It is obviously a new era.

I was happy to register jianshuo @ hotmail.com email address about 14 years ago, when hotmail.com was just launched one year before. That was the starting point of Internet, and email communication.

Then I got jianshuo @ gmail.com, the main email address I am using today (I still keep telling people the old jianshuo @ hotmail.com email address, and let the mail forwarded to the gmail one).

This morning, I got a new email address jianshuo @ facebook.com – the Modern Messaging System of Facebook. I have to say, Facebook has a good product design that we can learn a lot from – the way they helped people to get started with the new messaging system. Feel free to send some test mail to my new email address, and see how it goes.

My Observation

At first glance, and few try, I have to say, it is a wonderful product. I was amazed by the following improvement:

1. How it shows the sender – no longer email addresses, or simple profile – it is a complicated profile of a real person.

2. How it replies. It makes replying an email as quick and simple as replying a chat message – just one single line that you can send message back to the person with some typing and just a “return” key. How far it is from “stop writing, change to mouse, move over send button, and click”, to “enter”? It is farther than people think.

Good job again, Facebook team!

A nice Monday.

The post expo days are much better than the half year – at least for the Pudong section.

Young people always brings energy to the team.

The Asia Games obviously didn’t draw too much attention from the people around me.

The Chinese Blogger Conference was just announced today – the conference will be held on this Saturday, breaking the record of the most rushing conference revere and they didn’t announce venue yet. The only thing people outside Shanghai knows is, it will be held in Shanghai so buy the ticket now. The rushing style of the conference is so interesting.

I took some photos using iPhone. It was good, but I didn’t have time to upload yet.

So much for today.

PS. I posted this article using iPad. Not too bad for typing.

Wendy, Yifan and I am at Rizhao after 9hours of driving via G15 expressway.

This is the second day I am in Weihai 威海. Here is some observation during the day.

Where is Weihai

Weihai is at the tip of the Shandong Peninsula, at the other side of the Korea Peninsula. In that area, there are four major sea-side cities: Qingdao, Yantai, Weihai, and Rizhao.

My Impression

Weihai is a newly raised city. According to the plate number, it is 鲁K – traditionally, the capital city of the province is numbered A, and the cities are then number according to significance. K is not a very top number.

It turned out, as many Chinese cities, especially cities along the sea, the city has developed very quickly. The most big buildings are either government building, or new residential area developed by developers (just as the situation in Luoyang). Below is the building of the People’s Bank:

Guess what is this? The local Police Office.

The two statues near the sea.

The art center:

The Shandong peninsula is generally green and nice.

We saw it when the aircraft was landing.

The team spent nice time at the beach this afternoon. This was before we took a group photo.

The Beijing trip is very intensive. I met with many people:

CHINICT guys, GOAP, Christine Lu…

Li Min

Yumin

Chedong, Ada

Liang Gongjun

Chenjun

Rick

Zheng Yun

Bsun

XLVector

Hongbo

Dongqing

Boyu

Liu Yuan (Kevin)

Wanghua

Kaifu

Cuijin

Dai Zhikang

Peter Zheng

…

Beijing is a media center, I confirm that.

Beijing is the center of Internet in China. Positive confirmation for that.

Travel is life intensified

The new spring of Internet in China is coming, either at the second half of this year or 2011. I am very sure about it after attending the China Webmaster Conference.

Recently, I am busy working on recruiting – getting the best people possible for the Baixing team. Chinese Job Posting is here. It takes quite some time, so, I am going to be OOB (Out of Blogging) for few days to concentrate to the most important job I have. If you happen to be willing to work at Baixing (formally Kijiji China), you are very welcome to send your resume this way. We have exciting positions for Software Engineer, Architect, Marketing Manager, and PR Manager here. The quicker I can fill these positions, I sooner I can get back to normal posting schedule on this blog. :-) We are open to talents across the whole China, and will also be interested in people from other part of this world.

Please read this article first: “Not Happy New Year”.

