How tourists behave in China

For my most recent trip to China, I used a travel agent called WildChina.  WildChina is a high-end travel agent tailored for foreign tourists who prefers the unbeaten path, yet requires a lot of hand holding.  They organizes private customized tours and supplies a 24/7 (almost!) tour guide and driver.  I would recommend them if [...]

Read Full Post »

Free Trip to China!

This seems to be a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  Not just to win a free trip to China, but the opportunity to meet a bunch of really interesting folks from both the US and China.  Unfortunately I just came back from Beijing so this won’t be for me… but here’s the chance.
Sponsored by Mashable, you might get [...]

Read Full Post »

Thoughts about Guilin

Guilin is a city in the province of Guangxi (southern part of China) - it has a population of 1-2mn and is designated by the Government as a tourist destination.  Which means that Guilin’s nature will be preserved and industrialization is prohibited (or slowed down).  All sounds wonderful except for the people who lives in Guilin, [...]

Read Full Post »

The Price is Not Final

This has happened to me twice already… once in the notorious Silk Market in Beijing (which was expected), and a second time in New York’s Chinatown (a bit surprising).
So here’s the story.  I went with some friends to buy a few items.  Since the items are all the same in every other store, we decided [...]

Read Full Post »

Empty Malls

Malls in Beijing are escapes from the hustle and bustle of the city.  They are eerily empty.  The problem is pricing.  I was at the Oriental Plaza in BJ, and checked out a few international brands.  Across the board, the pricing is 20-30% above what you’d pay for the exact same item in Hong Kong [...]

Read Full Post »

Silk Market Nightmare

 I visited the Silk Market the first time I was in Beijing 8 years ago.  Then, it was an open market, smack in the middle of the embassy district and around the corner from the St. Regist Hotel where we stayed at.  I remembered walking around with my Chinese colleagues, not finding anything in particular to [...]

Read Full Post »

Booking Air Tickets

Here’s an observation that’s quite interesting… 
Apparently the way Americans and Chinese book air tickets are completely reversed.  In the US, we have the 14-day and 21-day rule – whereby the closer you are to the date of flight, the more expensive tickets become.  I presume this is due to price discrimination; if you are booking late, [...]

Read Full Post »

Flight Talk

On my last flight to Beijng, I had the misfortune of sitting beside an incredibly chatty American businessman in his 60’s.  I made the mistake of being friendly in the first 5 mins, which converted to never-ending interruptions during the entire 13 hour flight.  Very obnoxious comments, I might add. 
Here are a few provoking, and sometimes [...]

Read Full Post »

Concept of 旅住 (Travel & Live)

I was recently introduced to a new concept called 旅住, which literally means “travel & live”.  旅住 is when someone moves to an international city/town for 6 months or a year to immerse in the culture.  Perhaps similar to the idea of studying abroad, minus the studying.  Apparently this has become a trend for newly [...]

Read Full Post »

Travel Info Page

I’ve added a page called Travel Info to include some notes on traveling to China.  I’ve added a subpage, Beijing.  This will be updated regularly as I plan my future trips… 

Read Full Post »