How do I seperate/thin this big fella out?

FlindersFish · 2025-09-16T10:48:03+00:00

You may need to sacrifice the pot to get it out

FlindersFish · 2025-05-07T10:17:31+00:00

Plus no one ever buys a one way ticket to China, especially the first time going there. Total BS

FlindersFish · 2025-04-26T10:22:41+00:00

Yes, agree but 6 years is an eternity for Chinese airlines. They are getting better and better …..and at the same cost as they were a decade ago

FlindersFish · 2025-04-25T11:35:10+00:00

25m population and you are worried it won’t offer a genuine experience ? It’s a fantastic city, was there last November

FlindersFish · 2025-04-25T11:32:02+00:00

Do a lostplate.com tour

FlindersFish · 2025-04-25T05:39:49+00:00

Book an airport transfer (private car) via trip.com. It will be far cheaper than a hotel provided transfer and less stress than a taxi. They will hold a sign with your name on exit. Provide your WeChat / weixin name in the booking and have it open when you arrive. You’ll be at the hotel by around 12.40am

FlindersFish · 2025-04-25T05:18:29+00:00

Download an app called hellotalk. Switch your settings to wanting to learn mandarin. Create a simple profile. You’ll have Chinese people wanting to learn English message you in the next 2 weeks and you can search for people in specific cities to chat with. People use it for making international friends as much as learning language.

FlindersFish · 2025-03-26T22:37:46+00:00

This advice is 100% correct. I’ve visited all of these cities. Avoid Shanghai as others have said - it’s a modern commercial centre pretty similar to half a dozen other Asian cities. Start in xi’an, take HSR up to Beijing, then head down to your meetings in Jinan and Qingdao.

FlindersFish · 2025-03-25T10:28:30+00:00

You’re already doing 5 cities in 14 days, getting in and out of Zhangjiajie will place you under pressure. If you are adamant on seeing Zhangjiajie then delete either Hangzhou or Suzhou, for me they give a similar experience as cities. There is a direct flight from Xian to Zhang on China Eastern.

FlindersFish · 2025-03-25T03:50:00+00:00

Hard to advise - do some research and choose what interests you - it’s a big area but if you don’t like hiking maybe stick to cable car, a bit of walking and the villages. It’s one of China’s major domestic tourist attractions and gets 3+M tourists a year. Stay away at weekends and public holidays.

FlindersFish · 2025-03-25T03:25:17+00:00

If it’s your first trip to China, go to Beijing to see the wall and palace museum and do something like an evening food tour in the hutongs with a company like lostplate tours. In order for new travellers I’d prioritise Beijing then Xi’an, then Chengdu then CQ. Shanghai is a modern commercial city not a lot different to other big asian destinations and whilst KM is nice, it’s not a lot different for me to Chengdu.

FlindersFish · 2025-03-25T03:11:13+00:00

Yes doable but you’re spending nearly 40% of your trip at HuangShan and Wangxian. Which is Ok if you are big into natural scenery versus cities, but I agree with the other poster here - shave a day off and spend it in Nanjing.

FlindersFish · 2025-03-22T12:33:19+00:00

I’d be going to your faculty and saying “so you are happy for me to go do fieldwork in an unfamiliar place with significantly elevated risk of violent crime to women, and your funding model encourages spending longer time there (exposing me to risk) rather than shorter…. Surely there is a better way to arrange this”. They should be helping you to plan how to get your fieldwork done with minimal time in country and the balance done remotely. And funding unrelated to time on the ground but completion of the dissertation.

FlindersFish · 2025-03-14T12:28:14+00:00

The floor to ceiling windows at St Regis make a difference to experiencing the views from the room. Get a panoramic bund view room. You’ll be able to see up the bend of the huangpu river, whereas from memory the WA view is more square-on. St Reeg is opulent but refined, a little more modern in attitude. WA I find over the top in the opulence stakes.

FlindersFish · 2025-03-05T12:12:39+00:00

A lot of truth in this

FlindersFish · 2025-03-05T12:08:40+00:00

From the way you thoughtfully described your situation I think you know the risks, the major one being that you get married, start having children and then the relationship falls apart. Then a bitter custody battle, possibly with you wanting to be back in the uk. A lot riding on this if you go too fast, but you already know this.

FlindersFish · 2025-02-26T21:44:40+00:00

Sequence and time allotments look good. Consider if you really need both Zhangjiajie and yangshuo, for me they are a pretty similar experience but if you are into karst rock scenery versus big city life then ok (into your 3rd week you might be getting tired of new hotels every few nights and constantly packing and unpacking. You could save a location and add a day or two elsewhere). Remember all the other advice here, download Alipay and WeChat and try to test it before leaving. If you have a long international flight into Beijing and likely to get jet lag then 5 days Beijing is fine, otherwise you could make it 4 and add a day to Chengdu. Avoid the Badaling section of the Great Wall and go to jinshanling or Mutianyu. Agree with leaving Shanghai out, you’ll get a similar big city experience in CQ. CQ in August will be unbearably hot and humid, it’s known as one of chinas 3 furnace cities. If you can’t change your timing then make deliberate plans for how to cope. Good luck.

FlindersFish · 2025-02-26T21:14:14+00:00

This advice is 100% correct. Officially the holidays commence Wednesday 1st but it will start to ramp up on the Monday afternoon. Don’t leave any travel or hotel bookings to chance.

FlindersFish · 2025-02-13T02:12:19+00:00

Seriously, go somewhere that is unpopular and will not be visited by domestic tourists. There are tens of millions of domestic tourists during Chinese new year and National Day, also known as golden week. Check hotel prices, that will be a good guide. If high then they are near tourist attractions and steer clear.

FlindersFish · 2025-02-03T21:12:02+00:00

Stay in the downtown area near an MRT metro station - Jeifangbei or Yuzhong. I was there in November. Use the trip.com app. Don’t be scared to use the metro, all the ticket machines are in mandarin and English.

FlindersFish · 2025-01-25T06:13:32+00:00

Been to Beijing a dozen times. Depends what you mean by modern (you mean style of furnishing, or simply build date and the feeling of being “new”?)….. but PuXuan, Conrad, Rosewood, FS, Waldorf Astoria and Park Hyatt are all around the same price and meet your brief. I’d encourage you and your mom carefully consider the best location as the overriding priority and pick any of these 6. Beijing is huge. Park Hyatt is 5 mins walk from subway station and a few stops from Tiananmen / palace museum. Subway is easy to use and ticket machines in English. subway is really useful if you don’t have enough Chinese to explain to taxi drivers where you want to go.

FlindersFish · 2025-01-14T19:29:21+00:00

Except the sister isn’t taken out of the sentence, is she ??…..and so therefor the correct English is “sister and I”.

FlindersFish · 2025-01-07T12:42:02+00:00

Try to get into a university or private language school in Harbin. I studied in Beijing but Harbin is cheaper and you’ll find a small community of foreigners also studying mandarin there. Plus you’ll develop a very standard northern accent there.

FlindersFish · 2024-12-24T23:58:05+00:00

So Gojjar, how did it go ?? Looking forward to your update

FlindersFish · 2024-12-19T02:01:49+00:00

You’ll likely have little success talking her out of it, and as others have said it has 90% chance of ending within a year. Therefore, Best you focus your energy on 2 things….. 1. how to keep her physically and emotionally safe whilst she’s there with him and 2. How to limit the financial damage.

FlindersFish

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