In that article I wrote in 2006, I did an experiment. To prove that “I can never over-state the importance of the display name of an Instant Messenger (IM) in the current age”, I kept my MSN Messenger displayed name unchanged for half year (1/1/2006 to 6/30/2006) as “Jian Shuo Wang – Happy New Year”, and changed it to “Jian Shuo Wang – Not Happy New Year” for another half year (7/1/2006 – 12/31/2006).

At that time, I got many message to urge me to change my display name, and I got some sense of how people react to a person who use MSN Messenger often but doesn’t change the display name for one year!

That is my style – do an experiment, and do it in really long term.

Twitter’s Profile Photo

So you may have guessed the new experiment I conducted later. I used 3 years to complete this experiment. I kept the default Twitter profile photo for 3 years. My assumption was, Twitter will replace MSN Messenger as the key channel for people to connect with other, and twitter’s status will replace the display name of MSN Messenger to be the key way for people to express themselves. Now, it is about 1100 days of this experiment, and I am preparing to wrap up this experiment by the end of April. Here are my conclusions:

It is confirmed that Twitter plays a more important role, at least in my life, and in the lives of most my real life friends, than MSN Messenger. People care about my profile photo more than they cared my display name. Even compared with the year of 2006, the current queries are more (I know it is based of the big user name, since I had less than 150 friends on MSN Messenger, but about 800 followers, and following).

During my observation about @jianshuo mention on Twitter, I discovered that if you don’t have a profle photo on twitter, people will think:

• You SHOULD user your PHOTO, real face photo.
• You are incompetent to change the profile photo.
• You are technically challenged person.
• Surprised that it is possible for someone not to have a profile icon.
• An icon on twitter is just like pant in real world. They are shameful to see others don’t have icon.
• You are too shy (too ugly) to show your face to the world.

The message kept coming this way. Sorry that I ignored most of the message, because it is a social experiment itself.

Finally, when I am going to stop this experiment, I got back to the question behind it. A good product design is not only provide the functionality to allow people to change their profile photo, it designs a social environment that pushes everyone softly to update their profile photo, so everyone’s experience is better. Twitter is, maybe, a service with one of the highest photo completion rate, at least for its active users. I, myself, feel I am pretty stupid to run this experiment for as long as 3 years.

This post is in response to Robert‘s request to clarify my status update in Facebook. I said

just realized that I don’t really understand the social media yet.

Robert asked why. Let me share some indicators.

I never took Social media serious

I had a twitter account on February 14, 2007, and sent my first twitter message that day. But I didn’t really take it serious afterward. I dropped some tweets in the beginning and recently, but compared to 1195 blog entries I wrote since than, 869 messages are much fewer. Majority of them are notification of new blog entries. Obviously a blog entry is longer than 140 characters, and takes much more time to write.

The same happened with Facebook.com and Kaixin001.com, the two major SNS I still consider myself “using”.

No wonder that I don’t have too much in-depth knowledge about the rising of Social Media.

Social Network Services (SNS) vs Social Media

Let me clarify two concepts first. SNS is the websites everyone uses today – Facebook, twitter, or Kaixin001, or Renren… SNS is the service to help people to connected with their friends. People don’t use it as a “media”.

Social Media is a another concept. Just like most people use paper to write mail to their friends, some small amount of professional use paper to print newspaper. The previous paper is called tool, or carrier at most, the later is called “media”. Another example, not all blogs are media, at least not with that intention, but many blogs are built to be a media.

“Social” media is a new form of communication. They leverage the social interaction to spread out the message. Although it exists long before Internet even come into being – the Tipping Point described the roles of connector, maven, and salesman in the case of the American War of Independence.

So a group of people and company are researching how to leverage the social connection (especially in today’s SNS sites) to spread out the message.

How They Do Social Media

I talked with Isaac in Xindanwen the other day, and got a lot inspiration. Here is the step some companies do on their Social Media effort.

