Thanks for the input, so that was one rumor that just got crushed.

Alright, its final, i'm going to be going for 4 days only ( I know its not a lot of time), what are the places that i shouldn't miss out on visiting and things that i should do in beijing during these 4 days?

hmm...I haven't shopped in the US for a while and the exchange has certainly changed but I'm pretty sure there are still plenty of deals in China. the key is always the ability to bargain. until you're walking out the door and somebody is chasing you to offer you a lower price then you haven't bargained enough.

that being said...you need to be wary of faulty devices. I bought a 60 GB usb card for 150 RMB (about USD 20) and the guy even put it into his laptop to show me it works. problem was it couldn't always retain the data I put on it. however, that's my only bad buy so for.

You can bargain on whatever,

but to buy something thats new, not fake, not stolen, and working properly, from a somewhat respectable shop, prices are def not cheaper then USA, even if you bargain.

Besides electronics and cars, you can pretty much get stuff cheaper in China then the USA.

i often book my hotel via ctrip.com
they have good rate on hotels.
hotel in china is alot cheap then usa. and because they are all new compare to usa hotel, so they are much better.
i'm so used to pay 50usd for 4star hotel.
that is how much i have to pay for motel in usa.
my advise stay at 4 stars or better. cheap, and very thing top quality.
if you go for 2 stars for even cheap price and even worse quality imageable.

What's the best payment processor to use in Hong Kong? Ive used Moneybookers and Neteller in UK with Full Tilt Poker and they both worked great. I'm not sure if they allow withdrawal to a bank in Hong Kong.

There's a club called "Propaganda" with lots of expats and university students. The drinks are cheap (4 Long Island Ice Teas for 80 RMB and they didn't skimp on the alcohol) and music is what you'd find in the states (Soulja boy, etc). But you are going for Olympics, so YMMV.

Try the Peking Duck in Beijing at Quan Ju De. Famous restaurant with a long history. I prefer the cantonese style found in Chinatowns here though.

Do the Great Wall. There's a bus (919 to Badaling) that goes there for 12 RMB and takes about 90 mins. You can ask the cabby to take you to the bus stop (behind the drum tower) if you are fluent in Mandarin. Do not do this if you're not fluent in Mandarin. There's a same bus back but its hidden away and touts will lie to get you to take their bus. There are now 2 cable cars you can take so you don't need to climb those steep walls anymore.

Do the Forbidden Palace. The best stuff is now all in London, 2nd best stuff in Taipei, so you're looking at 3rd best stuff and stuff that couldn't be hauled away. If you see scrapes, its likely that it was gold plated and the invaders scraped off the gold to take home with them.

Right outside of the Forbidden Palace front entrance is Tiananmen Square. Might as well check it out if you're there.

See the Imperial Garden. It's fun and relaxing but you will see 10 of 1000s of tourists so it'll be hard to get a clear shot.

For nightlife, my friends brought me mostly to the area around the drum tower. I'm horrible at remembering these street names so can't help you much there. Lots of hidden restaurants and bars in alleys. There is an expat magazine that you can find in most coffee shops that will tell you where all these places are.

Your Beijing experience during the Olympics is going to be vastly different than mine. Good luck, always be on guard, and be careful of trusting anyone.

google for thatsbj for a very good expat site about beijing. their forums are located here http://www.thebeijinger.com/forum/

if i want to go to china for a couple months to live, have fun, and learn mandarin where would it be? i´d naturally just choose beijing or shanghai but i want a place where people dont speak any english, what city would that be? sorry if that has been answered already, read this thread a while ago.

Can anyone give me a brief rundown of Macau please? Primarily my main concerns are:

1. Cost of living and how easy it is to rent a house? large apartment? My wife would be living with me for 3-6 months.

2. Healthcare/Medical: How good is their hospitals and medical staff there? How good is the technology and methods used for stuff?

3. Food: Can I always find places to eat good, sanitary, healthy American food?

4. How safe is it there, especially if I'll be known to have large amount of money $$$ while playing poker there. AKA will the triads find me and rob/extort me?

I'd appreciate any info you could possibly give me. It'd help me an enormous amount.

Thanks.

Not that many people speak english...

...

I'd do the followin...

Live in Guangzhou for two months - If your able to get a multiple entry visa, if not, one month in GZ, and one month in Macau

Live in Shanghai for two months

Live in Beijing for two months

(GZ/Macau would not be the best places too stay if you really want to focus and learn Mandarin.)

Chinas a huge country with TONS of **** to check out...why not just travel all around. When you get bored in one place, just go too another.

And even in Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou, not all that many people speak English. Most students do (sort of), but daily things like buying meals at restaurants, you'll run into problems. I'd be very shocked if you could order your meal in English to the waiter or waitress.

