jiejie

Coming soon...December 16th-22nd. I need to exit China and re-enter to activate a new entry on my visa, and in casting about for something different and inexpensive, found that Jinmen Island (Taiwan) just off the PRC coast is a worthy candidate....and a heck of a lot warmer right now than the Mongolian border or Korea. Jinmen is reachable by ferry from Xiamen and for the last 2-3 years, has been open to foreigners.

So I'll be heading down and back by overnight train (this is a budget trip and plane tickets are very costly) via Fuzhou. Highlights on the way will be Quanzhou, Xiamen/Gulangyu, the Hakka tulou houses of Yongding County, and of course, Jinmen Island. I'll report back on this thread after the trip, though expect much more abbreviated reporting compared to the Sichuan/Yunnan thread.

If you have any favorite tips or hot must-see recommendations for any of these four places, don't hesitate to share before I head out!

mnredfox

Boy, I'm beginning to wonder if jiejie works anymore?

jiejie

Right now she doesn't, and that's the problem! I'm cramming in some things on the bucket list before I no longer have the time.

Anyway, as this is a short trip with an international exit with little room for flexibility, it has to be more preplanned than three weeks in Sichuan/Yunnan. Made the decision that the long-hauls Beijing-Fujian will be done by Z train, overnight sleeper. Mostly for cost reasons but also for reliability--this has so far been a bad season for Beijing airport disruptions due to fog/smog. I toyed with the Xiamen-Nanyuan (Beijing's second airport) flight on China United Airlines as it wasn't a bad deal, but in the end decided to forego.

Bought the Z ticket Beijing-Fuzhou hard sleeper, and the D high-speed seat ticket Fuzhou-Quanzhou today. (Fuzhou is only being used as a transport hub as services between it and Beijing are both more convenient and cheaper than to Xiamen). Return ticket Fuzhou-Beijing on the reverse Z service will be purchased in a few days, when the 10-day sales period begins. All other transport in Fujian will be arranged in real-time. Will also be making some accommodation arrangements this weekend.

moondog

I like flying on KN... minimal service, but much more convenient than dealing with PEK.

1lj

jiejie - thanks a lot for your valuable input on this website. Can you please quote the prices for the above mentioned scenario? I will be travelling to china in march and am considering wide variaty of options . thanks

jiejie

And would have my bet for the airline least likely to have their flight schedule disrupted by ATC in the Beijing area, unless weather conditions are desperately bad. The advantage of having military connections, even if looser than previously....

jiejie

Not sure exactly what you want, but to give you a sampler including some cost comparisons for this particular trip, main target city destination is Xiamen:

1) Beijing-Xiamen by K307 standard train. 32 hours (ugh). 11:57-19:39 next evening. Approx RMB 450 hard sleeper or RMB 705 soft sleeper. Saves a hotel night.

2) Beijing-Fuzhou by Z59 express train (but not a bullet), followed by reasonably quick connection and Fuzhou-Xiamen by D6247 high-speed train. Total time including the layover at Fuzhou between trains: 23 hours. 15:08-10:51 + 12:04-14:14. For the budget options, Z59 is RMB 458 + D6247 = RMB 538 (hard sleeper + 2nd class seat). Going a bit more upscale = RMB 705 + 98 = RMB 803 (soft sleeper + 1st class seat). Timing of the overnight train is good and only 2 brief stops on the way. Also saves a hotel night. Even with the train switch, a much better option than #1 since the overall time is much shorter and the trains are higher quality and also get priority on the rails over other standard passenger trains. (I am using this method, using hard sleeper middle bunk and 2nd class seat so under RMB 550 and no hotel needed, well worth the RMB 100 additional cost vs option #1.)

3) Beijing-Xiamen by flight, one-way economy class booked about 2-3 weeks out ranges from RMB 1050-1560, all-in. Full-fare on this route is RMB 1900 all-in, so the most common discounts are in the 20-50% range. And the more heavily discounted tickets are at the least attractive flying times and come with heavy restrictions. This is not usually a heavily-discounted city pair, so flights are stubbornly high.

4) Beijing-Fuzhou by flight, one-way economy class booked about 2-3 weeks out, is about 10-15% cheaper then to Xiamen, but when you add back train transportation to get from Fuzhou to Xiamen, and cost of taxi from Fuzhou airport to train station, the savings pretty much vanishes while the hassle increases. And for both #3 and #4, you can accomplish the travel within a partial day, but will require adding a hotel night. And additional time and cost for transport to get between city and airport.

