April 2010 China Guide

✦ Notes✦

China Survival Guide

Questions? 961-6300 or [email protected]

✦ Sample Itinerary ✦ Day 1 & 2 - San Francisco/Beijing

Board a convenient charter bus in the morning, and travel to San Francisco International Airport for an afternoon flight to Beijing. Your adventure begins as you fly trans-Pacific aboard a 747, crossing the International Dateline.

✦ Attractions ✦ Summer Palace

Visit the Tian An Men Square, the largest square in the world, and the Temple of Heaven, built in 1420 A.D., where the emperors prayed to the heaven for a good harvest Sightseeing also includes the Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, and the Summer Palace, known for many significance such as the Long Corridor with painted gallery, Kunming Lake and Longevity Hill.

Located in the northwestern suburb of the city, the Summer Palace is reputed to be the best preserved Museum of Imperial Garden Architecture in China. Originally built in 1750, the imperial garden complex experienced several restorations and extensions throughout the late Qing Dynasty (1368-1644). Garden buildings at present are the result of the restoration in 1902. Like most garden architecture in China, the design of the Summer Palace has borrowed from nature bringing mountains and lakes into a whole with a variety of palace buildings, temple structures and pavilions and pagodas and other garden constructions added to create a splendid paradise.

Tour bus excursion to the Great Wall, the 4,000- mile long and 2,000 years old construction is said to be the only man-made structure visible by naked eye from the moon. Visit to the Ming Tombs, one of 13 Ming Emperors’ Tombs is fully excavated and open for exploration. Roasted Beijing Duck Dinner that evening.

The Great Wall

Day 3 - Beijing

Day 4 - Beijing

Day 5 - Beijing/Shanghai/Suzhou

Morning flight to Shanghai, then take the tour bus trip to Suzhou. Evening Dinner Show of the traditional Chinese Music.

Day 6 - Suzhou/Hangzhou

Morning sightseeing to the centuries old Lingering Garden, Tiger Hill and Hanshan Temple. Visit to the National Embroidery Institute to see silk embroidery, an important local craft with 1,000 years history. Afternoon tour bus journey to Hangzhou.

The majestic Great Wall of China is the greatest ancient military fortification in the world and has been listed in the World Heritage by UNESCO since 1987. Starting from Shanhaiguan Pass in Liaoning Province to Jiayuguan Pass in Gansu Province, Great Wall winds through the mountain and desert areas of northern China from east to west.

Ming Tombs

Morning boat cruise on West Lake with relaxing stopover at jewel-like pagodas and tea houses. Visit to the centuries old Lingyin Temple, with the main feature of the 64.3 ft-high camphor-wood carved Buddha. Afternoon tour bus trip to Shanghai.

Located at the foot of Tianshou Mountain in Changping District, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) northwest of the city area of Beijing, Ming Tombs is actually a range of imperial mausoleum constructions of thirteen emperors of the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644). Surrounded by lofty mountain ranges, the whole scenic area covers an area of 120 square kilometers (46 square miles) and is reputed to be the best preserved tomb architecture of its kind in China.

Sightseeing includes the Yu Garden, a maze of marvelous pavilions, ponds, rocky works and over arching trees. Visit to the Bund, one of the most recognizable city scapes in the world.

Lingering Garden

Day 7 - Hangzhou/Shanghai

Day 8 - Shanghai

Day 9 - Shanghai/San Francisco

Depart by a morning flight to take a stopover in Beijing. The afternoon flight will depart for San Francisco where you will arrive at SFO on the same day and return to your vehicle. 2

Occupying an area of 23,300 square meters (about 5.8 acres), the Lingering Garden is located outside Changmen Gate in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. Originally a classical private garden, it is one of the four most famous gardens in China. Possessing typical Qing style, it is well-known for the exquisite beauty of its magnificent halls, and the various sizes, shapes, and colors of the buildings. In 1997, the garden was recorded on the list of the world heritage by UESCO. 15

✦ Attractions ✦ Tiger Hill Pagoda

The pagoda stands on the hill’s summit and is the Pagoda of the Yunyan Temple. As the oldest pagoda in the vicinity of Suzhou, it has come to be a symbol of the city and has the distinction of being China’s Leaning Tower. Built during the Northern Song Dynasty (959-961), it is a seven-storey octahedron after the style of the timber pagodas built during the early Tang period. It is 48 meters high (158 feet) and for the past four hundred years has leaned 359’ to the northwest.

Hanshan Temple

✦ Climate ✦ City

April

Beijing

45-70

Shanghai

50-66

All temperatures are average highs & lows for these specified cities. Source: Fodor’s Beijing & Shanghai travel book.

