10 Beijing Olympic Travel Tips and Insights

The Beijing Olympics are almost here. If you plan to go to Beijing in the near future, here are a few Beijing Travel Tips and Insights:

1. Traditional Chinese toilets are drains on the floor. Western style toilets can sometimes be found but they are sprinkled throughout upscale environments that cater primarily to Western Clientele. Therefore, if you have lousy squatting muscles , watch your liquids. Make sure you know the name and address of the nearest luxury hotel in case you need a real toilet. Most of us tourists do not want Montezuma's Revenge over a hole on the ground. We'd like to worry about getting the right antibiotics, not our aim.
2. Bring Kleenex as toilet tissue is not readily available in Beijing, as well as most of China. If you need to buy toilet tissue, the available brands are harsh on your soft spots.
3. Even if you are stocked with Purell, bring disposable towelettes. Even for the less fanatical, you'll need them.
4. Don't use tap water, even in the finest hotels. Just to err on the side of safety, brush your teeth with bottled water. It is okay to drink anything that has been boiled.
5. Watch where you buy bottled water. The closer to a major tourist site, the more expensive it will be. Walk a few blocks and you'll pay at least 50% less for the same size of water or soda. There is a second reason not to purchase drinks in touristy areas. It is rumored that the vendors refill bottled containers and reseal them. A safe choice is to buy Popsicle type bars. The picture on the wrapping will tell you what flavor you are buying.
6. Stick with places that have clearly marked pricing as you are bargaining even when you are not.
7. Beer is very cheap; it can be a fifth of the price of water, especially in restaurants and Chinese beer is exceptionally light.
8. Ordering Meats and Fish. The Chinese use all parts of animals so if you are finicky, watch what you order. If it says chicken, it is chicken but it could be chicken ankles or chicken guts. Upscale restaurants define their cut of meat.
9. Delicacies like Sharks Fin and Bird's Nest are exactly what they say. The most discerning restaurants are reported to hire their chefs after sampling both their bird's nest and sharks fin dishes.
10. Deserts aren't sweet. Bird's Nest can be a desert but we did not find it worth the money. If you have a sweet tooth you can find ice cream or sherbet in stores and hotels. Also, there are Kentucky Fried Chicken's all over and even in Beijing you can find ice cream in a McDonald's.

When the Travel Bug Bites

For a few of us, the journey begins as we think about planning a trip. We read travel magazines, Trip Advisor comments, or our local paper's travel section. We don't all watch The Travel Channel or subscribe to the New York Times or Forbes, but we are a cross section of baby-boomers and baby-boomers offspring that need very little but want it all - and we'd like it at the lowest possible price.We might be single, married, divorced, parents or childless. We have or have had careers, or are stay-at-home wives, or business travelers whose spouses or partners want a vacation.
I was brought up in the Midwest with a family who for vacations took an annual road trip. We always packed those single serving cereal boxes because we couldn't afford to eat more than one meal a day in a restaurant. I thought that Holiday Inns were the height of luxury because they had an indoor pool – and most of our nights were spent in roadside motels.
I was 15 the first time I flew. My friend's mother married well. Her extremely rich new husband invited me, as their guest so he and his new wife didn't have to be bothered with her daughter. We went on a two-week Christmas trip to Barbados; a country that my family didn't know existed. If you can believe it, they were so rich they rented the top section of a 747. Was I in for a rude awakening when I returned to my humble lower- middle class existence, although I must admit that I experienced a lifestyle that I wanted.
Cut to my early 20's, after college when I opened a small medical consulting business where my entrepreneurial spirit was born. My memories of that Barbados trip had set my expectations far beyond my humble beginnings, and I wanted to see the world in style. My small business took me all over my state and to neighboring ones.A lack of concrete financial obligations allowed me to often travel first class and stay in some decent hotels, but my level of discernment had yet to mature. I still stayed at the Holiday Inn because I had no idea that one hotel could be that much different from the next.
By my mid-20's I realized that my heart was not in health care, and I was looking for a venture in the travel and writing industries. So, I saved enough money and planned a three-month trip to Europe after enlisting a girlfriend as my travel mate.Before we embarked, I spent many days in the library (way before computers) finding the best deals. We each had $1500 in our pockets, as well as first class Eur-rail passes and a round-trip ticket on Iceland Air because they had the best deal at that time. We stopped in Iceland, spent time in England, Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, and Norway. That was my first sample of Europe.
I learned along time ago that that if I wanted to travel first class it would take a lot of finagling to stay within a budget.Almost 30 years after that first trip to Europe, I travel all over the world albeit by convoluted negotiations and arcane planning but I stay at wonderful places and spend much less than most. I've planned cooking lessons in Tuscany, a wedding on the beach in Jamaica, a helicopter flight from Nice to Monaco, Mediterranean Cruises, Shopping Sprees in Shanghai, and Tented Camps in Thailand, Japanese Ryokans, and trips to explore college choices for my kids all over the United States.
While I hate to admit it, I was probably one of the first frequent flyers known on many airlines. In those days, I even used to ask my friends to book their airline tickets in my name so I could get their points. Can you imagine today trying to travel with a ticket in someone else's name? Travel may have changed drastically through the years, but no matter when the travel bug bites, it stays with you!

Labels: baby-boomers, luxury, travel planning, vacation