The Lowdown - Must Haves

In a trip that was a couple of months in the making based on a decision that can be defined as spur of the moment, Beijing returned the favor by being a fantastic destination for the considerable effort it took to put it together for my family and I. Spending the one week Spring Break in Beijing with a four member family including two kids is not "usual".

China has always been a wondrous enigma to me, the only comparable one to India, whereto the long past lives today. Their troubles (revolution and all), a history of brutal invasions, their incomparable ancient inventions making them the fountain head of a lot of science and the more recent ascendancy to fantastic wealth in a short time makes it more interesting to me than any other country that's alive and kicking today.

Now for the Low Down - Must Haves. Here are a few things that I found indispensable, from most to least, but take it all.

VPN

Have a Decent VPN software installed on all your electronic devices:

I had ExpressVPN and NordVPN just to cover my bases, if by chance one of them got on the wrong side of the Chinese government.


ExpressVPN

Your connected devices are pretty much useless for local usage without these. And once you are ready to jump over the Great Firewall, if you are like me, you are ready to meet China without an ounce of Mandarin in you.

NordVPN

By the way, its important to install this before you leave these shores and definitely before you step into China. You will not have access to these once you are behind the Great Firewall. Your best alternative is to learn Mandarin on the Plane ride over there.

PS: Vodaphone Australia allows roaming for Aus $5 a day and this automatically tunnels your traffic through Australia  (even while using China Mobile network)making the need for  a VPN unnecessary, the AT&T, Verizon phones we had did not offer this. Nice.

Google Translate

Once you got that settled meet your biggest friend:

This made conversations with your driver, the attendant at the restaurant and pretty much anywhere else almost a cinch.

Its interesting that many of the locals in the Tourist industry also appear to have the VPN and google Translate on their phones. I do like the pragmatism of Chinese communists.

So please install this on every phone you have and whether its Pork Dumpling you want to order or  find if they serve filet of Fish or ask if it has an ingredient that you may be allergic to, this is your best bet communicating. And practically everybody I met there is comfortable with the concept of you using a hand held translator.

It allows a conversation mode to do English to Chinese and vice versa with the push of a button, where you and the local are communicating alternately by speaking to the phone.

Of course all this works because your VPN is enabled and allows a connection to Google.

Beyond that you can use Google Translate to translate Chinese letters you see on Street signs, Menus by using the "Camera" feature in the app, which will translate the text seen.

I also used ScanScan to do translations of letters/signs and Huawei's Translate app, both were good as well.

Google Maps

For a company with no official presence in that country's consumer facing market, Google Maps is way ahead of the rest. With Baidu pretty much useless for for somebody who cannot read Mandarin, and both Apple Maps and Bing sub-standard, your only choice is Google Maps and its as good as it is everywhere else.

While many of the Placenames do appear in Chinese in your Route Map, an equal number of interesting places such as popular restaurants, subway stations, malls, temples and all appear in English. The turn by turn directions were to large extent in Chinese, so if you are walking just follow the Visual map on you App and you are in good hands.

Beware there may be Street Views, available for a few locations, but I did not come across any.

Again, having the VPN in place and running, gets you access to Google Maps, without it just be prepared to wander around or a have a guide as a third wheel.

Broadband Mi-Fi Device or Local SIM

If its not a trip for a singleton, then I'd suggest ordering a Broadband device on rent ahead of time that will be delivered to your hotel which you can pick on arrival or pick one from the airport on arrival.

I ordered from 3gSolutions and the device with my hotel concierge when I arrived, they needed a 3 day heads-up to do this without hassle. I take it you can pick this up at the airport in Shanghai if pre-ordered. You just put it back in a Courier envelope and give it to the Hotel Concierge on your way out.

It set me back $30 (including VPN) and with a $70 refundable deposit.  You can always top up the data by buying a refill card at any local shop if you've gone crazy on Netflix or Youtube.

Importantly these guys sent me a subscription to ExpressVPN, when you pick the VPN option in their website. If you plan to get a SIM instead, then do the VPN install yourself before landing there.

It is a nice luxury to have a local Chinese SIM card, but the Broadband coverage was pretty good in and around Beijing and my mi-fi device was adequate to connect multiple phones to the Wi-Fi on it and not miss having a local SIM in my phone.

You  can get a SIM on arrival at the airport with China Mobile, the only approved vendor it seemed, but verify how their bands and your phones available bands work. Some of the review I've read seemed to suggest they are not the best provider to choose for US Made phones. China Unicom was the better choice, but my attempts to get a SIM from more than one of their stores in Beijing was less than happy and I finally gave up as I really didn't need it. You may need it if your group tends to split up to do some of the activities, mine did not.

But its not too expensive, you may end up paying 100 - 200 yuan.

 Guidebooks

In the seven days we were there, we hit the Forbidden City (Palace Museum), Tiananmen Square, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, The Great Wall, Silk Market, Acrobat Show, Wangfujing Night Market, Olympic Park including Birds Nest and Aqua Cube and good cross section of their best restaurants.

As you can see it was a packed schedule, but still relaxed, not hurried and we just about hit every item in the Plan.

The Plan was created thanks to the Guide books and Google Maps.

I used the Lonely Planets Guide to Beijing . This was an excellent account of much the city has to offer. And you will realize soon there's a lot to do and see and without a plan your visit could be less than optimal.

Maps are another thing, I could not find a good map that had updated information, or say a subway map of the latest lines in English on the web. Thankfully the latter does become easier because Google Maps does tell you the entire route from start to finish including Subways, Interchanges and walking directions. If you are a New Yorker like me, you will be surprised at the necessity to switch lines, I never got anywhere without having to at least take one transfer, but more on that later.

Here is one maps that was good, many of the others in the market today were published before the Beijing Olympics (2008) and are dated.

Laminated Map of Beijing by Borch

In the following pages I'll tell you of my adventures in booking accommodation, booking day trips, Credit Cards, Debit Cards and Cash machines, what we hit and missed, Shopping and Bargaining, Food, Moving around and the Places you may not want to miss.