Traveling to China - Advice?

[Badabing]

I know there are a couple of posters here who live in/are familiar with China, so was just looking for some tips, places to see/stay, things to avoid, etc.

We will be spending around two weeks and the plan is to see Beijing, Xi'an, and Shanghai.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[Makarov]

Try to pick up a tiny bit of Mandarin before you go (just enough to order a bottle of beer, etc.) English will not be spoken anywhere but maybe your hotel.

If you had another week or two, I would definitely encourage you to take the train out to Jiayuguan and Kashgar. Yangshuo is also a must visit. Impossible with only two weeks though (you should really try to make it longer though; two weeks is only enough time to barely scratch the surface.) Yunnan, Sichuan, and Tibet is a whole other three or week trip on its own.

I lived in Beijing for several years so I will focus my recommendations there.

Autumn is definitely the best time of year to visit Beijing. Winters are cool (with poorly heated buildings for the most part.) Summers are hot, humid, and smoggy. Spring is nice but plagued by dust storms that blow in from the Gobi desert.

Visit the Forbidden City, Beihai Park, the Drum and Bell (Clock) Towers (and the surrounding hutongs/bar district of Gu Lou/Houhai/Dianmen St.

Visit Tiananmen Square and the National Museum of China.

Visit the Ancient Observatory.

Visit the Temple of Heaven and the nearby Hongqiao (Pearl) market to shop for counterfeit goods.

Visit Sanlitun embassy district and bar street and nearby Yashou clothing market for more counterfeit goods shopping.

Visit the Niujie mosque.

Visit Wudaokou (my old stomping grounds) to get a taste of Beijing's student nightlife.

Get out into some of the areas outside the third ring road to see how the average Beijinger lives.

Eat, eat, eat. You can explore all of the riches of Chinese cuisine from palatial imperial restaurants to neighbourhood Uighur restaurants.

Visit Chaoyang park, and the charming bars and neighbourhoods around it.

Visit Dashanzi Art District, the cutting edge of the Chinese (indeed, even the world) art scene.

My favourite place to see the Great Wall near Beijing is Junshanling, but there are several other good, less touristy places as well. Just, whatever you do, don't go to Badaling.

[PsYcNeT]

This is great to see pop up, as I'm heading to China next month with my wife to meet her extended family.

We'll only be spending a week in Beijing (and a week in Tianjin), so hopefully we'll get to cram in as much experience as possible.

Very excited for the food.

[Huntingwhale]

-Learn Chinese
-Learn Kung Fu
-Shrink down
-Learn to ride a bike

That should pretty much cover it.

[Tron_fdc]

Try to fly first class. Upgrade if you can, and failing that beg to get upgraded. Flights to Beijing are pretty unruly. Unruly in the sense that the toilets get lined up, and within a few hours look like a nightclub at 3AM.

I would stay away from China East Airlines. I flew them once, and It seemed like they just went out and bought a bunch of planes from 1985 and put them into service.

Air China is a good airline, Air Canada is much, much better with the lay flat seats.

Don't go to the zoo, unless you're into seeing animals that are severely mistreated and malnourished. Same with the Aquarium.

Eat your face off. Food is cheap as dirt outside of your hotel. A lot of the bigger hotels cater to westerners, so they have "western" buffets that are pricey. Walk across the street to a restaurant and get a 5 course meal for $12.

Go to silk street and fight with the rest of the tourists over knock offs. I only go to buy socks and underwear now (it really is a big building filled with junk) but it's worth a look.

[Canada 02]

Cathay Pacific or Singapore Airlines is the best way to fly to Asia. Air Canada is like Greyhound by comparison

If you have time, take the new bullet train to Southern China and Hong Kong

[Kybosh]

There is a relatively new bullet train between Beijing and Shanghai now. Something like 5 hours point to point.

Makarov has awesome Beijing suggestions. Watch out for the Chinese girls wanting to speak English with you around tourist areas. Do not follow them or show them where you stay.

Xian is big, dirty and smelly. Unless you truly love history, I wouldn't spend more than 4 days there. Good stuff to see, but the city itself? Ugh.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Kybosh

Watch out for the Chinese girls wanting to speak English with you around tourist areas. Do not follow them or show them where you stay.
.

... go on

[AMG_G]

Girls kept calling our hotel room in Kaiping asking if we wanted massagggy?

[GP_Matt]

For Xi'an, we had way more fun hiring a taxi for the day to take us where we wanted to go rather than a tour group. The tours spend a ton of time at "Factories" trying to get you to buy something.

If you land in Shanghai take the Maglev train from the airport to the city. When else will you get the chance to commute at 430 kmph.

We didn't know any Mandarin when we went and got on fine most of the time. Inter city bus stations were a nightmare though if you don't speak Mandarin, just a mad rush to the windows with everyone yelling and no idea which "line" we should stand in.

There are still hotels in China that won't let foreigners stay, but not likely in the major centers.

[CarlW]

Originally Posted by Makarov

Try to pick up a tiny bit of Mandarin before you go (just enough to order a bottle of beer, etc.) English will not be spoken anywhere but maybe your hotel.

...

Autumn is definitely the best time of year to visit Beijing. Winters are cool (with poorly heated buildings for the most part.) Summers are hot, humid, and smoggy. Spring is nice but plagued by dust storms that blow in from the Gobi desert.

Visit the Forbidden City, Beihai Park, the Drum and Bell (Clock) Towers (and the surrounding hutongs/bar district of Gu Lou/Houhai/Dianmen St.

