Official China Thread (Macau, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, etc)

[GreenSmoke85]

Originally Posted by entertainme

If you get it in to the tarvel agency in the morning and pay a higher fee, they can often return your passport with the visa in the evening. Sometimes your hotel will have a travel desk that can do it, or you can go do it yourself. I've used both my hotel service and gone to the China Travel Service office. There's one right off Nathan Road.

Originally Posted by ouam

i've done the visa stuff in hong kong with an agency named fbt in the new mandarin plaza in kowloon, if u give ur visa before 9 in the morning and pay 350hkd u can get a 3 month tourist visa and pick it up at 2 in the afternoon. this is working for french passport, dont know canadian. i guess if u leave ur passport later in the day u can pick up ur visa in the evening but never tried it. pretty happy with this company and i think they are slightly cheaper than hotels and CTS. they have a website with a map so easy to find.

ty

[GreenSmoke85]

In airport now, boarding in 40 min pretty stoked.

[xonath0]

I have been in Buenos Aires for 4 months, I am planning on moving now to Hong Kong, I have relatives there, will probably live there for 6 months or something, is anyway taking chinesse classes?

[DDNK]

Originally Posted by hoyasnaxa

Just got back from HK. If you want really cheap, stay in Kowloon. Near the Tsim Sha Tsui metro is a infamous hostel called the Chungking mansions. These are like 70-200 HKD a night. You will not find a cheaper place in Hong Kong, but they are obviously not very nice.

"New Chung King Mansion"? 150-200HKD/night. How "not very nice" are we talking here? Any amenities: wireless, windows, lockers?

[Killah]

I just stayed couple of weeks on Mirador mansion(next to chungking mansion)(min lung guest house or something) for 150hk a night. Got own very small room with air con bathroom and wireless(fast when it worked but couple of days was off).... Oh yeah no window

[laserboy]

I stayed at a place in Chung King mansions for a night once. LOL! Tiny room and an uncomfortable bed, but that is probably true for a lot of places in Hong Kong. Tons of Pakistani and African street hustlers in the lobby accosting you in the lobby. The money changers in the lobby give awesome rates exchanging HKDs.

If you're on a tight budget, I'd probably look for something in Mongkok instead. Just as cheap, but there's a lot more restaurants and nightlife in Mongkok. In general, location is not so much of an issue in Hong Kong because the subway is so good. just look for something close to a subway stop and well reviewed on the internet.

[hoyasnaxa]

Originally Posted by DDNK

"New Chung King Mansion"? 150-200HKD/night. How "not very nice" are we talking here? Any amenities: wireless, windows, lockers?

Private rooms are about what you said, will have wireless, no locker, no window probably. Communal rooms can be less than 50 HKD.

[DDNK]

hmmm, where do you look for hostels online? I'm using asiarooms and not seeing any communal offerings anywhere. I just assumed HK didn't have those sorts of arrangements, but that's probably not correct. I assume that if it did, they would have proper lockers, right?

I'll probably drop for the private anyway, but down the road this would help.

[laserboy]

Hostelbookers.com, hostels.com, and hostelworld.com

[DaGrunt]

Anyone staying at Macau right now shoot me a PM please. Staying here for a week and would be interested in meeting some of the Macau 2+2ers. Thank you

[csnmf1]

Originally Posted by smooth101

This Thread is exactly what I have been looking for. I just got done reading the whole thread. NICE JOB!!!

I have a question about extending my tourist visa. I have a visa for 90 days, but I want to stay in China for 120 days (so another month longer than my visa allows). I am in Beijing. I do not know how I should go about obtaining another 30 days. Oh, and my visa has multiple entries.

I tried to get this taken care of, while I was in the states but it appears comprehending English is not the strong point of The Chinese Embassy in America. So, I had a huge surprise when I tried to come to China and the things I discussed with the embassy were not exactly correct. sigh....

You can get a 30 day extension by yourself, however you need to have 20,000RMB in your chinese bank account. You can't touch this money for 1 month and the bank gives you a certificate which you take along with other forms to the PSB in yong he gong lama temple and costs a few 100 RMB.

With visa runs you need to leave the country and then apply for a new visa. A multiple entry visa does not reset the clock it just means you can leave and re-enter China as much as you want for 3 months from when you first enter. So when your visa is about to finish just go to HK, Macau, Korea etc and get a new 1 or 3 month visa then re-enter.

The other option is to get a 6 month F-visa through a visa agency, you can try thebeijinger.com although it will cost a few thousand RMB and maybe the visa run is worth the extra money as at least you get to see a new country.

@RosieTheGreat, what is the pinyin for 四云寺桥? Is that near SiHui as that is where i live.

[RosieTheGreat]

si yun ci qiao. In some big shopping center called 远洋国际中心. If you have ever been to the closest papa johns to you, youve been in the building i live in.

But seriously you probably live less than 1/2 mile from me. And i walk by that subway station all the time.

[tommyg8]

Wow just noticed this forum & this thread after a month or so on the site!

Just wanted to announce myself as a resident of Shanghai, have lived in Shanghai for around 5 years now, first came over with my parents who came as expats and i've been working as a Tennis Coach (mostly foreign students) for a year or so now. Love China & Shanghai more specifically, can answer almost any and all questions that one may have in regards to Shanghai! Poker wise it is not very good however, the only live game i play now is a weekly 100rmb pub tournament near my house, i used to play some bigger cash games in Gubei/Downtown and knew some of the guy's who ran the card houses but have seen a lot of them raided etc. Connection to sites can be very problematic, Full Tilt suffers a whole bunch of disconnects/reconnects and lag between actions, and i've been told Stars is similar. Some friends use a VPN to play on Stars and have no problems with that and i was lucky enough to live in a pretty nice compound (where my job as a tennis pro is) which has its internet routed through Hong Kong so i can luckily avoid the connection problems, however when i play at friend's on WiFi etc i suffer the lag.

I didnt read the whole of this thread but are there many other people on 2p2 situated in Shanghai?

[csnmf1]

Ahh ok i know where the papa johns is, yes we live really close to each other. I am in yi xian guo ji, 2 mins walk from the station on the elevated area above it to the east.

[RosieTheGreat]

Originally Posted by tommyg8

I didnt read the whole of this thread but are there many other people on 2p2 situated in Shanghai?

No, most of the people who post here are HK, Aomen or guangdong people.

Also csnmf: down to meet up some time? im busy with work till like june 20th ish but pretty much free after that if you feel like meeting another 2p2er in bj.

also id need the characters for where you live to understand it lol.