Beijing - Airport to Hotel
 

First trip to China, arriving alone, and have a 40 minute trip to hotel in Beijing from the airport. What is the recommendation for transport from the airport - I have seen threads where taxi is the cheapest/best mode of travel as opposed to arranging a shuttle. Do I wait til I arrive and get a taxi or do you recommend something else? What would this cost? Should I tip? How is this normally arranged? I welcome your suggestions, I only speak English. I will be joining up with a friend later at the hotel.

just get a taxi when you arrive in Beijing,it is about 40minutes ot centre of downtown.not know where is your hotel.

A taxi is probably your best bet. However it is ESSENTIAL that you have the name of your hotel written out in Chinese characters and that the driver turns on the meter. Overall taxi drivers in Beijing are honest and taxi rides are inexpensive. We only had one driver who refused to turn the meter on so we just got out of the cab. The ride should cost about $10, unless prices have shot up. I don't think drivers expect to be tipped. For more info see my report:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34682619

How do you get your destinations written out in Chinese characters? Do you ask some nice English speaking Chinese person at the airport to do this?

I read your trip report from 2005, many good tips and great report!

All of the hotels we stayed at had websites which included the name in Chinese characters. If you can find online the first place you are staying at, you can print it out. Then you can get each hotel to write out the name of the next one. Have a great trip.

raz -- please take Marija's recommedation seriously, it's much easier than looking for a nice English speaking Chinese person who may not always be able to give you the Chinese characters of your hotel. No need to tip the taxi driver.

I echo Marija's advice - you MUST have the address written out in mandarin. If you know where you are staying, look it up on their website.

Last time I took a taxi from the airport to near the Temple of Heaven it was 100 RMB (about $12 or so).

Just make sure that you get a metered taxi at the taxi stand outside the airport. If someone tries to get you to take a lift with them before you are in the taxi stand line - refuse.

What is the name of your hotel? Sounds like you will be within a range of RMB100 of a taxi cab ride. Post name - I might be able to give you some idea on location etc.

When I flew to Beijing last year, I took a taxi from the airport to the hotel. There was a dispatcher at the head of the taxi line who spoke some English. He had a list of city hotels + addresses on a clipboard.

I had no problem at all. I spoke to the dispatcher, who in turn spoke to the taxi driver.

And no, I did not have to figure out how to get my hotel's name written in Chinese characters. Nor did I have to learn how to speak Chinese. This is actually a very simple situation that prevails throughout East Asia.

Relax, raz1024, and enjoy the sights! Beijing is marvelous.

Thanks for all of your advice!
We are staying at the Fortune-Land Hotel and there is nothing written on the web site to indicate the name and address in Mandarin.

I think you can find the hotel name on this site:

http://www.ratestogo.com/Hotel/CN/Bo...tuneland_Hotel

I think it's the entry before the stars at the beginning of the page.

name in Chinese ±±¾©¸»°î¹ú¼Ê¾Æµ&ecir c; address in Chiese
±±¾©Êг¯ÑôÇ&osl ash;°Ù×ÓÍå·38º&A ring;.it is under 100yuan by taxi to there.

Try to see if you can see this one:

北京富邦国际酒店

中国北京朝阳区百子湾路38号

rkkwan, what code did you embed to post characters?

On my work PC, I installed Google's Chinese Pinyin input method:

tools.google.com/pinyin/

On my home Mac, I installed the FIT (Fun Input Toy) input method:

fit.coollittlethings.com

Both free, and allow Putonghua pinyin input in Simplified or Traditional Chinese. I believe both use Unicode, which seems to work with most programs and browsers.

BTW, for the names and addresses above, I think I simply cut and paste from the link that Marija posted. I didn't do anything, as my computer already has the fonts installed.

Thanks! I just asked, because the last time I tried inputting characters into a forum post, they ended up turning to gibberish like Violet_1125's post. I was using MS's IME - which also must be unicode - so am not sure why there's a differnce.

I'll have to try the google IME, as I'm sure it's a solid app.