I am just going to dive in and start answering the questions you all sent me for Nablopomo.  I will try to post for 30 days straight, but possibly that means I can be done before Thanksgiving.

Here we go (in no particular order):

Anne asks:

We are planning a return trip to China this spring but do not want to go as part of a tour because the kids would probably hate China if we got on a bus at the crack of dawn, went sight-seeing and shopping for the whole day, and returned at nightfall. Is it reasonable to think we can go without guides? Our Chinese is limited. If we wanted to use a guide for a couple of days in a certain city, any ideas on how to connect with one?

I think the question is really dependent on what kind of travelers you are.  Have you traveled extensively outside the the US?  Do you speak any Chinese at all?  Where do you hope to go?   If you are traveling only in Beijing and Shanghai or to very tourist-heavy locations (Guilin or Xian for example), you will probably be fine.  If you are going to any 2nd or 3rd tier city without any experience traveling in developing countries with no knowledge of Chinese, it could very well be a complete nightmare.

Traveling in China with kids is not for the faint of heart.  My kids are great travelers, Mr. A speaks passable Chinese (and I understand quite a bit) and we have both traveled in China before (including Mr. A living there for a year).  But let me assure you, there were days where I thought we were going to kill each other or throw in the towel due to the stress of trying to do the following:

• Manage the hotel- check in, figure out how to use the internet, explain that the internet is not working, figure out if the bill was correct, make sure our credit cards were not overcharged, make sure the cleaning people did not steal our stuff, figure out how to do laundry, make the TV work, get fresh towels, discover your carefully chosen hotel sucks and find a new one.

• Get to where we wanted to go in a timely manner- find a taxi if there isn’t one outside the hotel, communicate to the taxi driver where you want to go, find a taxi when you come out of the destination, explain how to get to your hotel, try not to die of asphyxiation from the taxi driver’s cigarettes,  argue with/negotiate with the taxi driver over the price, find the subway station, figure out how to get over the one way streets and overpasses to get to your destination when you come out the subway exit, talk to the subway attendant about buying tickets, figuring out where the closest subway is, figure out why the subway you want is not coming, shove your way into the subway without losing the children, figure out how to buy tickets to shows you want to see, figure out wtf that thing is in the Forbidden City, figure out that you actually exited at the wrong end of the forbidden city and can not find a taxi/subway/place to eat, fend off thousands of hawkers while you try to read your map, realize the map from one year ago is hopelessly outdated due to the pace of construction in China, get scammed by guys who tell you the wrong information so they can force you to pay extra for their bus, manage the nightmare chaos at the small airport for your intercountry flight, try to buy train tickets during Chinese Spring Festival (aka the greatest annual human migration in the world).

• Figure out what stuff is worth seeing-  spend days and days looking at guidebooks and online to figure out what things you should see, try those things to discover the kids are bored silly (Forbidden City, Tiananmen square, etc), revise plans to try to find more kid-friendly activities, realize that “kid friendly” could mean that you are looking at pickled fetuses and corpses

• Food- (Despite all the problems above, food was by far our biggest challenge in the PRC) Keep enough food in your room so you can eat breakfast without needing to find a restaurant when you are jetlagged, figure out what things at 7-11 you are willing to eat, make sure your hotel is ALWAYS near a 7-11, make sure you stop sightseeing at least an hour before you want to eat so you have enough time to locate a restaurant, figure out how to order when you can’t read the menu, carry enough snacks for the kids in case there is no restaurant anywhere near where you are sightseeing,  learn that the only food that is easily accessible to you is unappealing,  get food poisoning at least once due to eating at a sketchy restaurant and/or street vendor, get screamed at in Chinese for not understanding the order/get a ticket/turn it in when your food comes system and you lost the ticket, spend hours walking around the trying to locate the restaurant you saw yesterday that looked good, try to order only to have the vendor turn their back on you because they don’t want to deal with trying to figure out what you want, get stuck at a sightseeing place where there are inexplicably no options to buy food, listen to the kids whine about how much they hate all the food, watch a kid who previously ate anything and everything refuse to eat anything but white rice, watch the other kid insist only on eating candy for five days.

A friend who is getting ready to go to China emailed me about things we packed, so I thought I would summarize my thoughts here too.

Overall, I think we did a good job packing.  We were in the unfortunate position of needing to pack for both very cold weather and warm weather, so that added a lot of bulk to our bags.  We traveled with one good-sized suitcase and one hiking backpack.  We also each had a carry-on for the plane (except L).  I also brought a packable duffel bag to carry as our 4th carry on.  We used it to carry all the electronic stuff we didn’t feel comfortable checking in our checked baggage.  When we landed, we stuffed that bag and all the contents inside the hiking backpack.

For the record, I effing HATED the hiking backpack and Mr. A will henceforth be banned from bringing it instead of a suitcase in the future.  To find anything, you had to pull every freaking thing out of it.  Grr.  We also brought a suitcase full of donations for the orphanage and it was a total hassle.  In th future, I think I will just shop for the orphanage in China.