✦ Packing Tips ✦

Being one of the most famous temples in Chinese history, Hanshan Temple often boasts about its bell rings. The bell in the tower now, was modeled on the previous bell in 1904. Cold Mountain Temple is also a Buddhism temple. The statue of the Buddhist patriarch Sakyamuni is there in the Grand Prayer Hall for people to make offerings to.

Yu Garden/The Old City

The old Chinese city was a walled fishing town when the British arrived in 1843. Modern Shanghai grew up around it. It used to be a maze of tiny alleys, but the streets have been widened in recent years and are crowded with tourists. At the center of the Old City are the Chenghuang Temple and the Yu Garden, in which stands the Huxining Teahouse, said to be the model for the design on the willow-pattern plates much loved by Europeans in another era. The Bridge of Nine Turns zigzags to make it difficult for evil spirits to get across (since, as is well known, evil spirits have problems with corners). The Yu Garden is a classical Chinese garden with over 30 pavilions linked by a maze of corridors and bridges over ponds.

The Bund

Is regarded as a landmark as well as the birthplace of Shanghai. With a length of 1 km, the bund is dotted with various grandiose, solid buildings of western style dating back to the early 20th century. Due to these imposing buildings, the Bund is also reputed as an “international exhibition of architecture”. Compared to the west side, east of the Bund is a newly developing Shanghai. A 647 meter-long sightseeing tunnel, connecting the bund to the Oriental Pearl TV Tower is complete and was opened to the public in October 2000, through which visitors can experience a marvelous trip under water. 14

• Casual attire is fine for the entire trip. Jeans or slacks are appropriate, even for the business leaders meetings. • Dress in layers: Like peeling an onion, you should take clothes in layers to adapt to climatic variations - Sweat-releasing under clothes, a warmthpreserving middle level and a rainproof and windproof outer garment. • The clothes should be easy to put on or take off. • Choose light clothes with functions such as hidden pockets. • Choose comfortable footwear with thick-soles and soft-uppers, cotton socks or stockings. • Overnight laundry, mending and pressing services are available at most hotels. • Have an extra pair of eyeglasses or contact lenses and enough of any medication to last a few days in your carry-on luggage. • Never pack prescription drugs, valuables or undeveloped film in your checked luggage. • It is good to have a small waist pack, small bag or vest with inside pockets, to keep money, passport, wallet, etc. close to you when in large crowds. Don’t keep all your money in one pocket. • Be sure to pack your carry on bag with whatever you will need to go to bed on the day of arrival. Your luggage will be delivered after you arrive at the hotel. • A lock for your luggage is a must have. You will be asked to place your luggage outside your hotel room door for the attendants to pick up and transfer to our next location. • If possible, pack an empty bag in your luggage for all your purchases. You will have an opportunity to purchase fairly nice luggage at the Silk Factory for a reasonable price.

3

✦ Useful Information ✦ Passports, Visas and other useful paperwork

• Always carry your passport with you, it’s the best form of I.D. • Make two copies of the data page of your passport (1 copy for someone at home, 1 copy for you, keep this copy separate from your original passport) • Create a list with contact numbers for your credit card companies, banks, and doctors in case of an emergency.

Duty Free

• You are allowed to bring home $800 worth of foreign goods home duty-free. This exemption may include 1 liter of alcohol (for travelers 21 and older), 200 cigarettes, and 100 non-Cuban cigars. Family members from the same household may pool their$800 personal exemptions. • You may also send packages home duty-free, with a limit of one parcel per adressee per day (except alcohol or tobacco products, or perfume worth more than $5)

Laptops

• Internet service will be available at our hotel in the business center and usually costs 1RMB per minute. • Internet service is available in some rooms via WiFi or Ethernet • You will need a 220 converter for your power cord. Some of the hotels have US plugs already but not all.

Cameras & Photography

• The Chinese love cameras and will be glad to take your picture; some may even want to be in them. However, you should always ask before taking pictures of people. Remember at some religious sites photography is not allowed. • Don’t pack film or equipment in checked baggage, where it is much more susceptible to damage. X-ray machines are very powerful and may ruin your film.

✦ Attractions ✦ Tiananmen Square

Located at the center of Beijing City this is the heart of the country. It is the largest of its kind in the world, covering an area of over 400,000 square meters (nearly 100 acres). Tiananmen (Heaven Peace Gate), originally the front of the Forbidden City, the well-known imperial palaces from the Ming and Qing dynasties, is situated at the north of the square. The design of the tower has been used as a symbol on the national emblem.

