Traveling in China

Mountain Huangshan (V): The Winter

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Mountain Huangshan (V): The Winter.

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Mountain Huangshan (IV): The clouds at dawn.

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Mountain Huangshan (III): The rocks.

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Mountain Huangshan (II): The clouds and peaks.

Mountain Huangshan (I): The Spring.

2005-04-13T17:48:00.000-07:00

Mountain Huangshan (I): The Spring.

Chinese currency is not convertible into others.

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But it is changing...going to be stronger agaist US dollars and other interantionally circulated banknotes, such as Japanese Yen, euros....It is a good to travel in China by taking advangtage of a "stronger" US dollar now. Someone says US dollar is going to devalue by 10-40% against Chinese RMB.

Talking about the change money, I have two more stories. When I visited Hong Kong in 2000, I brought RMB and US dollars with me. Just upon entering Hong Kong, I tried to change some RMB into Hong Kong dollars. I was thinking it is so convenient for me to do that... ...because you can not change money in China except that you have a certificate to do that----ususually you can change as much as 2000 dollars----that is a limit.

After living in Hong Kong for a while, I figured out it is rather unfavourable to change money at the airport, money change stores at the trainstation or in the street. It is usually fair to change money in the banks.

Another story is about the RMB foreign exchange currency. This is very confusing for foreign visitors. Thank God, you don't need to use "RMB foreign exchange currency" now. RMB foreign exchange currency was a kind of currency which can be changed into freign currency about some ten years ago. It can not be circulated in Chinese market. It's only purpose was to change money, although it had similar banknote as regular RMB. When "RMB foreign exchange currency" was going, both of "RMB foreign exchange currency" and RMB can be changed into RMB,but the ratio was different.

Prices are mostly negotiable for commodities or services in China

2004-09-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

We don't need to negotiate a price for a majority of services in US, except for dealing with car or house dealers. However, you can do that almost for everything, from daily grocery to buying a car, or a flat of apartment.

Nowadays, you can see different price tags in the shopping malls. That means some of them are discounted, some are not;some are negotiablbe, others are not.

The trick is that for certain salesperson, they may ask for a very high price--- may be 200% higher that its real value. You have to be very careful.

Hotels are categorized for Chinese and foreign travelers in China

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