Yoav Nir wrote:
If this was some place in the US, I could easily find a cheap hotel
chain nearby (like I did in Anaheim). In Europe, it's a little more
difficult, but still doable (thanks, Google Earth). In China, I have
no idea where to even look.
There are usual plenty of web sites for hostels, hotels, and the like.
They usually provide a map that indicates where exactly the hotel is.
If possible, you print the map in advance, and that helps quite a bit.
At Hiroshima a couple of us got on a cab, and it was impossible for us
to understand each other with the taxi driver. We asked him to stop, we
got of the cab, and drew with the pen on our map a circle to show him
where we wonted to go. -- No big deal.
At the airport (Tokyo) it was even funnier... I don't recall what I was
looking for, but we couldn't understand each other. However, a bit of
sign language and their patience and politeness were enough.
IMO, that's part of the fun of traveling...
Sure, I can find a list of cheap hotels
in Beijing, but I have no idea where they are in relation to the
meeting venue, or whether the staff would speak English.
At times I have done this: get there a day earlier or so, and you do all
your logistics. Find out how far if it's possible to walk from your
hotel to the meeting venue, find some place that's affordable to eat, etc.
The warning
to have your destination written down in Chinese, because the taxi
drivers don't speak English doesn't inspire confidence either.
Why would you expect them to speak English? They are Chinese, and live
in China... hence they speak Chinese. :-)- I'd argue that in most of
Latin-America taxi drivers won't speak English, either.
Writing down whatever you want to communicate when you travel to a
country where you don't speak their language is usually the safe way to go.
Ah, and of course you also take some cash with you, and if possible, get
some Chinese currency before you actually get to China.
Having some idea about how much they should charge you for e.g. a taxi
from the airport to the center of the city is usually valuable
information, too. It wouldn't be surprised if the taxi driver tried to
charge you more than he should if he realized you have no idea of how
much things cost there (this could easily happen here in Argentina).
Thanks,
--
Fernando Gont
e-mail: fernando(_at_)gont(_dot_)com(_dot_)ar || fgont(_at_)acm(_dot_)org
PGP Fingerprint: 7809 84F5 322E 45C7 F1C9 3945 96EE A9EF D076 FFF1
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