flatlander

BA didn't check my documents last time either.

The Chinese do want to see an itinerary, I think very preferably with a ticket number. One does have to fill in one's hotel address on the Chinese landing card whether one is asked for the printed hotel itinerary or not.

I think it is good practice, especially when dealing with more bureaucratic countries where one does not have a very reliable right of entry, to print off itineraries, ticket numbers, hotel reservations, etc. Paper is much more reassuring for bureaucracies than pointing at a phone screen.

StuckinITH

Since I knew before my trip that Gmail is blocked in China, I opened a Yahoo account before my trip. It worked fine, expect in the evenings when all the conference attendees were in the hotel trying to access their mails.

moondog

Yahoo mail has been inaccessible (without VPN) for brief periods during the course of the past year as well.

On landing cards, my SOP is to fill in something fast and generic like "Hilton"; my border control friends assure me that nobody ever reads those things.

StuckinITH

Hopefully the inaccessibility periods are very short as I really need to access my emails on my trip to China next month. I have to investigate this VPN thing.

Calchas

Your organization may well provide its own VPN service. Otherwise there are commercial solutions around for a few pounds per month.

shefgab

There's a difference between the landing form (where the agent will likely not bother investigating) and the TWOV form I had to sign. The guy really wanted to see something printed. I guess most people with a proper visa have already given a lot of details to the Chinese Govt.

I was reduced to using my old Hotmail account which worked fine, and Yahoo search (urgh). Trying to find a decent online map was hard. Uber works in Beijing and is pretty cheap.

Calchas

Oh wait I guess Google Maps doesn't work either? How will I function!?!?

corporate-wage-slave

Yeah you may have problems there (plus if it does work fate will have it that you'll find the Putonghua wording only on the small street you are interested in). One of those places to use the Star functionality on the PC, then My Places on the phone, and do it before leaving the UK so it's all cached for you. (Previous sentence does make sense to some people, I promise!).

StuckinITH

Last time I went, I asked for a map in the second hotel I stayed (which was not an international chain) and the one they gave me was all in Chinese characters except for the name of the hotel. I could recognize some tourist sites because they had little images here and there but I would never have found the restaurants with that map.

StuckinITH

But since they tend to call you to let you know they are stuck in the typical traffic jam or that they cannot see you, you need the help of somebody speaking Mandarin. From a hotel or a restaurant it's easy. From a street corner it's more difficult.

rembrandtuk

Thanks for the feedback - they didn't seem that bothered about the visa at TXL but when I went through flight connections at LHR the agent seemed very knowledgable and proactively printed the e-ticket to make sure I didn't have any issues when I got to CTU. Quite handy as the ticket I printed from BA.com ran to 7 pages.

Calchas

So this is what happened

Checked in online okay, electronic boarding pass issued and into Passbook.
Went to the First check in area at T5, handed over my passport and electronic boarding pass
"Hi, I'm checked in for my flight to Peking but I wonder if you need to do a visa check before I go airside?"
"Yes sir, we do. Do you have a visa?"
"No I'm actually doing a transit onto another ticket"
"Okay sir that's fine..." (couple of taps on the keyboard) "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
(She didn't ask for any evidence, and she was either completely familiar or completely ignorant of the transit provisions)

At PEK there was a 72 hour transit desk set aside. I handed over a print out of the eticket receipt for my next flight: the guy was more interested in exploring every stamp in my passport than checking anything, didn't say much but a stamp was issued and I'm in. The guy before me seemed to be in some difficulty, he was asked to stand aside while he made some frantic phone calls.

Subsequently got lost coming out of the metro station as I didn't have google maps.

Saltire74

There is an iOS app that I use (work in Beijing) called Beijing Taxi Guide. Don't know if it is available for Android. It seems fairly reliable where you type in the place you want to in English and it produces an e-card on your screen in Chinese.

iOs map access is okay but anyone that I know coming to China, I advise them them to install a VPN on their devices before they arrive.

Calchas

Had to come back to the UK yesterday on a family emergency otherwise we could have had a mini FT do in PEK .

Safe & Happy Travels

S

Calchas

For today I'm going to brave the subway, it doesn't seem too difficult if you have sharp elbows.

I did plan to install the offline maps from Trip Advisor, but I've spent the day completely engrossed in GRR Martin's latest book right up until dinner on the plane.

I'm an idiot, I had completely forgotten that existed!

When I woke up on the plane I realized I'd done almost zero planning for this entire five week trip, save printing out the eticket receipt for this transit. Fortunately things seem to have worked out so far ... except that is, I can't access ITA Matrix either

Hope everything is okay with the family!

Saltire74

Cheers Calchas

You can still try and download a VPN using Bing or other search engines other than Google. The one I use is ExpressVPN and tends to work most times but internet access has been quite patchy over the past week (holiday time, everybody off work, time to use internet, Great Firewall of China kicks in big time ).

Despite having only 4 hours of broken sleep in a 48hr period, I am still on Beijing time, hence on FT at this ungodly hour whilst back in the UK .

Enjoy your short time in Beijing.

S