one of the room mates is allergic, so a trip to the zoo to see the giant cats there wa...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Nov 9, 2010, 7:00 am
Since we finally had an apartment we were free to start looking for jobs. We set about looking in the obvious places for expats living abroad, craigslist, the Beijinger, CityWeekend and other Beijing-specific websites with classified ads. In Shanghai in 2008 I found my job on Craigslist, proving tha...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Nov 7, 2010, 7:00 am
Having decided to stay in Beijing for a while, we set bout organizing ourselves to look for an apartment. We were determined to stay in the central area of Beijing, right in the middle of the expat community. Sanlitun is a great area, near the shopping, bars, restaurants and other expats. It is a gr...
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Mike B. posted an article on Abandon the Cube Travel Journal - Nov 5, 2010, 7:00 am
Arriving as we did in the middle of the night we had an epic sense of adventure attached to our return to China. Adding to that feeling was the fact that several ralliers were to be in the city for the next week. We got in touch with them, though they were eager to see the sights (Great Wall of Chin...
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