cloisonne', and bringing food into China
 

I will be traveling throughout China with Pacific Delight in Oct. Will I be permitted to bring food like trail mix or cookies that I make into China? Also where are good places to buy cloisonne' and how can I tell the real from the fake? Thanks for any information.

you will not have trouble with those food items....stay away from meats, fruits and the like....nuts are good snacks too....

You will most likely stop off at a factory and from there you can buy some stuff. I got a necklace, earrings and bracelet all for about $25. There are shopping stops along the tour because they want to show off their arts and crafts as well as make a few bucks. I never mind on any tour and usually do a bit of shopping. If I do find the prices too high or the selection not to my taste....I wander and use the restroom and find a chair for a bit of a sit.

If you shop where a tour group takes you, you will most certainly be wildly overcharged, and if it's cheaper to make fake cloisonn?| which is good enough to convince the casual buyer that it is real than it is to make real cloisonn?|, you can be sure that you'll see an awful lot of fake material. There is one particular tourist trap cloisonn?| factory on the way to the Great Wall at Badaling or Ming Tombs, which pays good kick-backs to taxi drivers, bus drivers, and tour guides, and where it's very likely you'll be taken (in more than one sense). This has nothing to do with showing off arts and crafts, and everything to do with making rather a lot of bucks.

China is not the place to shop for anything precious, semi-precious, or even reasonably affordable, if you are not well versed in what these things cost at home, and in exactly how to tell a fake from the real thing. If there is fake cloisonn?|, then you'll be better off with something from your local library that goes into the matter in proper detail, rather than advice from a travel discussion site.

By the way (unless you want to bring your own for special dietary reasons) they do have trail mix and cookies in China: Everything from Oreos (and fake Oreos, of course), to exquisite Jules Destrooper Belgian ginger thins (and Kit Kat, Mars bars, etc. etc.) And there are bakeries everywhere turning out pound cake and muffins a great deal more buttery than you are likely to find at home (although no doubt not as good as your home baking). But no one's even going to search your bags, let alone stop you from bringing in your own snacks if you really want to.

Peter N-H
http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

To GPS-- what PDT tour are your taking and when are you leaving? I am also going with them in October. Let's compare notes.

We are also going to China with Pacific Delight Tours, leaving on October 12.

The Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles waive our visa fees because we had visas for April but did not use them because of SARS. I had to write a short letter to request the waiving of the fees while I was at the consulate, but it was approved on the spot.

The only time I've ever been questioned about the contents of my luggage upon arrival in China was when I brought 2 cases of company catalogs for a convention I was attending. They asked me what was in the boxes, I told them, and they waived me through without opening them. Other times, there's never been any questions as to what I was bringing.

Upon leaving China, I've had my luggage inspected but I think this is for airline security reasons.

reply to felicia: we are leaving on Oct. 4 on the 24 day classic Yangtze River tour. We fly out of Detroit. Our tour code:YX24VUN. Is this your tour?