Before you visit us in Beijing, there are a few things you can prepare for. In this short post we will go through all the things we can think of to make your trip as comfortable and seamless as possible.
Visa, Flight
First of all, you’re not getting into the Middle Kingdom without a visa, so make sure you have one, or else read our previous blog post on getting a Chinese visa. Assuming you have that, the next thing to think about is flights. The Beijing airport code is PEK, and its long name is the Beijing Capital International Airport. The flight is going to be long: from Boston we had a direct 14 hour flight. I think the flight is merely about 10 hours from Seattle/Vancouver so that’s nice if you happen to live there or have a multi-leg journey through there. If you have a special diet, definitely request a special meal ahead of time, and/or bring some snacks. There is no default vegetarian option on the flight we had. Chelsey had to eat Soylent!
Apps for your phone
Before you leave your home wifi, you should probably get a few Beijing-specific apps. First, Google Translate or Baidu Translate are really useful. These both have features that enable you to take a photo of Chinese characters and the app will translate for you! If you haven’t seen this in action, it feels like magic. Google, along with many other US websites, are blocked in China. If you want to access Facebook, gmail, Foursquare, Instagram, Snapchat, Dropbox, or just about anything you can think of other than Yahoo or Bing, you will need to have a VPN. There are several popular VPN apps. VyprVPN is made by an Austin-based company, Goldenfrog. A few years ago I met the then-director for engineering, Derek, at the Austin Python Users Group monthly meetup. I didn’t know then how useful their product would be! I can send you an invite to try them out before you come. It’s fairly important that you install it before you leave the US.
Yelp doesn’t exist here. There’s something called Dianping, but it’s all in Chinese. We will give you some good restaurant recommendations. If you want to do your own research before you leave, we recommend digging into any of the great Beijing nightlife magazines: The Beijinger, City Weekend Beijing, or Time Out Beijing.
If you have an iPhone, Apple Maps will work, but Google Maps will not work without VPN. There is also Baidu Maps, which is much more comprehensive but entirely in Chinese. The problem with maps in China is that the addresses are in Chinese anyways, so they can be tricky to use if you don’t speak or write Chinese. Even still, one often relies on map apps and getting creative with searching for nearby landmarks or neighborhoods. Most visitors probably won’t have a phone plan, so you might consider pre-downloading some offline maps. There are many offline map apps on the App Store, and elsewhere. Many of them are paid apps, but some offer free trial downloads.
There’s basically one app that all Beijingers use: WeChat. It’s the app for messaging in China, but so much more- you can pay your electric bill, accumulate ridiculous gif animations, pay at stores, etc. It’s actually fairly complicated to set up WeChat Wallet for foreigners, so I doubt you will bother for a short trip. But even the messaging features alone could be useful. And it works worldwide, so you could be getting some hilarious gifs from us already.
Exchanging money
Exchange money with us! We need to convert some of our RMB into USD anyways, so it’s a win-win. We should have ample change on hand, so if you can stand to wait until you meet up with us, we recommend it. The currency exchange rates are fair at the banks here too, but there is a limit to how much USD you can withdraw as a foreigner– you can get up to about $500/day/bank. The bank lines are often very long though, an hour is typical.
The conversion is roughly 6.5 RMB = 1 USD, though check the most recent info online. There’s also a useful app for keeping track of currency exchange rates. A quick way to convert is that 100 RMB (the largest bank note here) is equal to about $15. Or 60 RMB is very roughly 10 dollars. You will see CNY or RMB as the symbol for Chinese currency. RMB means Renminbi and CNY means Chinese Yuan. You’ll also hear “Kuai”. It’s the equivalent of saying bucks, dollars, money, bills, cash, etc. Lots of names for the same thing.
Pollution
You might want to download the Air Quality app, which reports the instantaneous air quality in Beijing, as well has hundreds of other Chinese cities. A general rule is that you need to start wearing masks around 150-200 AQI, though your mileage may vary. Most Beijingers never wear masks! If you stay with us your room will have a SmartAir air purifier. The pollution here is fickle, like weather. Some days it’s polluted, other days its crystal clear blue skies. We will have some masks for you just in case.
Time change, arrival, Public Safety Bureau, jetlag
Familiarize yourself with the time change: Beijing is UTC+8. For reference New York is UTC-5 right now (winter), so Beijing is 13 hours ahead of the US Eastern Standard Time. So chances are that it will be at least 27 hours later than when you left your destination.
We will most likely meet you at the airport, unless the prospect of navigating on your own in Chinese gives you a thrill. The one hitch of meeting you at the airport is that there are two possible terminals that you could arrive from, so we will have to plan on where exactly to meet you. This pre-arrival meeting place agreement is fairly important because it can be a bit scary to land in a foreign country with no way to contact anyone. Much better to land and see a familiar face!
Once we meet you at the airport, we will most likely take the Airport Express to subway Line 2 to the Andingmen station, and then walk the 10 minutes to our home. Cabs are acceptable if traffic is low. You should not pay more than about 100 RMB. Some phoney tried to swindle us for a 300 RMB cab ride once! No way!
Within 24 hours of your arrival, you must go to the nearby Public Safety Bureau to tell them where you are staying. You show them your passport and hand them our address (in Chinese). They print out a passport sized piece of paper that they tape into the last page of your passport. If you’re staying at a hotel, the concierge will do this for you. If you’re staying with us, we will bring you to the PSB and probably stop off at Rager Pie on the way home to get some pie and/or iced coffee. :)
From then on you are in Beijing, and the world is your oyster! In the next post we will write about all the fun things we can recommend for you.