So, holy cow, this adoption thing is really finally happening, after waiting almost 7 years. It looks like we’ll be going in October, around the 2nd through the 18th or thereabouts. It sure would be nice to hear from someone who’s been there or lives there, someone with practical advice or travel tips.
We’re probably going to fly into Beijing, tour some typical “Westerners in China” stuff for a day or two, and then head on to Nanchang in Jiangxi Province. Then, it’ll be off to Guangzhou, the final stop in our journey. So, does anyone have any China tourism advice? Things we must see or do? Things to avoid? General tips? What’s the weather like in October in those cities?
My head’s sort of spinning at the moment. Any personal knowledge you can share is much appreciated.
Oddly enough, Beijing is a great place for Peking Duck. It was really cheap when I was there, a long time ago (before the Olympics). You can take a cheap tour to the local part of the Great Wall. It’s touristy, but it’s just a day trip from Beijing, and I thought it was cool. If you are into pickled communist dictators, the Mao tomb is worth a look-see. I’m bummed I forgot to see Ho Chi Minh when I was in Hanoi.
While in Beijing tour the Forbidden City, which is adjacent to Tienanmen Square. The Temple of Heaven is nice as well. The Olympic Village is neat. There are literally thousands of places to visit and see in Beijing, I might suggest getting a Frommer’s guide to the city, they always did me well. I inherited one for Shanghai for my visit to China, but didn’t have one for Beijing.
Bring your own TP or wipes with you for day trips, not all places have TP.
The subway was very easy to navigate and user friendly, although we stayed away from rush hour.
We where there for the first time in June for our 25th anniversary, so my memories are pretty fresh. Beijing is the only city you name that we actually visited, so I’ll tailor my advice accordingly:
[ol]
[li]If you want a great restaurant experience that is very intimate and can manage the price (US $50 per person), then make the effort to visit Black Sesame Kitchen. You will need to book a reservation now, if there are even seats available, but it was one of the best nights of our entire trip. www.blacksesamekitchen.com[/li][li]We really enjoyed the Summer Palace. Incredible grounds and lots to see. Also, very easy to visit via subway, which we appreciated.[/li][li]Always take a card with you when you go out that has the address of your hotel in Chinese. Makes getting back much easier, if you start exploring and lose track of where you are.[/li][li]If you tour the Great Wall (a must do, in my opinion) consider going to the Mutianyu access. It is a little farther than the closest tourist area, but I think it is much better and you can ride the gondola up to the wall itself, which is a nice touch. We hired a private guide we learned about on Tripadvisor. Search for “Mark (Mahai) Beijing Tripadvisor” and you’ll track him down. Really a great day.[/li][/ol]
Those are my top tips for Beijing. If you end up considering Shanghai, Xi’an, Yangshuo, or Hong Kong, let me know. I have a lot more thoughts, but mostly in these other areas.
PS. Don’t take that earlier tip about TP lightly. You have been warned. :eek:
I just got back from a two week stint that included Beijing, Tainjin, and Jiangsu. In Beijing, you have to see the Great Wall and Forbidden City, as others have mentioned. Yeah, touristy, but do you really want to tell someone that you went to China and didn’t see the Great Wall?
Also, get some of those personal kleenex packages, you know, the ones you got in elementary school? You should be able to get a package of 8 of those small packages at the store. Have your wife put two in her purse and you put one in the back pocket of your jeans. TP is not everywhere and a pack of those things are, well, you will be glad you have it. If it turns out you don’t use them, you can always blow your nose. And, be prepared for the squat toilets. Most places that cater to “westerners” will have sit-down thrones, but some more rural places will not.
Finally, don’t drive. If you have to, get a driver. They are inexpensive. Traffic is, well, different and none of the ex-pats who I visited would drive. I am not sure they don’t follow the rules, it’s just I couldn’t figure out what those rules are. Slower Traffic Keep Right isn’t one of them, however. They do drive on the right hand side of the road, except for the people who are going the wrong way…
Oh, Jammer I will be going to Xi’an next month. I’ll have one, maybe two, days to sight-see. Obviously, the Terracottta soldiers are a must, but what else?
I live and work in Beijing so most of my advice is for there. I’ve done some traveling, but I haven’t been to Jiangxi or Guangzhou so I’m not too familiar with them. Word of warning: The National Holiday runs from Oct. 1 through 7 so the tourist places and transportation will be more packed than normal.
Beijing “musts” (time permitting)
Tiananmen Square & Forbidden City combo pack
Great Wall (Mutianyu is a good suggestion)
One of the several temples (Temple of Heaven and Lama Temple are highly recommended)
Summer Palace
Olympic Park
If you visit the Summer Palace early in your trip, the leaves won’t have changed. The Summer Palace is actually the most beautiful in the Fall.
As for the weather, it will be cool compared to Texas. I would expect temperatures to be in the 60s to 70s but be prepared for some 50s if a storm is coming through. Jiangxi and Guangzhou are much further south and should be warmer.
About the water, most hotels include an electric kettle for you to boil water and 2 complimentary bottles of water. In Beijing at least, the water*** is*** treated but most locals don’t really trust it. Stick to boiled or bottled water and you should be fine.
