To make this more helpful to travelers especially for Philippine nationals, I’ll start my story with my Chinese visa which I obtained in Saigon. Here’s one important thing to note, if you are a Philippine passport holder with a tourist visa in Vietnam applying for Chinese visa, forget it you’ll just be frustrated of being denied.
Before applying for a Chinese visa I made my inquiries to the Chinese consulate office through emails and I was advised to present some document, including proof of onward travel. The inquiries were made through email since the first person who screened my questions was the security guard who can hardly finish one paragraph of explanation. The Chinese consulate office answered my inquiries, a day after I sent them email. But by the time I finished preparing all the requirements, I don’t have much time left for the target date of travel, especially that they’ll only accept visa application in the morning. The regular visa processing is $30usd but mine was rushed, so I paid $50usd which was issued to me within 2-working days.
I left Saigon with a group at 1:30am on April 7, a red eye flight of Shanghai Airline which I was not fond of. I don’t mine the wee hour schedule but I have a trauma with turbulence, so red eye flight usually makes me uncomfortable. The flight, however, was not as rough as I was expecting and I was just too happy to land in the Chinese territory at 6:10am. I was happy too that the English literacy of airport people in Shanghai was high, it made things easy. Except for the nail nipper on my make-up kit alarming the airport security scanning machine, everything went smoothly.
I stayed at Grand Mercure Hongqiao along Xian Xia road with the group, a 5-star hotel but since my stay doesn’t cost me a cent, I don’t have to worry at all. The truth is I never stay in a 5-star hotel if I’ll pay. For a 5-star hotel, I can say Grand Mercure is ok. I have a room overlooking the city, which comes with basic kitchen amenities from microwave, ke
Shanghai is all about big buildings, a metropolitan place for shopping, nightlife, conventions, and meetings. In fact, Shanghai’s number one attraction is the Bund where the skyscraper, the Jin Mao Tower and the Oriental TV tower are located. The Bund depicts a well-developed Shanghai. Soon to open next month is the wid
As for getting into the attractions in Shanghai, I can only say the hotels offer tours from
Also, don’t forget to visit Yuan Garden if you want to see Chinese inspired design commercial buildings. It’s quite
It's like a more enhanced China town in your place, if you have one of course or let's say a more authentic Chinese lifestyle.
And to end my story, there’s no facebook, no twitter, no youtube, and I cannot even access to my blog when I was there. I'm just too glad to be back in the land where I can see rice paddies and hear the unending horn of "motobike" while playing around with the so called social network in the cyber world. :-)