• They build their identity (a fan page, or an account) in all SNS site (call it as cloud of people). There is nothing new about it.
• They generate interesting contents and feed into accounts. They designed the message to flow from the account of one network to another. There is nothing new here either.
• They do research to find the most-well-connected people in each network (the Connector role in the Tipping Point book), and try to let the connector follow them. If that is hard, they check out who the Connectors follow, and make them (the Maven) follow their account. This is the key since you need to design the path for the message to spread.
• They track who re-tweeted, or re-posted it, or “liked” it, and fine tune the message to make it either more useful, or more interesting, with the hope that the message will be spread out by the Connectors. If an influential connector RTed the message, huge amount of people will notice it, and it is likely that they will RT again, and again, and then hit another big connector. The circle goes one.
• Finally, with the message spreading out so quickly, many people will start to follow the genuine source of the message, the account the company or person setup.

With time going by, with the help of connectors, there will be more and more people follow the original account, making it a powerful, sustainable channel for the company. That can be called a true media, or a social media!

That is Something New

When Google became big, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) becomes important, and now everyone knows link matters. Now, when SNS shows the trend to deliver more traffic, and more awareness than search engine, it is something that everyone in the industry should look carefully at. Obviously, I was not in this circle before.

P.S. I just broke my rule of only following people I know on Twitter. I just followed back all the 824 followers, and start to use Hootsuite.com as Twitter client. People warned: “You cannot follow that many people! That is huge distraction, and you cannot handle it”. Well. After I did it and check the timeline for a while, I realized, it is just like glance on the 800 people in the People’s Square. You may not see every individual, but the few individuals you happen to noticed tells you a lot of information about this city already. You don’t need to check every of the 800 people, or look at them 24 hour to get the impression that “it is hot, and people are wearing T-shirt”, or “the economy is bad, since most of them are not happy”…

At middle of Mt. Pluto.

Skied for the morning and noon. Tired that I cannot even walk.

Beautiful mountain and lake. Scary trail.

Waiting here so other Stanford guys get to top.

PS. Still have problem using Android soft keyboard. Use backspace a lot.

If you are also on it, you can follow me by searching me by either

• jianshuo
• Jian Shuo Wang
• Wang Jian Shuo

in the Search of Google Buzz.

So far, I love what Buzz delivers – real time, and deep integration, a quick and handy interface and a solid existing network dug from the email contacts network.

Let me put some photo I took during my Xiamen stay here. I do not remember how many times I went to Xiamen – this is the second time I visit Xiamen this year.

2009 – Young Leaders’ Forum 2009

2009 – Baixing company outing

2008 – 3rd China Webmasters’ Conference

2006 – 2nd China Webmaster’s Conference

200x – Microsoft Channel Meeting

200x – Microsoft Company Outing

Gulangyu:

Xiamen island:

Let me re-post this article: Communication is key to Any Success. It is still true.

I am a part-time disabled person now. I use crutches whenever I go. Let me report my two weeks of experience as a disabled in Shanghai.

Wheel Chair? No. Thanks

I did get a 300 RMB nice wheel chair but I only used it outside my home for once. It turned out that Shanghai is not a good place to use wheel chair. There are slops at the pedestrian at cross road, but it seems no one ever tested it. The gap (about half cm) is just too big for a wheelchair to pass. Wendy pushes the wheelchair to get me up to the pedestrian, but got stuck there. If she pushes harder, I will fall out from the front since it is stuck anyway. The only solution is for me to leave the wheelchair, jump aside, helped me to pull the wheelchair up, and get to the pedestrian, and then sit down. After several places like this, I gave up wheelchair.

Stairs

There are many places with lots of stairs, especially in restaurants. Once when I was shown of 20+ straight stairs to the second floor, my jaw dropped – just like the Panda in Kungfu Panda saw the stairs to the temple. I said: Thanks but no.

Crossing the Street

Crossing the street is so exciting! With cars horn and other people running as fast as rabbit, you quickly found out you are the only person left on the pedestrian, and the green light is almost over. The cars are like the race cars at the starting point – the engine is ready, and just wait for a green light! Well. I admit that I feel this type of tension only in Hollywood movie. Poor Jian Shuo!

Few Disabled on the Street!

