Let's hope Email-Kid resurfaces after successfully finding his hotel. And that we don't next hear from him in some internet cafe in Gulou district, asking us for better directions!

EMK, if you read this before arriving in Beijing, try to follow Gin Fizz' directions IF you can find the right street to turn off, as it will save you time and energy. But if you can't find the right street or aren't sure where to turn, follow mine as using the Drum Tower as your landmark is more foolproof. As it will be dark already by the time you get to your walk from subway to hotel, I'm not sure if the street signs will be easily readable for you to find the right place to turn per Gin Fizz.

Hopefully not going to ask for more directions

And yes, fully aware of the fact that it will be dark, so a little more challenging.

EmailKid, waiting another half hour to board

I think the people here are real passionate about China. Much of the guide/FAQ was designed after Hawaii, kudos to slippahs.

As for big airline forums being friendly, I'm sure you can't possibly mean the DL forum.

AA has a reputation, but as a *A guy I hang my hat in the UA fora (until the merge when there will only be one).

In the end after looking at a map decided to follow GinFizz directions. Almost perfect - Zhangwang Hutong is actually second hutong, but I did find it easy enough.

Interestingly, there is a hotel EXACTLY 150 paces before of my hotel, so I stopped and showed the guy at the front desk a translation from PEK tourist info desk (stopped there to have hotel address written in Mandarin), and he just shook his head. So just kept walking, and in a couple of minutes the hotel was there.

Walked around a bit, got some great dumplings and bought Tsingtao to take back to the hotel. Man, 8 Yuan for two large bottles ^

With it getting very cold overnight not sure how much sightseeing I'll do tomorrow, especialy since I need to leave for the airport by 11 a.m.

Thanks one more time to all that helped - you saved me from a boring experience at Holiday Inn Express.

OTOH, saw far more foreigners here than walking around in south Beijing.

EmailKid

As you might recall, I'm the OP and you kinda seem to have hijacked

Glad it worked out so well for you and that the info you received was valuable enough to help you tremendously on your last layover.
Also glad you're the mod for the Budget Travel - and not a "Luxury Travel" section ^
Happy continuing Travels to you ^


FWIW: I pm'd some of the contributors to this thread so as not to get OT, but never received a reply or the info I was hoping for
Happy tho, that we managed the way we did and had an amazing time

EmailKid, just a fair warning. In China when asking for directions, keep in mind that the person telling you where to go may actually have no clue as to the location of the place you want to go. So take every direction with a grain of salt.

But, they will almost never say, "I don't know".

When there is no differentiation between truth telling and falsehoods, why admit stupidity?

My method is to poll seven different people and take majority rules on which is the correct path.

LOL .... exactly what we experienced as "dumb" foreigners on our first introduction to Beijing ...
It was around 10pm when we finally exited the line 2 station in the freezing cold at where we had expected to be closest to our hotel.
While looking around for a taxi, we were approached by some kids with red rickshaws who were able to convince us with plenty of talk and gestures that they knew of course exactly where the location of our hotel was
How naive .....

On our next visit we will (hopefully) be much better prepared and armed with all the great info of this thread.

Like I said before ..... there's nothing as an experience like when entering a foreign country for the first time fully unprepared - y'll likely be in for surprises, pleasant or not so
Can't wait to do it again .... China got me hooked !

@ jiejie:

And before I forget and leave this thread, Many Thanks once more for your excellent advice !
As it turned out - and as you already assumed would happen - our UA flight departed 50 min late from SFO (the boarding process was chaotic and the gate area like a zoo ) and consequently arrived more than an hour later as scheduled @ PEK.
Luckily I choose your advice and had booked the connecting flight early the next morning.

Most of Chinese friends have a rule, must have 2 males and 1 female agree for it to be right.

The thread did seem to develop a life of its own along the way. But if you recall I was one of the first to post and give you first hand recent info on transiting without visa @:-)

Well, I have a limited budget, so I try to use it wisely

EmailKid

Absolutely and it developed thereafter in a lively discussion with great info !
You did notice the WINK () ... right ?

From now on will follow your posts & advise even more closely @:-)