Temple of Heaven

The Temple of Heaven is the largest temple architecture in China with a history of over 500 years. In ancient China, emperors considered themselves as ‘The Son of Heaven’, inheriting supreme power to dominate the world. Originally built in the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) in 1420, the Temple of Heaven was the sacrificial place for emperors to hold prayer and sacrificial ceremonies. With an area of about 2,700 square kilometers (667,185 acres), the Temple of Heaven is much larger than the Forbidden City and a little smaller than the Summer Palace. It is enclosed by a long wall.

Palace Museum a.k.a The Forbidden City

The Forbidden City, dominating the heart of the Beijing, is a range of wellpreserved palace architecture of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is the largest of its kind in the country. The original palaces were constructed during the Ming period (1368 - 1644) over 560 years ago and the present complex was the result of several extensions in the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911). The rectangular ‘city’ is 960 meters (3,149 feet) long from north to south and 750 meters (2,460 feet) wide from east to west with four gates on each cardinal point. The southern gate, Wumen (Meridian Gate) is the main entrance for most visitors to the Forbidden City.

Cell Phone

• Your cellphone may work, but you need to contact your cellular provider and ask if your phone has a SIM card. This card will enable you to use your cell phone. • If your cell phone doesn’t have a SIM card, you can ask if they rent phones with the card. 4

13

✦ Cuisine ✦ • Breakfast is a combination of Chinese and American style food. You’ll find a varied selection of food, this is a good time to fuel up for our busy days. • Lunch and Dinner is all Chinese food. • Steamed rice is always served on the table. • Our meals will be served “Family Style”. • Pepsi and Coke will be available at each table but Diet or “Lite” Cola is available to purchase. • Coffee and Tea is widely available. • Our trips during the day can be very tiring. You may want to take snacks such as nuts, dried fruit, or power bars to have on the bus for a quick energy boost.

✦ Hotels & Buses ✦ • Our hotels will all be four or five star rated. • Hotels will supply us with hair dryers, combs, razors, slippers, robes, scales, toothbrushes, toothpaste, shower caps, hand lotion, shampoo and conditioner. • Hair dryers are not always in the most obvious places, so you will need to look everywhere in the room if you can’t see it. • All hotels have western toilets and you can flush the toilet paper. • Hotel keys go in a little slot next to the entry door, just inside the room. This operates all the electricity. Lights won’t work without the key in the slot! • Temperature dials are oposite of the US. Higher degree = low Temp, Lower degree = High temp • The buses are secure, feel free to leave purchases, extra clothing, and water bottles on the bus. Either the bus driver will stay with the bus or will lock it up while you’re on a tour. • Always keep your passport, money and airline tickets secure.

✦ Getting in Shape ✦ We will be doing a lot of walking. Most of the walking is at an easy pace but some, like the Great Wall is made of many stairs. To be fully prepared for all the walking, its a good idea to start walking a couple months before this trip. 12

✦ Shopping & Bartering ✦ • There are knock-offs widely available, so Buyer Beware. • Bartering is necessary when making purchases. • Know exactly what you want and go to several stores or vendor stands to note the prices for the item you want to buy. • If you are not satisfied with the price given by the vendor, walk away. The vendor will probably call you back and sell his things to you at your price. • It is good to shop with a friend or friends who offer to buy the same thing you want. Offering to buy more than one item gives you bargaining power and can bring down the final price. • When bargaining, don’t pull out all your money or wallet, keep a few small bills and change in a front, more convenient pocket. • Keep all receipts for purchases!

✦ money ✦ • There is no Sales Tax in China. • Exchange rate is $1=7 RMB’s • Wait to exchange your money at our first hotel. The exchange rate is regulated in China, not so in the US. • American money is okay, but you want to have different denominations ($1, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100). Our hotels will provide exchange into RMB. • Travelers checks are also accepted, again it is good to have multiple denominations. • Credit cards acceptable in China include Master Card, Visa Card, American Express Card, JCB and Diners Card. You can use the card to withdraw RMB at branches of the Bank of China and some appointed shops in most Chinese cities. However, in some remote areas, credit cards are not always accepted. • ATMs (Automatic Teller Machines) are available in most of the major cities in China. Foreign travelers can directly draw RMB from those machines marked with any printed symbol of the credit cards mentioned above. Although the number of the ATMs which accept foreign credit cards is not great, it is increasing very quickly. Meanwhile, do not rely on finding an ATM when you are in remote areas of China. • If you plan on using your ATM or Credit Cards, call your bank and/or credit card companies to let them know you will be traveling out of the country. Most credit card companies and banks will freeze your accounts after one transaction unless you let them know ahead of time. 5