I know the real reason why there are very few disabled in public space in Shanghai (and in China). The city is not designed for disabled (at least not for people losing a leg, no to mention people who cannot see). The only disabled people you see are very likely to be beggar – although some uses a crutch just to pretend to be disabled.

I wrote the article about Channel 9 of Flight Control Center. I posted the communication between the pilots and air traffic control centers. However, I am not sure of what the message is about. I sent an email to George, my friend who is actually a pilot of the United Airlines. Here is his answer. Used with permission and with little modification. The quoted text is from George.

==================================================

Interestingly, although I heard it is required to use English to do the communication, most of the conversation in the audio is in Chinese. It is the same situation when we fly near Tokyo Narita Airport. They are using a language I am not very sure whether it is English or Japanese – I just cannot get a single word besides the numbers.

Good to hear from you; I am sorry I am so late in responding. Here are some answers to your questions; BTW you can use my comments.

English is the official international aviation language. International flights will communicate in English. Domestic flights will communicate in their own language.

PuDong has both domestic (Chinese) and International flights. When the controllers communicate with us (United 857) they will do it in English. When the communicate with a domestic flight they will do it in their own language. As pilots we try to have good SA (Situational Awareness) by knowing what aircraft are around us and what they are doing. This helps us plan our approach and have an expectation of what Air Traffic Control might do with us. It is obviously harder in a foreign country when domestic flights are communicating in another language. Maybe you can answer this for me. In your tape are the domestic flights speaking in Mandarin or do they sometimes use Shanghaiese?

In the audio above, a brief transcript is like this:

“United 857, turn right heading 300” (The controller instructs United Flight 857 to turn right to a heading of 300 degrees. The pilot on UA 857 responds to confirm “Right Heading 300, United 857”)

The following transmissions were not in English and I find your translation interesting. It is a little different than we would hear in English but it might be because they are speaking to domestic crews and everything is in meters for them.

(Descend to an altitude of 1200 meters above sea level. I would have assumed the controller would have said “descend to 1200 meters” and the pilot should have responded the same way but I am not familiar with the Chinese Domestic communication requirements. In America, ATC (Air Traffic Control) might instruct a flight to “descend and maintain one two thousand (which means 12000 feet)” and the crew might respond with an abbreviated confirmation as “down to 12”)

“247D 2400” “247D keeps 2400″(I would assume maintain 2400 meters)

“MU2155 turn left, to 070” my guess is, they want them to turn left

and heading to 70 degree? (Yes, you are correct. All headings are given in three digits, so 70 degrees is Heading 070)

“MU2155 ..” This is the flight from Yinchuan to Shanghai via Xi’an. They are scheduled to land at 12:15 PM.

“FM92142 down 600” I guess this means lower down to 600 meter level, and if this is the case, the previous 12 may mean 1200 meter altitude. (I assume it is to descend to 600 meters, but the terminology is a little different than I am used to)

From the communication above, I have the impression that all the planes are lineup as a big circle surrounding the Pudong Airport, and gradually lower the altitude to land. It turned out that we finally landed at runway 16 – the runway east of the T2, near the sea, from the north to south.

(You are basically correct. We do line up to land but not necessarily in a big CIRCLE around PuDong Airport. Remember that aircraft are coming in from all directions. If they came in without any organization then there would be chaos in the space around PuDong. PuDong Airport controllers know how many miles they need between aircraft to sequence them safely to the airport and what ATC does is adjust our spacing as we arrive. Actually, our spacing starts as we leave SFO but that is another detailed story. The last controllers we speak to are typically the Japanese (assuming our flight path was across the Pacific, and not over Russia). As the Japanese controllers transfer us to the ShangHai controllers they space us a certain amount, then the ShangHai controllers will space us more accurately as we approach the airport and transfer us to the airport controllers. It is PVG Approach Control that needs the most accurate spacing and that is probably what is on your recordings. They achieve the correct spacing by instructing specific aircraft adjust their speed. If that does not work then they will instruct aircraft to change direction to increase or decrease the spacing. What I described is only for aircraft coming in from the east. Remember there could be aircraft coming in from the north and west. All these are sequenced using similar procedures. BTW there is very little “circling” around the airport, except in poor weather condition. But that too, is another story. For the record, the FAA requires that you turn off electronic items for takeoff and landing. At United Airlines our policy is to remind you passing through 18,000 feet.