I have been living in China for the past 5 years.
You probably need to be prepared for some horrifically dirty public restrooms, and many
of them will not have soap and/or water.
You might want to pack some hand sanitizer in your check-in luggage.
It can be bought in China, but it might be easier just to bring some with you.
Do not go with any strangers that want to take you to a tea house, art house, etc.
It is a very common scam where you will be presented with a huge bill for tea,etc.
Always have your destination in Chinese. I use Google translate to get the Chinese names of the places I want to go , and take a photo of it to show to taxi drivers.
Never ask a taxi driver “how much”, just ask him to use the meter. Asking him “how much” just gives him the opportunity to quote you a hugely inflated price.
Use some common sense when eating: food you can see being sterilized in front of you is safe to eat, no matter how foreign the experience is.
Chicken/shellfish you can’t see being sterilized/boiled is always a bit of a risk. Comercial pilots still don’t eat shellfish before flying. Leave that part of the experience for when you are at home and it won’t spoil your holiday.
Well, I do, but I don’t know that the mods would appreciate me linking to it; you see, I made a sort of “story of us” adoption video a couple of weeks ago, and this week it’s being featured on a site that allows people to make donations to help with travel expenses. Putting up a link like that seems too much like panhandling to me, and, I’m sure, to the Powers That Be. But I can PM you the link if you like. I’ll only put it here if the mods say it’s okay.
The best way to get mod permission is to, yanno, ask the mods. Luckily, someone reported this post and brought it to our attention – and we’re cool with your posting the link.
heh. I thought about mailing you or Ellen, twickster, but even that seemed kind of direct. Okay, here it is; the video is only about 3 minutes long. If you try to watch it on a mobile device like a phone or tablet, it might not work because of DRM attached to the music. Enjoy!
Do they still have those independent money booths separate from the cashiers in the larger stores? That confused the hell out of me the first few times.
Basically, you select what you want to buy (say, a wristwatch). Neither speaks the others language, so the customer service person on the floor shows you the product and then gets confused about why you’re confused. They then scribble indecipherable characters on a ticket, hand it to you, and then point and wave indeterminately across the store. You smile politely, and meander off completely confused as to what happened. Did I just get parking validated? Did I just enter a raffle? Did she think I was cute and I just gave me her phone number? So you sit back and try to inconspicuously observe the environment and patterns of people, like David Attenborough, convinced you’re successfully unnoticed as a 6’3" white guy pretending to be interested in a silk tie for 15 minutes sneaking glances at everyone that passes by. Eventually, you notice a pattern of people coming and going from the counters with no products, but with the same little piece of paper in their hands. Eureka!
So you follow down some stairs to another floor into a dingy hallway leading to some booths that look like East German customs entry points. Here, you faithfully hand over your ticket, and again get confused until the clerk writes out simple numbers for you and points to the ticket. Hey, that looks like the same numbers that were on the price tag of that watch upstairs! Eureka #2!
Money is confidently handed over, while you nod and smile to the others in line with Mr Bean-like shrugs and confidence. You return to the goods counter, your shiny new wristwatch is handed over, and you leave feeling like your 40 years of life experience wasn’t nearly enough to prepare you for this, your mother should have known and warned you of this somewhere between the talk-to-strangers and hold-hands-across-the-street lessons of childhood.
I should also add, thanks for all the tips, everyone! I’ll forward the Black Sesame Kitchen link to my wife, a.k.a. event planner, and see what she thinks. We’re having a travel agent arrange for us to have a guide and visit the Forbidden City, Great Wall, and Temple of Heaven for sure. I was torn about the Summer Palace with all the other stuff; we’re taking our six year old with us, do y’all think that she’ll enjoy it? We don’t want to schedule too much “walking around looking at old stuff” at a time for fear she’ll get bored.
I’ve read about the toilet paper situation. Didn’t take much urging from me to get her to pack a few Kleenex adult-type wipes. Hand sanitizer has also been purchased, vaccines taken, even antibiotics for the unforeseen. And from what I’ve heard, good LORD I would never even attempt to drive. It sounds like “the biggest vehicle that can do the most damage has the right of way.”
Yeah, we’ve heard the water is no good, you don’t even want to open your mouth when you shower. We’ve also been advised to pack light and plan on doing laundry, either in our room or finding a laundry service near the hotel (the hotel’s laundry services tend to be costly, they say). Good idea? Any advice there on brands of laundry soap or methods?
Oh yeah, the old “one person cannot handle both money and merchandise” thing, I’ve read about that. I hear it’s especially frustrating at a pharmacy, when you’re trying to, say, get your Band-Aids and get out, bleeding all the while.
There are many local regional beers of high quality, always ask for the local stuff instead of just Tsingtao.
A damn fine Harvey Wallbanger was eventually created using nothing but hand waving and Pictionary scribbles. The concept of cosmopolitan-society cocktails is apparently very foreign.
The Guinness sign hanging in the small rural bar does not mean that the dusty bottle brought from an unrefrigerated back room with the fine print Chinese characters later translated as “Bottled in Singapore 1997” does not guarantee freshness let alone non-toxic consumption.