Just got back from an 11-day trip in China and here are some of my notes that may be helpful to others. Really enjoyed our trip and would definitely recommend China to other travelers who don’t mind a little adventure!
Photo 1: Beijing HuTongs, 2: Forbidden City, 3: Jinshanling Great Wall, 4-5: Simatai Great Wall, 6-8: Jing’An Temple and Shanghai, 9: Hangzhou West Lake area, 10: LongJing Tea Fields near West Lake, 11: Hangzhou West Lake, 12: View on HSR from Hangzhou to Shenzhen, 13: Hong Kong Island
**Surprises**
Hardly any English in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Hong Kong. If no mandarin then they will use translate app in mainland, in Hong Kong only the hotel front desk staff (not the luggage staff) and one Uber driver could speak more than a couple words at a time in English, ended up using Mandarin with everyone else which unlocked not only the ability to communicate beyond pointing but also much deeper conversation about life, US, China (in a positive light of course), and everything else.
Only a fitted sheet on mattress with only on top comforter, no other sheet.
Hong Kong payment options not straightforward (see story below)
eSIM unpredictability in mainland (Trip.com eSIMs, not sure about others)
**Tips**
Get Forbidden City tickets beforehand.
If you’re willing to go through the extra trouble, and want to experience all the modern conveniences of China, get a Chinese SIM from a Chinese Mobile Phone company (I ended up using China Mobile中国移动 because it was closest to my hotel). This allowed me to easily order food from restaurants like KFC while on the High Speed Rail, get Meituan Takeout deliveries to my hotel room delivered by service robot, order from Taobao, order at midnight from Eleme and have it delivered to my hotel in 20 minutes, easily rent bikes, etc.
My sister in law had issues getting some verification codes to her US number, which caused her Alipay not to work correctly. I had set up my Alipay before coming to the mainland and was fine. I forgot to set up my wife’s Alipay but I set it up with her Chinese number in China and it wasn’t an issue at all. It was very nice to be able to just scan in, while my SIL had to use the ticket machine every time to get subway ticket.
My brother set up his Alipay and WeChat pay ahead of time with ID verification, but his eSIM that he got from Trip.com did not work correctly and so whenever he needed to use the metro, his wife would need to hotspot from her phone and then he could use the AliPay Metro QR code. I believe he also had to use the hotspot for whenever he wanted to use data on his phone. Thankfully, they were always together, so it wasn’t too much of an issue.
Before going to get a Chinese SIM card I did try to get a Trip.com eSIM, but after following all the installation steps, it did not work correctly. I had it on my wife’s phone and it randomly would change to no service. We ended up finding a China mobile store so we just did that and it was much much better.
**Other**
People were very nice, from hotel staff to DiDi drivers.
People were very interested that Trump was in Beijing while we were in Beijing.
**Apps**
As far as apps to have set up before you leave the US, I would echo others to make sure you have WeChat and AliPay set up ID verified, decide on and download a VPN (I chose Astrill VPN), or download an eSIM (I decided to get a Chinese phone number from one of the big three Chinese telecom companies, China mobile). Apple Maps worked OK but Amap was definitely better, although after a little while while still in the US, they wouldn’t let me use the app anymore without putting in a Chinese number. If I put in my US number, it would not work.
**Forbidden City and Great Wall**
For the Forbidden City, you cannot get same-day tickets. You can either get tickets ahead of time on Trip.com for a 30% premium IIRC or you can go directly to the Palace museum website and get them seven days in advance starting at 8 PM Beijing time. This is what I did while still in the United States.
For the Great Wall, I recommend hiring a private driver (I used Simon’s Guide and Driver Service) and going to the JinShanLing section during the day (we basically had the wall to ourselves) and the Simatai section at night and walking through the Gubei Water Town that is below the wall.
**Language and Translation**
As far as language, your level of Mandarin will greatly help you. I have never taken any formal classes or done any serious study, but I would say my level is around low intermediate. This was a great help throughout our week and a half of travel in China. I can count on one hand the times that I used English. For trickier situations, locals usually had a translation app, you can just say fānyì 翻译. As far as your own phone, you should have a few translation apps ready to go, as not all of them work when you want them to or the way you want them to, especially when taking pictures of menus. Microsoft Translate, Baidu Translate, ChinesePro, and of course Pleco, (and offline Google Translate), were ones that I used.
**Hong Kong Payment Story:**
I’ll start with our arrival in Hong Kong after going through the border crossing from Shenzhen. I saw on a wall near the Hong Kong metro entrance, various QR codes for Alipay and WeChat pay but when I scanned them, it said that I needed to have a Chinese national ID to be able to use those payment apps in Hong Kong. So I went to the man ticket booth and was told in broken English that the Turn styles with blue scanners can use Visa cards and that you would need one Visa card per person. I only had one physical Visa card with me and was trying to explain that to them, but they kept saying they didn’t know anything else and one card per person. So I had my wife use her Visa card on Apple Pay and that allowed her to go through. Then I used my physical Visa card and tapped to go through (when I exited the subway I had to use my physical card again, but for future trips, I just use my Visa card on Apple Pay. I’m not sure how this would look for android users).
Now, after we had gotten into our hotel and woke up the next morning, we went to a local place that was highly rated on DianPing For breakfast. When we got sat down at the restaurant, I asked the waitress in Mandarin (as she didn’t speak English) if I could use Alipay or WeChat pay to pay for the meal and she said both work fine. At the end of the meal, I went up to the register to pay and tried with both AliPay and WeChat pay to no avail. I could see on her payment terminal that Visa was also listed so I tried tapping to pay with my Visa card and tried tapping with my Visa card on Apple Pay. Neither of them worked. She asked me in Mandarin if I had cash and I told her that I didn’t have any Hong Kong cash so she suggested that I go to a nearby convenience store and buy something and ask for cashback. I wasn’t really sure about doing that and being able to explain that correctly to the Convenience store clerk So she said she would go with me. My wife stayed at the restaurant while the employee and I walked a few blocks to a 7-Eleven. I grabbed a couple water bottles and we went up to the register and the Restaurant employee talk to the store clerk in Cantonese and the store clerk explained that they do not do cashback but suggested that we go to a nearby subway station, which had an ATM. So the Restaurant employee and I continued some more blocks to a nearby metro station, chatting along the way. We finally got to the ATM and I was able to withdraw HK$400 using my Bank of America debit card. In other places in Hong Kong, especially more tourist types of locations like the Star Ferry and the Ferris Wheel, I was able to use Apple Pay with a Visa card or just tap my physical Visa card. But it seems like some older places payment terminals did not allow this. Also, when chatting with the Restaurant employee, she showed me that there is a separate AliPay app for Hong Kong and also her WeChat pay looks different as well.
So long story, short, if you go to Hong Kong, don’t expect your mainland Chinese Payment apps to work and you will need to rely on Visa cards and Hong Kong dollars.
(I used voice to text for a lot of this so please excuse the typographical errors)