Below is another clip I recorded at the time when we were at range of control center of Japan. Anyone can understand any word from the conversation? I cannot.

In fact I am sending this to you from NRT (Narita -Tokyo). I find the Japanese controllers one of the hardest to understand and have on occasion had to confirm their instructions several times. However, after gaining experience with a certain set of controllers it gets easier. You might find it strange that I find the London controllers hard to understand at times and they speak my native language, but that’s another story. Now for the translation:

Controller: “… 671, fly heading 250 for spacing, …” (Not sure of last part)

Singapore 671: “250 Heading, Singapore 671.”

Controller: “Northwest 72 descend to reach one one thousand (11,000 feet) by Natch (a place).” I did not understand the rest but I assume it was the altimeter setting based on the pilot’s reply

Northwest 72: “OK we’ll descend one one thousand at Natch at. Is that correct, Northwest 72?”

Controller: “Northwest 72, affirm (affirmative), cross Natch at one one thousand.”

Northwest 72: “Cross Natch one one thousand, two niner eight two (29.82 is the altimeter setting), Northwest 72.”

Hope this helps,

George

Since I registered my email account jianshuo at hotmail.com, I tend to use the id in most services.

Now, I am

• jianshuo at hotmail.com
• jianshuo at gmail.com
• jianshuo at wangjianshuo.com
• http://twitter.com/jianshuo/
• http://facebook.com/jianshuo/

Follow me (on twitter), or add me on Facebook. The current policy for me is, I add whoever requested to add at Facebook. I am using Kaixin001.com also, but I absolutely only add people I consider as close friend.

P.S. I just realized the mailto protocol may have already died. I just feel silly to use mailto to link to my emails.

Today is Pi Day, a new holiday invented by people in America.

I am a fan of pi. I once can remember a lot of digits of pie, but now, I can only remember the following, using the segmentation when I recite it:

3.1415926

535

8979

323

8462

643

3832

7950

2884

19716

93993

7510

5820974

9445923

0781640

6286208

9986280

This is roughly the first 85 digits of pie. Yes. I recite it when I write it.

When Yifan grows up, I will be sure to suggest (yes, only suggest) him to try to recite the first 200 digit of pie. It is a pretty interesting thing to recite. I also tried to recite e, but just found out e is not as interesting as pi. If Yifan don’t want to do that, I can cook a pie for him.

In short, I don’t know.

In longer answers, I don’t know, I don’t care, as long as I don’t receive annoying legal statements or phone calls.

In the 7 years of blogging, I experienced many conflicts of opinions on this blog. Most of them are around meaningful topics, and I enjoyed the conversations a lot (like this, and this).

However, I was disturbed by a conversation in this entry: Second-Generation Identity Card, related to a person named Chris Devonshire Ellis. If you want to see all the off-topic discussion, scroll down to the comment made by Pesci, and all the discussion after it.

With all due respect to Chris, I don’t know who this person is, and I am not very interested in finding it out – the article the comment belongs to is a blog entry about “Second Generation Identity Card in Hong Kong”. I hoped that there had not been off topic discussion below it.

Then someone posted something about this person – pretty negative, but I just wasn’t able to distingurish it from many other normal, off topic comments.

Then there are request to remove the comment by Roger. Without the following thread, I didn’t realize what happened, and posted my policy of removing comment as below:

Hi Roger,

I did see your comment. However, it is my policy not to remove any comment on this blog, as long as it is legal, not spam and not meaningless. If there is any evidence about illegal, spaming, or comments that is not appropriate on this blog, please report to me by writing to me at jianshuo at hotmali dot com. No evidence, no removal.

Posted by: Jian Shuo Wang (external link) on October 4, 2006 11:46 PM

and this:

Laowai2, I am a strong supporter for freedom of speech, which is really not easy in China. There are just enough censorship going around everywhere, so I took relatively less moderation approach.

