Just booked our Shanghai-Beijing-Shanghai flights on Ctrip for later this month. We're returning to Shanghai around the upcoming holiday, so we didn't want to wait until we arrived in China. We wanted specific flights. The entire process was tortured. The first time, I couldn't book. Frustration set in and I called the 866 toll free number for Ctrip. The woman on the phone walked me through the online booking process and success was acheived. There was a tricky bit in the middle that she helped with.

BTW, we obtained our visas easily by using visaobtainers.com. We had to mail our passports, but everything worked very smoothly.

Now, if I can just remember those number hand signals.

Why wouldn't you just obtain your visas directly from the embassy instead of spending extra $$?

Obviously your plan is to avoid the pain of watching the RS crash and burn in September...

Gpanda, the hand signals are different everywhere. #7 had four ways to show it.

We've been so surprised at how easy it is to communicate here. Beijing is very westernized but Xi'an wasn't and had no problems.

"Me No Speak" guide helped, too. Point at items with a picture and written in Chinese. Only way I knew to get apple juice!

Craig-time was the deciding factor. We just wanted to get it done and over with keeping minutae to a minimum. We'll be back in time for the playoffs.

craig -- he is so disorganized that he couldn't figure out which day to send it on... last minute charlie---remember he has only been planning this trip for 1 year...

Instead of the Panda Way, on the November Thailand trip, Bob has planned where we're going to eat lunch every day. Good luck on that!

at least it won't be a last minute dash to CC, gallery cafe or ROS>>>

Well, 7 and 9 are a bit tricky, but the rest are no problem.