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Old Jun 15, 2005 | 12:15 pm
  #34  
PTravel
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Newport Beach, California, USA
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Originally Posted by Vulcan
We will be staying ther for 5 nights in August. Can anyone tell me if there is a Kisosk outside of customs that you can approach for help with a taxi. I know both the St. Regis and Westin in Shanghai have kiosks and they take you out to the curb an put you in a taxi to their hotels and give the drivers instructions. Is the same available at PEK?
Yes and no. When you exit the terminal, you'll see a line for taxis with a uniformed person managing the process. Ignore the touts inside the terminal, as well as the drivers who approach you as you cross over to the taxi line. When it's your turn (my experiience was that it was a very short wait for a cab), the uniformed person will hand you a little booklet that explains taxi laws in a variety of languages, including English, and direct you to a cab. It is a very, very good idea to have the name and address of the hotel written in Chinese characters as very few Beijing taxi drivers speak English. If you're staying at a more obscure hotel, it's probably a good idea to have the telephone number and cross streets -- I've found that Beijing taxi drivers are not as knowledgable about their city as I'm used to in other places (including in China).
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