To be honest, I have no idea about what Pesci is talking about. I didn’t see anything in my post, or other’s post before him/her that is related to this comment. Please correct me if it is wrong.

If people just came to the site and randomly post something not related to the post itself, I will actively remove it. I call it spam.

If Pesci is talking something related to this entry (Second Generation ID card), and is saying something bad about another person, please give me some evidence so I can make decisions. Currently, I have no clue at all about what this is all about.

On Anti-Foreigner, or Pro-foreigner, I always use the rule set by Martin-Lurther King: people should be judged by their characters instead of anything else. I don’t delete any post because it is posted by foreigners, Chinese, black, yellow. The only guideline is, it is the right or wrong comment. I won’t delete any comments just because he/she is foreigner, or leave a comment there just because he/she is a foreigner.

For negative comments, I have many negative feedback on this blog (including myself). It think as long as he/she is telling the truth, it is OK. In most cases, I cannot tell who is telling the truth, so please debate on the thread instead of asking me to remove previous comment.

I hope it is clear now.

It triggered many comments after that. I then commented the previous comment with my note – that is what you see now. Then I continue to receive emails from this person to ask me to delete more similar comment. I just have no idea about who Chris Devonshire is, and again, I don’t really care. He complained about me in this article: The Downside Of China – Immaturity Online .

So, I am seeking for some legal advice here: If I receive complain about a comment, and there are pretty reasonble evidence or arguement about it, then what I need is to take down the comment temperily and wait for the other side to give evidence that it is true, right?

Please Stop Here

Anyway, I hope everything stops here, after I hide the original content of the comment. Please, leave me alone without further lengthy legal warning and similiar stuff.

If you want to say something bad about Mr. Chris Devonshire Ellis, please go somewhere else, and the best, start your own blog, instead of posting off-topic comment on this blog.

If you want to say something good about Mr. Chris Devonshire Ellis, please also go somewhere. He has a pretty nice blog at http://www.2point6billion.com/, and your comment will be welcomed.

My point is, please go somewhere else for a topic that neither me, nor my readers are interested. It is just as the case of Disturbed Lunch (the point was, no matter which side is right, just don’t disturbe the third party).

Also, if any one want me to delete any comment posted either by himself, or by others, please simply send me an email stating what happened, and most of the time, if reasonable, I will help, just as I stated in the How to Delete Your Comment. We are here to help, and not to fight. Please do not always use threatening word. I am not always the person with good tempter. If you push the line too hard, I will also react.

Update January 23, 2009

Received a phone call around 17:00 from Chris’ lawyer again on this. Hm…

Update January 23, 2009

Received a phone call for the second time today at 17:18 from Chris’ lawyer on this. Hm…, asking me to delete this article because I said something negative about Chris Devonshire Ellis. I asked her to list all the sentence she thing is bad about him, and I will delete it. I have changed my bottom line here: tell me exactly what you don’t feel comfortable, and I will delete, OK? I am just too annoyed by this stupid thing. Yes. I am pretty angry about this. People have the right to be angry and express their feeling if treated in a not-so-comfortable matter, right? I want to help, and I did help to remove some of the comment (with backup so it is possible for the original commenter to counter-argue). I have cooperated, and then, what the next thing you want?

Update February 15, 2009

Interesting enough, after Lost Laowai posted an article about this Chris Devonshire Ellis, he received Chris’ legal threat again, and he was forced to close the comment section with comment as below:

As much as I’d love to be a beacon of free speech, I don’t have the time or wherewithal to deal with Chris’ threats nor can I guess what is true and what isn’t – apparently an ability Chris believes I hold, as he refused on every occasion I asked for him to simply tell me which comments were libelous so I could remove them. He never did.

I don’t know about others, but I just feel Chris is pushing the line too hard. If I were still “neutral” about this person when I started this article, I became negative about him after all these happen. If anyone asks me for a reference, I would honest tell what I feel about him.

Who gets my help today?

