China travel - money converter

Number one chinese travel tip. This is by far my most valuable tip for travel in China. A simple 'cheat-sheet' money converter. OK...here is the deal. PAY CLOSE ATTENTION! Go to www.oanda.com . There you will find a conversion table from one currency to another. Simply chose dollars to Chinese RMB or whatever currency is applicable for you. Print them both out. Now trim away all the paper surrounding the chart, leaving some ample margin. Put the two pieces of paper in your scanner and print them out about the size of a business card. You can make them a little bigger or smaller if you wish. I usually print out several so I can have an extra and to give a couple away. Now is where you have to be a little careful...Make a tiny roll of scotch tape about the size of the tip of your little finger. Squish it down on the back of one of the charts. Now take the other chart and place it back to back with the other one. Be very gentle as you don't really want them to stick yet. Hold them up to a bright light or daylit window. That way you can get them to be registered with each other. When they are perfectlly lined up, squish them both together. So far so good. Now hold the two VERY FIRMLY and trim them as close as you can to all applicable margins. You only want the important information. OK...now for the really kool part. Go to Kinkos or any place that does plastic laminations and get them laminated in 5 mill plastic. Heavier is OK, but not neccessary. Now trim the whole thing out and do the corners too. Thats it. BTW it cost almost nothing for this. Pretty much the same price for one as for six. Don't forget Honk Kong dollars if your passing through on your way into the PRC. This tip has proven to be the most popular advice that I have shared with other travelers. No more mental computing. You just reach into your pocket and there is all of the information you need for converting money. It is invaluable when bargaining, particularlly when you are dealling with large amounts of money. It is very quick, but allows you a nano second or two to keep your wits and calculate your negotiating strategy. Extremely handy when you are visiting several countries. TRUST ME ON THIS ONE. I know you can say to yourself that you can do all this in your head, and you can if you want to. But this is better, quicker, and more accurate. You never will make a mistake. If you want to have fun with this you can cut and paste and include a picture or whatever on your cheat sheet. You can even laminate other things into your cheat sheet like currency or leaves or whatever gets your imagination or humour. You can also laminate other things. For myself I have a mini list of things in Chinese and English that I can show to someone on the street. Like "art store", "night market", "antique market", "China Mobil store", "bus station", "train station", etc., etc. BTW you can use google to translate from English to Chinese and cut and paste, or use scissors to create this little list. It can be very handy.

passport problems - china travel - an update

Big passport problem today in the U.S. My previous blog talked about my own problems with getting a new U.S. Passport. Well...I got the damnable thing. So this blog is really a continuation of my last blog. I finally got my "appointment" with the San Francisco Passport office on Hawthorn Street in the city on March 12. I went down there and everything worked out great.

OK...HERE IS THE DEAL! ADVICE TO PASSPORT APPLICANTS

At this time it is nearly impossible to get a new passport through the normal channels. The problem is that the new requirements to have a passport for going and comming from Mexico and Canada has totally overwhelmed the system. The Passport people at www.state.gov all mean well but there is no way that anybody is going to get a passport through the normal procedure. DON'T BOTHER APPLYING unless you have about 3 months before your trip. Wait until you qualify to use the 'emergency' 14 days or less provission. JUST WAIT!!! as soon as you have 13-14 days before your trip RUN DON'T WALK to the regional passport office nearest you.
First try to get an appointment through the telephone system. Push buttons and listen to the taped messages. It will take awhile, but don't give up. Get that appointment. If you live 1-2 days drive away...do it and make a day or two out of it. Go to an opera or fine dining...whatever. Just get thee to the city closest to you with a regional passport office. Email won't help much either. There is another thing you can do if you give up on the telephone. Just go down with no appointment. They will put you in a line and you will have to wait for quite awhile for other people who are as desperate as you. BTW Zanax might help. Once you get that appointment, your problems are most likely over. If you get in in the morning you will have a passport that afternoon. Or you can choose to come back in the morning. In my case I elected to come back in the morning. I got my passport and drove immediatelly to the Chinese Consulate and did my PRC visa application. I will pick up my passport and visa this morning. My flight is on Monday March 19. I went through a lot of anxiety so I could prepare this blog for you. I hope that somebody will profit from my experience......Happy Trails

china travel...passport visa nightmare

Being an experienced traveler I am pretty organized, but also relaxed about visas and passports. So after downloading the visa form from the Chinese Consulate I was filling out the form and when it came to the passport info. I went to a drawer where I keep all my travel papers, foreign currency, extra photos, etc. I got out my passport and discovered that it was going to expire on about the same day that I am scheduled to fly to HK. Oh-oh...Big problem.

That same morning {Feb 27} I am off to the local Post Office to deal with getting my passport renewed in time for my flight {march 19}...... A Day in Hell. I am armed with extra pics, old passport, cash. Everything should be OK. I get there, short wait and there I am at the counter. I have my form for expidited service filled out. Then things began to go downhill. They said I should get new pics {$15.}...OK no big deal. They give me two big envelopes for express mail. One is to be a SASE. I decide to go back to my car and quietlly fill out the address forms. I can not find my new pics. I lost them while walking back to my car. I place the form, the passport the, the SASE into the big Express envelope and back to the Post Office. I have to get new pics {another $15}. I drop them into the envelope. I get in line and give the envelope to the clerk. I think to myself why is there no money in the envelope. I go back to the Passport office and they say ...yes you need to put the $67 renewal fee in the envelope also. I have to "crash" the line to have the clerk retrieve the envelope...whew! He finds it. I get back in the line and get a Postal money order for $67 and stick into the envelope. That should do it. I am done and now I can relax....I don't think so. I get home and go over everything with my wife. At that point I realize that I had failed to include the $60 additional money for it to be expedited. The envelope is on its way. So I go to www.state.gov and learn that I must wait for the application to get into the que. First the payment has to clear. It will show up on their site in several days {today is March 7} and I am still waiting. BTW I have also contacted them through their automated phone system. I need not tell you what that is like...duh...Nice woman there tells me that there is no chance that I am going to make my flight. I can not give up of course. I also sent a couple of emails. So every day I check their site to check the status of my application...nothing as of today. They tell me to contact the San Francisco Passport office that deals in emegency passports. The earliest appointment I can get is two work days {March 15} before my flight. Not so good. I need the 15th and 16th for the two days it takes to get the PRC visa. At this time my wife takes over. She is a Saint. She gets on the phone and after over an hour...yes, a whole hour.... she gets an appointment for March 12 in San Francisco. That will work. I may or may not be able to get my PRC visa in time. But I can always get it in HK. You don't need a visa to go to HK. So it looks like things will work out and somehow I will be on my flight. The lesson in this blog entry should be obvious. I can not really describe in this blog how unpleasant this experience is. BTW I found my lost pics. Didn't need them after all. BTW another travel tip that I may have mentioned before. Use you colour copier to duplicate passport photos on glossy stock. Make a lot of them and take some with you incase you need pics for going to some other country.

• Run, do not walk, and check your passport. Is it current. If it is you can avoid a day in hell. You do not want to go there.