It is also a perspective issue.

When I first arrived in China, I thought pretty much everything was cheap in comparision to Vancouver. Now I think other places are expensive.

It also depends who pays. If the company pays then why not go for convienence over cost. Time costs money.

One thing for sure in my personal case. What takes a few minutes to do back home, over here could take hours due to language, chinese way of doing things, line ups etc. For someone that is here only for a few days, convience may trump cost.

After saying all that - there are other ways and man that is expensive!