Wendy is driving.
Yifan is sleeping.
The car is running on the long north to south national expressway G15 (a.k.a Shenyang-Haikou Expressway).
Inspired by the 2200 km travel across the western US, the family drove to Qingdao and back during the holiday.
The G15 is generally empty with just one or two cars ahead in sight for many sections except in Shanghai.
Car traveling is a feasible option for Chinese now.
Jian Shuo,
I am visiting China for 2 weeks in November/December. I noticed your posts on traveling with Children and thought I would ask questions from an expert.
We are bringing our 1 year old daughter. We are planning on going to Beijing and (guilin or Hangzhou or Shanghai or Xian or…), Guangzhou and Hong Kong.
Do you have any recommendations of how to arrange kid friendly travel from abroad and how to make sure that things are good for our baby?
I thought I would ask because I noticed that you moved to a different hotel in Yangshuo because of Yifan and thought if you have any advice, it would be great to hear it.
certainly understand if you don’t get back to me
Thanks
Rob
With a 2 year old kid, I certainly understand the desire to travel safely with a kid. I am not an expert on this – I just traveled with Yifan several time to Henan, and Guilin, but let me try my my best to list some items.
Hotel Consideration
If budget allows, definitely choose better hotels. Although many people complained that 5-star hotels in China is not consistent with international five star standard, especially those 5-star outside Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, they are still by far the best hotel to stay, especially when kids travel with you. As you may know from our Yangshuo trip, Wendy and I once booked a youth hotel, but at last minute, switched to the Green Lotus hotel – a five star there.
Although most parents are very flexible from motel, youth hotel, to 5-star hotels, kids are not. I have to admit that many local small hotels are very good, and kid friendly, there is no good way to predict the experience before you go. There are many good online travel forums offering reviews (like ctrip.com in Chinese), but it takes considerable time to read all of the conflicting messages there. To trade time with money, you can simply choose a better hotel.
It is for sure not as interesting as going to a local smaller hotel, but it is the cost we have to pay to take the responsibility of parenting.
BTW, my best experience about hotel is a “luxury room” at 10 RMB (1.5 USD) per night in Wenchang.
On the Road
By air! Definitely by air. There are shorter trips like Shanghai to Hangzhou, or Suzhou, train is preferred, but for most of the trip with a kid as small as 1 year old, choose airplane.
The time on road is a factor, I think the bigger factor is the train station, and bus station. I would try to avoid bringing Yifan to train station – nightmare in many cities at peak time (National holiday in Oct, New Year, and Spring Festival). Staying overnight on train is not fun with kid.
Food
Well. This can be most troublesome, but for a kid like 1 year old, you can always bring some milk, and things he/she like. Eating in five-star hotels, or nice local restaurants should be OK, but be prepared on the environment change – the water, for example, and avoid spicy food – many places in China offer non-spicy food according to local standard, but they ARE really spicy!
Safe Travel!
Anything else my readers want to add to travel with a 1 year kid in China?
Eric sent me a link early morning to ask me check a photo website on Xinjiang. The pictures are very good – I especially love the photos in Shanghai which reveals exactly the feeling I have on Shanghai. The story is quite long, as Eric “complained”, and I didn’t go into the Xinjiang scene part yet. If the author want to provide a thumbnail view, it would be very nice.
In Xinjiang, there are scenes like this. China has a diversed culture: The
Bar, the cups, the musical instrument, the people, the road, the house, the field… It is all so different.
BlueZone, very nice job!
I planned the Kanas trip but still cannot fullfil the plan. Eric and Dan went there with very nice pictures. Now, I feel my passion to go to the wild and far areas is not as strong as before. Why?
I am in Fuzhou, Fujian province as business trip. Fuzhou is a beautiful city. I love it. There is no any sign of the nerverousness regarding to the recent Taiwan issues.
I just returned from my trip to Dalian, Liaoning. It is a busy travel week since I went to Xiamen last weekend.
What? Dalian is Nearer to Shanghai Than Beijing
The trip was the typical two day meeting trip. I got on board China Eastern MU5605 from Shanghai to Dalian (DLC) at 1550 hours. The trip took 1 hour and 20 minutes. It was surprising since the trip to Beijing from Shanghai was 1 hour and 40 minutes.
On the plane, I saw the position of Dalian is somewhere near 39°N 122°E from the TV. The knowledge from Degree Confluence Project helped me to remember that Shanghai is near 31°N 121°E and Beijing is near 40°N 116°E. So the simple calculate came out the conclusion that Dalian is nearer to Shanghai than Beijing, exactly the opposite result of my impression. :-D
Logistic
I stayed in my favorite hotel – Hilton. I was even given a suite because the standard rooms were all occupied. It was a nice offer.