Visit Tiananmen Square and the National Museum of China.

Visit the Ancient Observatory.

Visit the Temple of Heaven and the nearby Hongqiao (Pearl) market to shop for counterfeit goods.

Visit Sanlitun embassy district and bar street and nearby Yashou clothing market for more counterfeit goods shopping.

Visit the Niujie mosque.

Visit Wudaokou (my old stomping grounds) to get a taste of Beijing's student nightlife.

Get out into some of the areas outside the third ring road to see how the average Beijinger lives.

Eat, eat, eat. You can explore all of the riches of Chinese cuisine from palatial imperial restaurants to neighbourhood Uighur restaurants.

Visit Chaoyang park, and the charming bars and neighbourhoods around it.

Visit Dashanzi Art District, the cutting edge of the Chinese (indeed, even the world) art scene.

My favourite place to see the Great Wall near Beijing is Junshanling, but there are several other good, less touristy places as well. Just, whatever you do, don't go to Badaling.

I would add visit the Summer Palace, the newer one not the one destroyed by a coalition of Imperialist Foreign Powers.

If you want to check out nice malls, The Place near Silk Street is one to go check out for their large overhead LCD screen thing. (can't describe this well lol)

Also, I know Makarov said to eat, and I agree but if it looks sketchy it might be best not to eat there. Though i will recommend the roadside lamb skewers, Yum!

Tips:
Bring Diarrhea medicine like Imodium and Pepto, unless you are eating at 5 star hotels and opulent restaurants all the time you'll most likely need this as you might choose the wrong restaurant once or twice.

Keep wet naps and regular tissues with you everywhere you go, and I mean everywhere.

If you're out and about, expect squat toilets and no toilet paper, see point above about tissues. Look for nice malls and hotels for sit down toilets.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

For Xi'an, we had way more fun hiring a taxi for the day to take us where we wanted to go rather than a tour group. The tours spend a ton of time at "Factories" trying to get you to buy something.

If you land in Shanghai take the Maglev train from the airport to the city. When else will you get the chance to commute at 430 kmph.

We didn't know any Mandarin when we went and got on fine most of the time. Inter city bus stations were a nightmare though if you don't speak Mandarin, just a mad rush to the windows with everyone yelling and no idea which "line" we should stand in.

There are still hotels in China that won't let foreigners stay, but not likely in the major centers.

We did the bolded everywhere we went (Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an) for our 10 day trip and didn't have any problems.

We did the great wall at Mutianyu, and arrived early, about 8:30, and had the whole place to ourselves. (We went in the spring). It was amazing.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

We did the great wall at Mutianyu, and arrived early, about 8:30, and had the whole place to ourselves. (We went in the spring). It was amazing.

The Mutianyu "bobsled" down from the Wall was pretty darn cool!

[Fozzie_DeBear]

A couple of things to add:

-Download a few newbie episodes from Chinesepod.com (free)
-Goto the Lama Temple on Beijing...the three story Buddha is jaw-dropping (and off the radar tourist wise for some reason)
-If you can get to the remote section of the great wall for a hike (simitai) you will be practically alone (relatively speaking)
-There is an antique market in Xian that is for locals...if you can find it it is a lot of fun

-Learn these phrases, reject the first/second and third prices offered, and practise a look on your face like they are INSANE for asking for that price and your spending power will double
"Woh Boo Yow" (I don't want it)
"Thai-gway" (too expensive...)
"Pee-yen ee dya" (Give it to me cheaper)..

[MoneyGuy]

I can't offer advice as I've never been there, but we're going to China in June and July for 12 days. We'll be on the Yangtze for six days and our trip includes Shanghai, Xian, three nights in Beijing and three days in Hong Kong.

[Canada 02]

get your hepatitis vaccination

[CarlW]

Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear

A couple of things to add:

-Download a few newbie episodes from Chinesepod.com (free)
-Goto the Lama Temple on Beijing...the three story Buddha is jaw-dropping (and off the radar tourist wise for some reason)
-If you can get to the remote section of the great wall for a hike (simitai) you will be practically alone (relatively speaking)
-There is an antique market in Xian that is for locals...if you can find it it is a lot of fun

-Learn these phrases, reject the first/second and third prices offered, and practise a look on your face like they are INSANE for asking for that price and your spending power will double
"Woh Boo Yow" (I don't want it)
"Thai-gway" (too expensive...)
"Pee-yen ee dya" (Give it to me cheaper)..

The Llama temple is a nice quiet retreat in the middle of the city, and east to find/get to as it is basically a subway station stop.

Caution about Simatai portion of the great wall, it's great and basically untouched, but it basically is on a mountain, and it's quite a ways outside the city. Be ready to sweat and breath hard when you get up there unless you wanna fork over money to ride the gondola which goes half way, then pay again to ride the 'mini train' the rest of the way. I rode the Gondola and walked the other half, damn it was steep and i had to take 15 mins to recover at the top.

For the Cheaper one I think you mean "Pyen Yi Yi Dyar", basically asking to make it cheaper by a little bit. Make sure you ARR like a pirate at the end haha.

Oh don't know if you can pass as students, but student IDs can get cheaper entry tickets to many tourist spots.

[Makarov]

I should add my endorsement of simatai for great wall viewings. I went to one of the ill-fated rave parties on the wall there and it is beautiful.

[Badabing]

Thanks for all the suggestions! Much appreciated!

[dissentowner]

You said we so I take it that means you are going with your wife/gf? So much for telling you to bring lots of rubbers.