My wife is Chinese/Taiwanese =) I'd probably learn some from her before we go as well. Thanks a lot for your info.

I forgot to add you can get by with English at McDonald's, KFC, Starbucks, etc...

Most casinos in Macau will let you open an account where you can leave cash on deposit in a secure cage. I don't know about Grand Lisboa's policy, but at Grand Waldo you can open an account with a minimum of $100K HKD and deposit/withdraw in $10K increments.

As for security, the casinos are supposed to offer a safe and secure environment for players and take that responsibility very seriously. You might want to think twice before walking around with lots of cash in your pockets on the street (though Macau always feels safe to me), but you most likely won't have any problems in a casino.

hjey thanks for the post but i am not interesting in travelling around china and seeing alll the sites. i would like to live there and my main focus at the beginning would be learning chinese, what would you recommend for that?

What is the blackjack like (specifically at the macau venetian or sands)?

Wizard of odds has some of the rules, but not for the venetian and it hasnt been updated in a bit.

Is it possible to get a room/food comped playing enough $100 blackjack, or is the comp structure all different from vegas?

FYI, called the wynn macau for a credit line and they said minimum of 500k USD. WTF. Said I would have to wire in anything less. Hoping the venetian credit is better.

i believe any city with a university will do
you can even get a job as english teach by day, and student by night.

I plan on traveling abroad there next year... can anyone give me a rundown on the internet status there? Is it anyway possible to get high speed, reliable internet in Shanghai/beijing?

im going home to hawaii from korea like in the 25th of this month or so... and im gonna gather everything and looking to head to macau... i can speak cantonese it was my first language but i forgot most of it as i dont use it much in america...

im heading to macau... im pretty sure maybe about 90% certain im going to macau... i figure to go before the APPT so if the games totally suck in macau at least the APPT should bring some good action... so im prob only gonna have like a month to get ready for this trip... i dont know how long ill stay but as long as i can make five figures a month USD i dont mind staying...

so far there is grand waldo and grand lisboa... those are the only two casinos with holdem poker...

1.if i just show up is it easy to find a month to month place close to these two places?

2.how far away are they from each other?

from memory, ~10min cab ride. if you're on a tight budget, you can get around for pretty much nothing by catching hotel shuttles from each casino to the ferry dock.

grand waldo are there cheap motels that are walking distance to waldo poker rooms?

because its gonna cost $3500 a month to stay at waldo...

if not how far will i have to go for a cheaper month to month place? and how long are the taxi rides? are taxi's cheap?

hi bruiser,
chengdu and hangzhou seems like good places for you. chengdu is in sichuan province, but it wasn't too affected by the quake. the people there are pretty chill and chengdu has a reputation for being a very laid back city, supposedly the favorite activity there is playin mahjong in teahouses. english is def way less prevalent then in beijing or shanghai, but there are still plenty of expats to hang with if youre interested in that. as for nightlife there are a few clubs but i havent been to them, and a couple pretty cool bars where expats hang. the girls are hot, they seemed to not wear makeup but all have pretty faces. food is much cheaper than other developed cities in china, but theres no decent sushi or korean food. internet is good. there are tons of touristy stuff to do near the city, but im not sure how much was destroyed in the earthquake.

hangzhou is basically the nuts for scenery, since it has this ridic beautiful lake in the middle. its a smaller city, but i think english is more common here than in chengdu. its also way more metropolitan with way more bars and clubs and alot more expats. theres way more options for food w some v good japanese restaurants. the girls are also hot, but in a standard wearing makeup kind of way. but theyre still really hot. hangzhou is very expensive tho, its among the most expensive cities to live in china. also it is scorching hot in the summer. but i think its still a good place to live, because if you stay in a place a little bit away from the city center then it'll still be a very chinese experience, and you have alot of options if you want to party or eat a cheeseburger.

i want to stay in macau near Grand Waldo APPT event for a month or maybe 2...

is there any cheaper motels to rent in the island?

or will i have to pay $2000 per month to live in a hotel?

try zhuhai
is next to macau
you can rent a nice apartment for 3-400usd a month
only hassel is cross the boarder to macau and back to home
30 min tops

I had no luck finding anything to rent for an extended time, and i searched alot. Every apartment wants one year lease (sometimes 6 month) and you need to pay 4 months up front. You can find nice, basic rooms close to casinos for about $40 per nite, or the cheapest is $30. Those are closer to lisboa and not waldo.

The problem with staying in zhuhai, is you have to have multiple entry visa and probably 1 hour travel each way.

5 figures would be very difficult to do right now in macau, unless you are playing the big stakes at waldo and i don't know how regular those games are. At lisboa i would guess a very good player to average 4 to 6kUS and that is before the games tightened up last month. I don't know if it has gotten any better, but maybe with the appt and some new rooms it will improve.