So after a looong flight I finally arrived. Amazing and beautiful as I imagined. And thanks everybody for the info and tips. Everything goes as planned. The arrival, the taxi from Terminal 3, the people, etc.. Though still suffering the jet lag, today I'm going to Forbidden city, Temple of heaven, etc.. everything within the city, mostly walking or by subway I guess

Except that I told my friends I'd be posting pics and facts at my facebook, but this site is blocked. I had read about google issues but not about these social networks. I guess there is no alternative way to access FB (or there is?)..
at least I still can email and chat thru msn...

VPN

Also using the free TOR system with an email (not generally published) gateway but it has to be set up before entering China, so you're too late for that.

I guess youtube is also still blocked as well.

blocked
Youtube - better go to Youku to watch Chinese Soaps
google
flickr
blogspot
plus about a million others.

I used to use TOR there (locally configured) and it worked pretty well, but very slow.

OP: I'm looking forward to hearing more details about your trip.

Google is not blocked normally (both the China/HK version and the US version), though Google Sites and parts of Google Docs are. Censoring sometimes kicks in, though, if you do too many image searches (the pictures stop loading). I imagine search results for sensitive topics might be censored, too.

Blogspot and Wordpress are usually blocked, but occasionally you can get through.

Flickr also does not appear to be blocked at the moment (just tested it now).

YouTube and Facebook are always blocked!

The system does not seem to be rigid, more time and event sensitive. Flowing like everything in Greater China...

yes, VPN should be.. though my job's VPN has facebook blocked, and though I'm the IT manager, I shouldn't ask them to open it, he heee.

Yes, blogs are blocked, and Google image results are most of them blocked, too. Even the pics at weather.com are blocked

Anyway, what I've realized also, is that this site, Flyertalk.com is extreeeemely slow, REALLY. Each page take MINUTES to load, no kidding. IT was never that slow in Peru nor in Newark airport on saturday, it has to be the China backbone, or controls, don't know. though no other websites are slow.

This first 2 days were excellent, moondog. I spend the whole morning at Forbidden City (plus Tianamen), cheap and good lunch near Tiantan dogmen station and entered Temple of Heaven. Subway is easy. Though I didn't realize that 5 bill was 5 cents, not 5 yuan. First time I see cents bills.

Great places, cool city this Beijing! I'll post more on other threads depending on topics.

maybe a little slower than abroad (with or w/o VPN) but certainly not minutes for me. at most 5-10 seconds.

What you need is use your company VPN to go to those paid-vip provider and buy their service.

If you are nerdy and / or you are going to have extended stay, get a VPN enable router from your oversea home, with proper configuration you get your private VPN forever.

You probably already know this, but the distances depicted on maps of Beijing are deceptively long. Learn from my mistake--you do not want to walk from the Forbidden City to the Temple of Heaven.

Oh yes, I knew it, but the subway was great. Most places I wanted to see were reachable by subway.

I can confirm that if you are using a Beijing-based ISP, Flyertalk takes MINUTES to load a page, if it loads at all. FT for me is unuseable unless I am on my (private) US-server based VPN.

I had decent access to FT when I was living in BJ; my building had ethernet, but I can only assume that a local ISP provided the connection.

FT use to take minutes to load for me during the past 2 years that I was in PEK, but from last month, it now takes less than a minute to load. I use a regular BJ ISP connection with no VPN, hotspotshield, etc.