Hello, I am planning a trip to China. IT is my first trip there and I could use any recommendations you may have! I feel like I should have been more prepared with my recent Thailand trip such as not booking trips and tours before getting there. Any help with tricks and tips for China and ideas of must-do's are greatly appreciated! Thanks! Anthony

Have a look at my china section. Good restaurant reviews and some information about hiking the Great Wall! Have fun.

www.mcdougalladventures.com/category/china

Tricks and Tips:
- Taking a taxi is extremely cheap and you can find taxis almost everywhere in big cities, although the subway is the fastest at rush hour in Shanghai and Beijing.
- Bargaining: You might get really upset if you're not getting the price(s) you want. Convert the difference from your price to the merchants price to dollars and you may realise you're fighting over 50 cents. Bargaining is not allowed in department stores.
- Be careful with tour groups. Tour guides (with groups) are required to take tourist to government owned factory shops, wasting hours of your time in the country. At the factory stores, merchandise is far more expensive for what you can get on the street.
- Eating / drinking: I wouldn't recommend drinking the water (but brushing your teeth is okay).
- Tips: tipping is not a custom in China and people may reject tips from you.
- Language: The Chiense language is really hard to learn (I'm trying to learn it right now). The writing is extremely hard to remember, and speaking, if you make a small mistake with pronounciation, the word could mean something completely different. Most cities now have signs in English and Chinese or Chinese pinyin, which is a romanized way of writing Chinese characters.
- Hotels: Hotel prices have been going up because of the fast development, especially in Shanghai, although you might be able to find some cheap deals at some 5 star hotels.
- Booking flights: Flights to China are expensive, but once you get there, things are relatively cheap (except for Hong Kong, which is definitely more expensive than main land China). Book in advance. China Airlines of Taiwan doesn't have a great safety record on their inter-Asia flights, but Air China of mainland China is relatively okay (unless the government is hiding all their safety records). A good deal for flights to China from the US is $500 or so, but tickets usually average out to about $800.

V. important - no matter which hotel you stay at, always get their hotel business card with english on one side and chinese on the other so you can show the taxi driver for your return to the hotel.
Shanghai is a wonderful, growing city. Go to M on the bund for a drink around sunset. Urban Planning Center-across from the Museum-has a large scale model of shanghai which you walk around. The buildings with white tops are planned to be built (the majority)! Also, there is a 360 degree booth that is amazing on the same floor. Museum shop is good. T8 for dinner.
Beijing - My humble home for dinner. Peking Duck is like a dinner but is said to have the best Peking Duck int he city-there are several outlets so be sure via research to pick the right one. The great wall, the quiter section is about 2 hours away from Bejing.
Enjoy your visit.

Make sure to use the search box on this forum for previous threads with useful tips. And this might seem like stating the bleeding obvious, but a good guidebook is a "must".

I agree with TransitBuddie about the Chinese language - phrasebooks telling you how to ask questions in Mandarin are wildly optimistic (for a start, how will you understand the answer?). And you need an audio guide even to render simple simple expressions like 'hello' and 'thank you'. As in other countries I think this is worth doing, though, as a basic courtesy. If nothing else it will give the locals something to laugh at.