Things we brought that were very useful or helpful:

-  camping sporks – We bought ours at the Eddie Bauer outlet and used it often for eating in the hotel room and making PB&J sandwiches.  We also bought a pack of chopsticks in China which ended up being very useful.  I wish I had packed a couple camping plates and bowls that would pack flat.  We ate in our room sometimes and it was messy.

-Instant Oatmeal packets – Every chinese hotel room has boiled water available. When we were crushed by jetlag it was awesome to have easy food for the kids to eat on hand. We also brought bars and nuts to get us through the first few days.

-Electronics – We totally went overboard with electronics and I was glad we did. We brought:

• DS & games -each girl had their own DS bag and games.  The only problem was we didn’t have a 100-240 cord so using a electricity converter was a total pain in the ass.
• Ipod classic- we downloaded many movies and shows and bought a Frogz case which was awesome.  The IPod was probably the #1 most important thing we brought because we had a lot of very boring downtime and travel time.  TV was also the only privilege we could use as behavior leverage, so it was helpful that way too.
• Headphones – we each had our own headphones which was good because the ones on the plane sucked.
• Ipod touch – Mr. A brought this. The only useful thing about it was the chinese dictionary program we downloaded (which we mostly used to look up the words “login” and “password” over and over at each hotel as we tried to access the internet) and the fact that it had a clock.  I take that back, Mr. a played many hours of angry birds, so I guess it was useful for entertainment for him too.
• Netbook – for internet
• Internet cable thingy – I was glad we brought one, but I wish we had brought a much LONGER one.  Like 8 feet, maybe.  I was annoyed to be tethered to a desk when we didn’t have wifi in some hotels.
• Video camera – for L’s family.  I wish I had just bought a flip recorder thing because our old video camera is bulky and heavy.
• Camera – DSLR  Big, but nice pictures
• Camera- compact digital – great for sticking in a pocket or letting the girls take pictures
• Skype – We used skype to call real telephones while we were traveling. I loaded it with money before we left, but had a problem with paypal thinking my account had been hacked or something while we were in China.  I should have put $20 instead of $1o on it and saved myself some hassle.  I also wish I had a headset with microphone because my netbook was sometimes hard to hear.
• VPN- Thank god we got a VPN.  It cost me $30, but I really needed to be able to access the normal internet for my mental heath.  We used freedur, which I heard is now blocked.
• Magic Light- Oh, yes, I dragged my magic light there and it made it much easier for the girls and I to recover from jetlag.  Mr. A wouldn’t use it and he suffered for many more days.

-Gifts – At my MIL’s suggestion, we brought American ginseng slices and ginseng tea because they pack flat. We also brought red giftbags & tissue paper and the were a pain.  It wouldn’t be so bad if Mr. A didn’t have a million old relatives, but he does.  I think we had to give out 9 of them.

-Laundry soap – Mr. A was annoyed that I kept trying to wash things in the sink, but at least for socks and underwear, it was very helpful.  I brought Method soap and the highly concentrated liquid in a small bottle was very handy.

-Medical Kit- I created a fully stocked medical kit with decongestants, bandaids, anti-diarrheal meds, topical antibiotics, Kanka, cough meds, tylenol & advil, etc.  We used more than I expected.  The kanka was  a big winner because L had a canker sore that was really hurting her.

-Pantiliners. Useful for the plane or other times when it wasn’t going to be easy to change underwear.

-Individual packs of kleenex to use in Chinese bathrooms.  Put some in every bag.  If you run out, you will be sorry.

Things we didn’t need or shouldn’t have packed:

-2 fleeces/sweaters.  One warm thing was enough

-2 pairs of shoes – one was enough. If they got wet, so what. Shoes are too bulky.

-Fewer socks for adults (but more for the kids).  We could wash ours in the sink, but the kids kept losing theirs.

-Books for the kids.  Who were we kidding?  We didn’t read the Kids book about China or many of the storybooks we brought for L.  We were too tired and they were heavy.

Things I wished I had packed:

-A kindle or some other electronic book thing so I could download new books.  I read all three of the (big heavy ) books I packed in the first week and then was dying of boredom the rest of the trip.

Other China / Asia travel advice:

1) Use trip advisor and take note of restaurants people mention near your hotel.

2) Always check to see how close a hotel is to a 7-11 (or similar store).  The proximity will be directly proportional to the enjoyment of the hotel.

3) If your hotel provides good slippers, take them with you.  Some hotels give you none or nasty used plastic ones.

4)Ask the front desk to write down things in Chinese for you (addresses, etc.) then you can just show the taxi driver.

5) It is not romantic to take the overnight train. Even if it is a soft sleeper.  It is unpleasant.  Go during the day or fly.

6) Always keep a reserved $100 in American cash in case you are in a pinch.  Don’t spend every penny before you leave a country. If you get too close to $0, it can cause a problem, says the girl whose husband raided the girls’ change purses to buy our train tickets into Hong Kong.

That is all I can think of right now.