People who have been to China

[Yee236T]

Where do you recommend going and when?

Currently I've just been seeing videos of the Shenzhen skyline and thinking to myself "wow this looks so cool".

I really want to go see China.

Ah really? We were eating at local restaurants every day with our tour guide, choosing off the menu then divide up the bill. I’m sorry to hear you had a bad experience on that, the food we ate was amazing ( no one got sick either)

Probably easier to watch a bunch of YouTube channels and work out what works for you. Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu (pandas), Chongqing are all big destinations ATM and you have the visa free travel for 30 days ATM from UK and canada

In China last year. Tricky if you don't speak the language, so definitely consider a tour (we were with relatives who spoke and translated for us, wouldn't have survived otherwise as the part we were in spoke no English)
Avoid southern China in the summer, it is VERY hot and humid.
That aside, don't be put off, go and see it for yourself!

The authentic chinese food experience is fantastic, but not always for the faint hearted.

I can understand why they might go for something watered down for tourists.

I went last year and visited Beijing, Xian, Chengdu, Gillian and Shanghai. I travelled via a mix of bullet trains and internal flights. It my joint best holiday I’ve been on (I’ve visited almost countries) and can’t wait to go back.
The people were so nice and I loved the diversity of places. I went on the Great Wall of China and only saw a lady selling tea in one of the towers and two other hikers the whole day, it was amazing. I really enjoyed the countryside and did a couple of fantastic bike rides.

Loved Shanghai especially the night skyline, and Xian for the terracotta warriors. Beijing less so, but you can’t not see the Great Wall, forbidden city etc.
Some amazing scenery. A cruise down the Yangtze is memorable too.

The food I ate in China was just amazing, you'd never get those dishes in the UK. I wish I could remember what they were😁. I think we got lucky with our tour guide, he is from Beijing, so he knew all the local hot spots (I never knew there were different kinds of dumpings: steamed, fried, savory with veg, sweet filling, meat, etc). If you do venture out to eat, bring something to translate off the menu as a lot of places, even in Shanghai, do not have English menus, or pictures, so it can be hard to know what you're getting. Unless you have someone who knows the language which is very useful. I made some friends in Shanghai, they were Chinese girls on holiday, and without them to help me choose, I think I would be eating in fast food places 😀

We went to Beijing and the Great Wall. Then got the overnight train to Hong Kong. All recommended. It’s 20 years ago though. I would like to go back and would go to Shanghai and see the Terracotta Army at Xi’an.

I enjoyed:
The wall
Chengdu
Shanghai
Lijiang/Tiger Leaping Gorge
Guilin
Zhangjiajie national park
Xi’an
Beijing

In general, I’m glad I went and glad I saw everything I wanted to see. But I found it really difficult being there. Everything just felt like hard work in a way I can’t really describe.

That’s not very nice.

Food experience wise. I mean is it that scary?

Easy way in jianbing pancakes in any breakfast market, that's easy to eat and recognise. Roujiamo which is basically meat in a bun- Chinese Greggs if you will and you're likely to find some skewered meat somewhere.

Sure, exotic but you will always find some level of food that is right for you and in the bigger cities, western food is everywhere, Shenzhen and Shanghai has pretty decent western cafes.

Google translate solves the menu problem. Just point the camera at it, and you’ll get it in English.

Really. I loved them. Yes it was busy etc but the whole scale of it was unbelievable. One of my best bits. Definitely better than the Great Wall. Our tour guide left us alone to experience it ourselves for a couple of hours after a brief history talk. The museum part was good too.

Beijing, xi'an, I loved chengdu for the pandas too but I get that's not everyone's cup of tea.

@Yee236T China is such a vast diverse fascinating country. I really strongly recommend getting a decent guidebook and reading through that to decide where you would enjoy. I haven't been since before the pandemic but went twice before. Beijing is massive and so much to see, the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, all the food and watching people do tai chi in a park. The subway/metro has expanded and has signs and info in English so you can get around Beijing easily. I would suggest allow 2 weeks, do your own thing in Beijing and maybe join a tour for the rest. There is a pretty walled city called Pingyao I enjoyed. Do your research about the Wall - some places are so busy you don't really get to enjoy it. We went to where the great wall meets the sea but needed a train to get there. I would love to see Chengdu and Guilin, but they are the other end of the country, which is a long way! Have an amazing time!

Well it depends. I guess on your definition of scary and what the restaurant will serve you.

If you go in as a bunch of tourists in a big city the restaurant owners might be streetwise enough steer you away from dishes they feel might be less appreciated by foreign tourists.

I usually ate with the locals though, which meant I got the full on experience and 9 times out of 10 they were interested in seeing what I would and wouldn't eat, so it was game on for them.

After asking a few times what it was, generally I found the best option is just not to know. Most "strange" stuff actually tastes OK (if it didn't the locals probably wouldn't eat it) and a lot of the time it is the sauce that the stuff is prepared in that actually dominates the taste.

Probably in the big cities you are more likely to find more reserved cuisine, whereas in the backwaters you are probably more likely to get the full on variety of local delicacies.

Why Shenzen particularly OP? I've just come back from a work trip there and I didn't find it that inspiring to be honest. 😅

We weren’t really sure what we were ordering a few times and the prices were so cheap we thought we’d try a variety of things. The staff weren’t scared of telling us it’s too much. They probably thought those gutsy westerners.

I didn't want to be the only one to say it. I recognise I was there at a very unhappy time in my life (7 years ago now) but I would struggle to tell you one good thing about Shenzhen except the food. Which I equally enjoyed in other parts of China.
Oh and it's near Hong Kong which I did enjoy!
When I was living in Shenzhen I struggled to think of a single place or area I would like to bring any friends if they came to visit. Unless they were a Geography teacher and wanted to use it as a case study for rapid population increase.

Well, if you are vegetarian, as we are, it is very hard - a lot of places don't understand the concept (even in vegetable dishes, meat is used as flavouring), so most places we went to required a LOT of discussion in Chinese to get food that we could actually eat.

And where we were, Google didn't always work. Nor did WhatsApp.

If you struggle with food there are Aldis, Metros and others now in China. 😁
To be honest I gave in one day and bought cheese and biscuits.

"Meat" covers a lot of ground in China.

Yes, I think it’s hard as a vegetarian. It is vegetarian- there’s just a bit of bacon in it!

There are some food challenges in my experience- shark fin soup, sea cucumber, live ants on radicchio - no thanks and I could not face yak butter tea

Hangzhou is lovely, we did it as a day trip from Shanghai I think. Absolutely loved china, would love to go back!!!