✦ In Flight ✦

✦ Traditonal Cuisine ✦ Chinese food, due to the sheer size of China and its population, has many regional varieties. The most commonly-found cuisines are Cantonese, Szechuan, and Hunan. Cantonese cuisine tends to be mild, with less of an emphasis on chiles and more on the natural flavors of fresh ingredients including fresh seafood. Most Americanized Chinese food is based on classic Cantonese cooking. Classic Cantonese dishes include: • Dhar siu, also known as barbecued or red-cooked meat • Shark fin soup • Simple stir-fried vegetables Szechuan food is spicier, using an array of chiles - most famous tonguenumbing Szechuan peppers and spicy chile bean paste. There’s an emphasis on preservation techniques like tea-smoking, salting, and pickling. Although pork and chicken are the most commonly eaten meats in China, beef plays a greater role in Szechuan food due to the widespread presence of oxen for farming. Szechuan staples include: • Kung Pao chicken • Dan dan noodle • Tea-smoked duck Hunan cooking is similar to Szechuan, though generally even spicier, and with a taste for flavor combinations like sweet and sour or hot and sour. Drying, smoking, and pickling are popular, as are long-cooked, elaborate dishes. There’s a much-greater variety of ingredients available due to the nature of Hunan’s land versus Szechuan’s. Hunan cuisine doesn’t use Szechuan peppercorns, preferring instead to get spice from various chiles.

Photo by Amy Luce

• We will be flying on a Air China 747 with room to walk around. • The flight is 14 hours from SFO to Beijing, plenty of time to meet some of the people on the trip. • We will hand out forms to be filled out before our arrival in Beijing. You will receive a health questionaire, an Entry Card and a China Customs Card. • We will be served two meals and a snack while in flight. The first meal will be served at the beginning of the flight, the second towards the end. If you are a vegetarian please let us know ahead of time. • Get up and walk around as much as possible—at least once an hour, if possible. Stand up and stretch your arms and legs. • Do in-seat calf exercises and heel/toe lifts frequently to keep the blood circulating. Also massage the feet, ankles, calf muscles, and lower legs. • Try to sit comfortably and avoid crossing your legs. • Stay hydrated, drink plenty of fluids, but avoid drinks that contain alcohol or caffeine, as they promote dehydration. • Wear loose clothing. Avoid tight clothing that restricts blood flow (eg, tight waistbands, socks or stockings).

Photos by Amy Luce

6

11

✦ Shopping continued ✦

✦ Restrooms ✦

Suzhou

Suzhou Embroidery Institute: It is a state owned hand-craft research institute. Among the products, the hand-made double-sided embroidery articles of vivid pets and flowers are really gorgeous. Suzhou Silk Factory: The factory produces one fifth of the country’s silk products. The beautifully designed silk clothes and its model show of the factory make it a real attraction to tourists. Besides, the silk quilt of different sizes are specially produced for sale here. There is a entire store dedicated to all silk products from clothes to rugs and purses. You can even have items custom made for you.

Hangzhou

Hangzhou Dragon Well Tea Farm: The Dragon Well Tea planted in this village once produced for the Chinese Royal Family only. It is a famous brand of Tea in China. Through viewing the Tea Farm and the tea lecture given by the local farmer, tourists will find the stay both enjoyable and healthy.

Shanghai

Shanghai Carpet Mill: Super quality silk tapestries of all kinds and sizes are produced in this Shanghai carpet factory. The hand-made silk tapestries of 400 to 600 knots per square inch are beautiful collectibles.

All Chinese understand WC (water closet) for the restrooms. This is the best way to ask where they are. Restroom facilities are VERY different in China. They are clean and often have an attendant cleaning after each use. Toilet paper isn’t always included in the restrooms, so be sure to pack tissues with you. Toilet paper is sometimes on the restroom wall, outside the stall area. Always check before entering the stall. Toilet paper is not flushed down the toilet, there are waste baskets in each stall to use. The western style toilet will be available but most public restrooms have multiple “squats” and one western toilet. Squats are basically a porcelain hole in the floor with a stall built around it. This is where the differences are really noticeable. Be prepared to wait for the Western style toilet. There will not be soap in the WC, so it is very good idea to carry a bottle of hand sanitizer with you. This will come in handy many times.