This is my first time travelling in Shanghai. I wanted to know how we can go to JW Marriott Tomorrow Square at Nanjing West Road.

Will it be possible for me to take the Maglev Train to theJW Marriott hotel in Nanjing West Road.

The answer is Yes, you can take Maglev to JW Marriott Tomorrow Square Hotel.

Below is the overview map. You can use the + and – sign to zoom in or out to see details of the map.

Larger Map

Here is the route:

1. Take Maglev at Pudong Airport (here is how).

2. Transit to Metro Line #2 at Long Yang Road Station (here is how)

3. Get off the train at People’s Square Station. You’d better take the Nang West Road Exit.

4. The hotel is immediately at the exit. It is located somewhere in the middle of Nanjing West Road Station, and People’s Square Station of Metro Line #2. You may need to walk about 10 minutes to get to the hotel. However, you can see the hotel immediately when you leave the station – because it is now the tallest building in Puxi area in Shanghai.

If you take taxi, it should be around 140 RMB.

Happy Travelling!

P.S. I am going to visit the JW Marriott Hong Kong tomorrow. When I travels at eBay’s cost center, I stay at this hotel, but now I don’t.

Got another reader email. Here you go (after removing names and other private information)

Dear Jianshuo,

Pardon me for taking the liberty to write to you direct but my googling/research for my family’s trip keeps finding itself to your blog! I wonder if you would be so kind to give me some assistance?

I’m planning a trip with my husband and 3yr-old son. My husband doesn’t speak mandarin so the main job of research lies with me. We are planning to arrive in Shanghai on the 26th Dec and somehow make our way to Suzhou then Hangzhou then Huangshan. I would like to know what is the best way to travel from place to place that would be cheapest and safest with consideration of travelling with a toddler.

My husband took a look at the map and found that the distance was drivable but foreigners can’t drive in China! What a shame!

I was hoping to maybe travel by boat at some point if possible. But I find myself landing in some US websites that charge exorbitant rates in US dollars rather than RMB.

Ideally, we just make our way around, as we go along, in a romantic laid back manner but with a little boy, I really need everything to be booked up in advance.

Could you please help? I really apologise for being so bold but the tips I’ve learned on your blog have been so good!

I’d like to answer it on this blog, since Shanghai – Suzhou – Huangshan trip is so popular route for people visiting Shanghai. Let me start with planning philosophy.

Well Planned China Trip?

The idea to plan everything well, and book everything well in China is still not an easy job to do.

No matter how advanced the hardware is in China, don’t forget that China just stepped back to the track of development and opening up just 30 years ago. The software of te country (like booking, and business ethics) still need some time to recover to what is before the Culture Revolution.

It is pretty hard to book things. You have to be open and ready to handle “not booked” travel. Train ticket for example, is not easy to book online in advance. You have to go with a travel agent who can help you do it, not directly from the Railway Company – which is state owned.

Best Way to Travel is Train

The best way to travel between Shangai – Suzhou, and Huangshan is by train. It is especially so for Suzhou to Huangshan trip.

However, since you have a 3 year old, and Shangai and Suzhou is not far away – just one hour drive, I would suggest you to hire a car. You can either call a taxi from taxi company (like Dazhong) or hire a private car. You can look at my taxi category for more information about how to book, and which number to call. The alternative is to go to my classified site:

http://shanghai.baixing.com/gerenzuche/

There are many people offering one day rental at pretty good price. It is a Chinese site though. (Disclaimer: I am CEO of the company, Baixing.com. I have pretty good confidence in the car listing, because all the drivers either have government issued license, or deposit 1000 RMB for service quality guarantee to customers).

A car will make your trip to Suzhou very comfortable, especially when you have a kid with you.

To Huangshan? Car travel is not as safe and comfortable as train, and I suggest you to take train. Check out my train category.

Boat? Maybe Not on This Route

I don’t see there is any chance that you can take boat on this route. Just train and car.

Good luck to your trip. I have a son of 1 and half year old, and I do feel the happiness to travel with the little kid. Would love to hear how your trip is going on…