© Jian Shuo Wang
I got back with China Eastern MU5606. The storm in Pudong Airport forced the plane to land at Hongqiao Airport. This is the advantage to have two major airports in a city. I was very happy for the change since Pudong Airport is too far while Hongqiao is just 15 km away from my home. The flight really frigntened me to hear the large noise from the A400 engine in the landing phrase. I thought something must had gone wrong with the plane.
Dalian
I took a lot of pictures of the amazing sea-shore city. The weather was pleasant and the sightseeing was fantastic, although this was my second trip to the same city.
© Jian Shuo Wang
© Jian Shuo Wang
© Jian Shuo Wang
I arrived Shanghai late and tired so I will add more pictures tomorrow night on this page.
Credit: Tom Cheung helped to correct typo on this page.
This is the detailed plan following up my previous draft plan to Kanas, Xinjiang.
Day 0: From Shanghai to Urumqi by air. Staying at Urumqi.
Day 1: From Urumqi to Burqin by mountain car. Arrive at night after 6-8 hours via G216.
Day 2: Drive from Burqin into the mountain and begin trekking. Stay at the interaction of the two rivers.
Day 3: Continue to march to Hemu and stay in the village that night.
Day 4: From Hemu to Heihu (Black lake) and seattle down near the lake.
Day 5: Last walking day and reach Kanas Lake at night.
Day 6: Start from Kanas and return to Burqin.
Day 7: Come back to Urumqi via the west route and pass the Ghost City.
Here is the route map I draw before again:
Update: July 23, 2003
I am sorry that my trip to Xinjiang was canceled.
I love travel. The passion to travel to the most nature places was strengthened during my last visit to Daocheng.
Some readers complained that I didn’t give the Chinese name for the wonderful place. This is the complete address in Chinese
I remember the journey started with a simple note:
I will be away from the Internetized world for the next 8 days. From 6:00 AM tomorrow, I will be on my way to Daocheng, the lost Shangrila in China.
When I wrote the entry, I didn’t realize how amazing the trip would be and the memeraizable journey ahead. After I returned to civilized world eight days later, I brought 200+ ditigal pictures, 100+ traditional film pictures and a long story.
The passion drives me to plan for my trip to Kanas Lake
Now, I am planning my travel schedule of this Oct holiday again. My eyes focus on the most northwest part of China – Kanas Lake – the “beautiful and misterious” lake, according to the Mongolian name. I marked the location of Kanas in the China map below:
Credit: Map borrowed from ChinaTour.com
Kanas pictures
My friends Tang sent the following pictures to me via email. It is so beautiful, isn’t it?
Resouces for Kanas
With the help of A tour Guide for China Hikers, I created the draft version of the route map:
Go to Kanas
Here is my draft plan:
If anyone has been there, please advice. Thanks.
Update: July 1, 2003
Detailed Kanas Plan is released.
SARS Update
As always, I will have to update you about the SARS situation in Shanghai. With the eighth imported SARS cases, which is a train attendant from Guangzhou, the city got seriously alerted. Most of the passengers in the same train have been found and quarantined, but there are still two persons missing. Today, 9 new cases were reported all over China. All new cases were found in Beijing.
Update: July 31, 2007
Isaac Mao finally visited Kanas, and took great photos from the lake. He posted his short travelogue: A wonderful view from my Kanas Lake memory.
Let me steal one photo from his blog:
Credit: Isaac Mao
Hi,
I am in Nanchang, the captical of Jiang Xi Province. It is after two days trip before I get into the hotel of Cloria Plaza Hotel. The hotel is nice, and much above my expectation for a four star hotel – see my previous blog on a four star hotel in Chengdu.
From 7:00 PM, I had a great meeting with my CEO and the other good collegues and friends there. After that, we went to Kara-OK for entertainment. It is a nice night and I realized it is a good way to host some kind of entertainment for a team to build up the spirit.
Before I arrived in hotel, I also visited Jiang Gan Shan and donate a school bag to a girl there and also denote 100 RMB for the books the students are using. It is nice experience for me. I donate my tender love to them and hopefully, this event also marks a great milestone for them. — I do since I remember the times when other companies come to my school to donate.
December 01, 2001. Chang Sha
Starting from December 03, I will travel to Chang Sha to deliver training. This is my first time to Chang Sha, also the first time to Hu Nan province. I will leave Shanghai by flight MU5301 at 15:30 and return to Shanghai by flight CZ3867 at 12:40 on December 05, 2001.
I will post more pictures about Chang Sha when I am back.
December 02, 2001 Chang Sha
I arrived in Chang Sha and was hosted in Huang Tian Hotel.
On plane. I was at
22A, a window seat. It is the emergency exit.
Wow. What
a cool digital camera. I just hold it, pointing to me and took a photo like
this. I mean the bird eye is really bird eye.
Wow. What a cool digital camera. I just hold it, pointing to me and took a photo like this. I mean the bird eye is really bird eye.
P.S. This post was previously published at 2001-12-02 18:04:34