5) Other maneuvers using other cities to fly, then train or bus, OR train or bus to other cities, then fly, don't really help much on cost savings but increase the hassles. I tried everything using Tianjin, Zhengzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wenzhou, Nanchang, Quanzhou (Jinjiang), Shantou, etc. using various air/rail/bus options, but there is no magic formula for Beijing-Xiamen, unfortunately. And every time you need to make a connection, especially through an airport, you increase chance of delay or worse.

Beijing-Xiamen is a particularly exasperating route to try to do on the cheap, but other China city pairs are not necessarily the same. You'd have to be more specific about your targeted destinations for us to be more helpful. There are some people who will not do overnight trains and many of those have plausible reasons for avoiding (too tall to fit in sleeper, get sick with train motion, toilet issues, etc.). Tip: If you are not familiar with the Chinese domestic transportation set-ups, please read the information in the Master Transportation Thread on this forum.

Finally, Welcome to FlyerTalk and the China Forum!

1lj

jiejie - thanks. this was exactly what i needed. so far no plan, just looking and evaluating. we are actually going to china because the plane tickets were really cheap. so we are just in the process of gathering info about the country, what is there to see, what is manageble in 13 days we have there. i went through your master transporation piece. that was of course very helpful. the immediate plan was, fly in to beijing, spend 4 days there, go to xian for couple days, take the train to lhasa, spend couple days there, fly somewhere, get back to beijing, fly out. as you can see maybe little too ambitious. but as i said - we just bought the tickets, so we are really just in the initial phase.

jiejie

If you wish to get feedback or ideas specifically for your trip, you should start a new thread on this forum. Let's keep this one on track for my Fujian trip, including my solicitation of tips or sightseeing ideas on the places I mentioned above. Thanks.

tycosiao

Gulangyu is a must when visiting Xiamen. Many cafes with cool concept can be found in Gulangyu.

I would recommend staying at Elan Hotel, Zhongshan Rd for easy access to the pedestrian street, Zhongshan Rd and Gulangyu. Walking distance to the ferry terminal. Rooms are good IMO, similar to Orange Hotels in BJ. 200 odd yuan.

Walk around Xiamen University campus if you have nothing to do as it is beside the sea.

Beside Xiamen city is Jimei where the museum of Tan Kah Kee is at.

Xiamen has light rails called BRT which can bring you to Jimei. forgot the price.

Have fun visiting Fujian.

Sidenote, this might be redundant as you bought tickets. but you could take the HSR from BJ to SH and transfer to Xiamen via D trains for an all-in at 886 Yuan, a stopover in Quanzhou will not affect the price though.

HowieG

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Is jiejie a meimei?

mnredfox

I'd say the gainfully employed are getting jealous of your free time and adventures. Keep the TR's coming! ^

lin821

You can find some Kinmen highlights in this old post of mine. Do you have a sweet tooth? Kinmen peanut brittle (金門貢糖) is one of my all-time favorites. So addictive that it ruins my diet without fail.

If you have time, you may also want to check out the movie, Summer Times (夏天協奏曲), a love story based in Kinmen. Summer Times (2009) covers the beauty and historical background of Kinmen quite well. Have the tissues ready when watching the movie though.

jiejie

Thanks, will take everything under advisement. Will try to stay at least one night on Gulangyu.

On train tickets, the HSR from BJ to SH was not viable for me. Way too long in a seat when combined with the 9+ hour ride from SH to Xiamen, and my departure from Beijing, which could be no earlier than 12:00 noon on Friday, would make for an arrival in Shanghai too late to catch an onward D to Xiamen, so a forced overnight in Shanghai. No, the tool for this job was definitely the Z overnight to Fuzhou then quick hop south on the D to Quanzhou (or Xiamen). And looks like it will be same tool on the reverse.


Well, send me some cash, and I'll keep having adventures and TR's.

Peanut Brittle? Yum! I am so there! Thanks for links, will check them out. I am actually looking forward to this little Jinmen soujourn, and looks like the weather is going to be very comfortable next week.

lin821

My mouth is watering just thinking about Kinmen Peanut Brittle.

Kinmen is a very special part of Taiwan that it carries lot of weight from history due to its military importance. "Our Island, Our Dreams" (星月無塵) is another lovely movie (but sad story) directed by a Kinmen-born director. You'll see how Kinmen people live history in their daily life from the movie.

I really hope the weather will cooperate so you can enjoy Kinmen even more.

ETA:
Would you be able to visit Matzu as well? Don't miss Beigan Township (北竿鄉) if you do.