Travelling to - and around - China

KPeh said:
As will everyone else. It should be fine.

As for the get a visa in HK thing, you could, but it's probably easier to get one in London since you live there anyway. There's a place on High Holborn. Wait is about 10 minutes, takes 4 days to process. I personally wouldn't want the hassle of having to sort one out in HK, a city that I'm not familiar with when I could do it in advance.

Incidentally, HK counts as outside China as far as the visa is concerned. So if you have a single entry tourist visa, you can't go to China, then HK, then back to China again.
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You can use an agent in HK to sort out the visa for China for you, and can also get them to arrange a multi entry. I did this recently and got a 6 month , unlimited entry visa. Comes in useful as if I go to HK, can just go between SZ > HK as I please.

Although yeah, if you're in London probably best to apply from there really
 
I just got back from China yesterday :D

Spent 4 days in Beijing - saw the wall the forbidden city the square and some temples, 3 in Xi'an - saw their wall the warriors some gardens and a few more temples, 2 in Chengdu - pandas and more pagodas/temples , did a 3 day cruise to see the 3 gorges - with a few more excursions to see mountain temples and their new giant dam, then ended in shanghai and saw the gardens the buildings, went up the tv tower blah blah.

All places were worth it, if you go up the wall make sure you take the taboggen slide down, it was awesome!! The forbidden city and warriors and all the different temples were amazing especially if you like history and the culture. The pandas were a bit depressing unless you goto the mountain research centre as its cooler so they can play outside. The 3 gorges were amazing, so beautiful. The dam was a big boring disappointment, nothing like the Hoover dam. Shanghai was awesome, its like new York mixed with Vegas cuz you got all the city life with the high rises bit everything is covered in lights and its always buzzing. Was very very busy though due to the world expo being on atm.

If you like the history and want an informed holiday I recommend going through a tour company who will give you a guide to help you around the place and tell you everything about everything! That's what we did, was a big big help and we learnt a hell of a lot. Cost 6g for the tour for 5 of us and that included entry to everything, very nice hotels, transport everywhere, the cruise... took us 2 weeks and we weren't really rushing, saw everything we needed and enjoyed every minute of it!

Have fun :)
 
What was the name of the company? Really if I wanted to do that I would want a personal guide - no way I would want to be part of a group. I would mostly prefer going on my own though as I really value my own company too much.
 
The British company was addictedtotravel and then it was a company called China Travel who did our tour and I really recommend them (Milly was our tour guide and she was great). It was just us (me and my family) so was a personal tour, but I saw single people going around with a tour guide too as well as groups of people so I'm sure you can do which ever suits you.
 
i spent a bit of time in Shanghai, followed by a little more short time spent in Beijing earlier this year. great choice on place, the country is beautiful. as for places to stay, i cant remember the names of them =s

places to eat. there is a great place in Beijing, Hutong Pizza, you wouldnt know its there other than for looking, it does the best pizzas. i found this in the Lonely planet guide. and i found this to be a very helpful guide. take a look in that.

oh, and make sure you visit one of the Blue Frog Restaurants. there are only about 7 across China, but they have a great atmosphere, cheap menus.... thats my top pick!

oh, and standard, the night market in Beijing for your meats, (snake, scorpion, cricket, shark, etc)

enjoy yourself!
 
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