✦ Air & Water ✦ Air quality is very poor. If you have any kind of breathing issues, be sure to bring any medications or breathing aids with you. You may also want to bring breathing masks, available from your doctor or your local drug store. Water is not drinkable, unless it has been boiled first. Water is always available from your Chinese bus driver, Two bottles for $1. Do not buy bottled water from any street vendor, it may not be safe to drink, only buy from your bus driver. Each day the hotels will give each room a bottle of water per person, this water is safe to drink. Use this water to brush your teeth and take medications. Some hotels will have a smaller faucet in the restroom with drinking water availabe from it, but not all.

Photos by Amy Luce

✦ Optional Tours ✦

Statue at West Lake

Statue at Great Wall

10

All the tours on the itinerary have been covered by the tour package. You might pick up the following optional tours with additional charges or just stay with the regular schedule. These are not paid for ahead of time.

1. Hutong Tour in Beijing (USD$35/p.p )

Hutong is a traditional living area for ordinary Beijing citizens, the history of which dates back 1000 years. Hundreds of thousands of houses of traditional architecture style are densely flanked on both sides of narrow and zigzag streets in which people have been living a peaceful and tradi7

✦ Optional Tours Continued ✦

✦ Shopping Opportunities ✦

tional life there through many generations. Tourists will first get on a traditional rickshaw, two for each, for a Hutong tour, riding through those narrow streets tracing the tast of the historical life of an oriental country.

This is a preview of where we will have the opportunity to make purchases. All of these facilities are included in our tour package.

Beijing acrobatic troupe is a first class one in China, some of the performances of which have been awarded with gold medals from time to time through the International Acrobatic Competition. An annual one fifth of its performances are made abroad.

Jade Factory: China is rich in its jade resource, therefore jade and its cultural impact to Chinese people, and later on to Asians has been historical. Tourists will get a chance to visit the Beijing Jade Carving Factory which is the biggest jade collection in China. Tourists will find hundreds of thousands of precious jade, jadeites and handmade jade carvings, the raw material of which come from the Northeast and the silk road area of China. Pearl Farm: The Pearl shop in Beijing has been exhibiting a rich variety of home produced sea pearls and fresh water pearls due to both the historical signifigance and the modern market. Among them, the king and queen size pearls are of precious quality. The type of Pearl Powder on sale was first contributed to the Qing Dynasty Royal Family as a cosmetic, and they can be found here too.

2. Acrobatic show in Beijing (covered by package)

3. Boat ride on Grand Canal in Suzhou (USD$25/pp)

Grand Canal is a pure artificial object completed 1300 years ago by Chinese people. It starts from Beijing and ends up in Hangzhou with a total length of more than 1000 miles. During the 50 minutes boat ride on it, tourists may enjoy the view of both modern and old life of Suzhou.

4. Evening Cruise on Huangpu River  ( USD25/pp)

The cruise will absolutely build in every one an unforgettable impression of Grand Shanghai! The evening view fo Shanghai from the cruise is gorgeous, charming and unbeatable.

5. ERA-Intersection of Time-by Cirque du Soleil (USD35/pp) As a multimillion-dollar stunning acrobatic extravaganza, the first of its kind in China, ERA is a multimedia odyssey whose inspiration is a direct result of the combination of traditional Chinese acrobatic arts and modern technology. Just like Shanghai, ERA evolves through a constant collision between the past and future. ERA is a love story, yet it is also a contemplation across the millennia, a fascination with that other dimension man has yet to conquer time.

6. Shanghai Maglev Train (one way ticket USD15/pp)

Beijing

Cloisonne Factory (pronounced kloi-ze-na): Born in Beijing 300 years ago, cloisonne is the kind of handmade arts and crafts article used a great deal by royal family and rich families in the past. Now it is popular to every body. Tourists will take a chance to visit the workshop seeing how the beautiful articles been made with their own eyes. The gorgeous design, handmade workmanship and tremendous types make cloisonne articles really attractive to both domestic and overseas tourists.

Photo by Amy Luce

Shanghai maglev train, the first commercial rail line of its type in the world, links Metro Line 2 at Longyang Road with the Pudong International Airport by a train traveling at top speed of 431 kilometers per-hour which is much faster than the Bullet Train in Japan. Shanghai Maglev Train takes only 7 minutes and 20 seconds to cover 30 kilometer trip, which currently takes 30 to 40 minutes by driving.

7. The Legend of Kung Fu (USD25/pp)

The Legend of Kung Fu is the a production which combines the elements of kung fu, story-telling, acrobatics, modern dance, and original music to celebrate the philosophy and skill of martial arts. Side trips are subject to change. 8

Temple of Heaven, Beijing 9