Oppornunity to Travel to Asia - Looking for Starting Points/Opinions

thatassemblyguy

One of my jobs is shipping me over to one of their factories in Asia. This will be the first time I've been over to that region of the globe, and I figure I can't pass up an opportunity to visit some of the more amazing sites in the region.

I'm really looking for some advice on trust worthy tour-guide businesses. I've done some googling, and there seem to be a few that claim that they're on the up-and-up; and I'm trying to follow-up with my due-diligence on those.

However, in the mean time, I was hoping H/A may have some good insight on where I could start looking for reputable tour companies in Beijing, and Tokyo/Fujiyoshida City. I'm open to suggestions of published books, or possible travel agencies that I can use.

Also, if anyone has suggestions on a half-day, or one-day *must do* for these regions, I'm all ears. I want to visit the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Mt. Fuji/Chureito Pagoda/Tokyo. However, I'm trying to keep the list short because I can only spend one-to-three days in each country (China/Japan) since I'm going to be leap-frogging flights on my way back to the states.

Thank you in advance, H/A.

Shogun

well for starters the great wall is nowhere near Beijing which is where the Forbidden City is. The eastern start of the great wall is nearly 500 miles away. Also it stretches west across most of the country so in terms of 'seeing it' I don't know how much you will accomplish in 1-3 days. Many stretches of the Wall were built in different time periods out of different materials. Some parts are ornate stoneworks that continue to be maintained. Other parts are essentially dirt mounds being help up by boards.

Mt. Fuji isn't too far from Tokyo, but keep in mind Tokyo is the largest metropolitan area on earth. Over 50 miles across. You could easily spend 3 days there and not experience it all.

kime

Eh? I mean, yeah, the Great Wall is pretty long, haha, but when he says he wants to "see" it, I don't think he means the entire thing . It's actually a pretty short drive (~1 hour, I think) to reach the Great Wall from Beijing.

I'd recommend spending a day in Beijing. There are so many things to do just in that one city that you could spend a much longer time and still not see everything, but I assume you'll want to explore more than just one city. Maybe you can do enough of the Wall in half a day? Then that leaves you more time for other things....

I'd strongly advise you to get down to Southern China, in the Yunnan province. Kunming and some of the other cities there are beautiful, as well as having things like hot springs and the Tiger Leaping Gorge. It's far from Beijing/Great Wall, so if you're dead set on the "big names" (Great Wall, Forbidden City), that may not be feasible in your time limit.

It'd certainly help if you knew what cities you'd be flying through, etc?

I don't know any good travel agencies, but the Lonely Planet guidebook is pretty nice. They have China and Japan books, so you may want to browse through those.

Orestus

For Beijing the Great Wall is an absolute must. If you only see one thing in China it needs to be that, it will literally take your breath away. There are plenty of ways to take a day and see this from Beijing. When you are thinking about the great wall you can either do the touristy part or what's called the "Wild wall" which is unreconstructed. A normal tour is going to take you to the touristy part, likely a placed called "Badaling" that has had the wall restored to what it supposedly looked like when built. It will have lots of tourists and feel a bit commercial, but is still incredible. You can also seek to see the a wild section that is unrestored, but that can be trickier as I'm not sure the Chinese govt encourages travel to those sections as it is not completely safe (some parts of the wall have no railings anymore, etc). Badaling has a ticket booth, etc, the wild section I saw we just paid somebody .50 cents to let us walk up behind her backyard to the wall and climb up.

I've done both the touristy section in an all day tour and a trip to a wild section with a local expat friend taking me. All things being equal I would recommend you set up a day tour to a wild section to hike a bit of it. Just googling "wild wall tour" found me plenty of companies doing so. Bear in mind that you want to be in decent shape to do this, some of what is most amazing about the wall is how steep it is, and you'll be walking up those steps to get the best views. I will PM you the contact info for a tour guide I used for a touristy trip to the wall as well in case you decide to go that route. Keep in mind if you are staying in a decent hotel they will be able to arrange a tour for you wherever you want to go once you arrive too.

Other than that in Beijing I think the must see things are going to be the Forbidden City and Tienamen Square. If you start at the north of Forbidden City you can walk through it north to south and then end up out the gate into Tianamen Square. If you care about the history at all there will be a bunch of chinese guys hanging around at the ticket gates who will give you a tour as you go through for a small fee plus price of their ticket, its probably hit or miss but the guy we hired was very knowledgeable and gave a nice 2 hours or so of tour info in good English for about 10 bucks. I really enjoyed the Temple of Heaven which is in a park a couple miles south of Tianenamen Square as well.

Finally in Beijing you of course should have Peking Duck at least once. I had it at a restaurant called "Quanjude" which is a fairly big group, they have 3 or 4 restaurants around the city. I'm sure there are plenty of choices though and can't say that is the best; it is where a 5 yr expat took us for whatever that is worth. Also if you go to the location by Tienanmen Square you can then go to dessert at "Snack Street" which is 2 - 3 blocks of vendor stalls selling gross out foods like scorpion, snake, seahorse, etc. Total tourist trap but worth it to shock your family at home with pictures of you eating a snake on a stick.

Orestus

For Japan I haven't done as much touristy stuff as in China per the previous post, but I will say depending on your geek/videogamer level (presumably high since you are on these forums) a morning walking around Akihabara at both the big electronics stores (Yodobashi Camera is right above the Akihabara subway stop) and the many smaller booths selling games, action figures, anime, etc, is a good time. The subway in Japan is very very easy and userfriendly, even to a non-japanese speaker, so don't be intimidated going anywhere on it.

wonderpug

There are two recent-ish threads in the H/A forum about travelling to Japan, both of which have lots of info you'd probably find useful.

thatassemblyguy

First, let me thank everyone for their replies. I really appreciate it. To use a bad pun, I'm flying blind; and this has helped immensely. I'll be parsing through it all, and pick one or two things to do in the city/cities where I end up. It won't be a comprehensive visit by any stretch, but if I can do/visit one or two cool things since it's "on the way", I'll be super satisfied.

kime wrote: »

It'd certainly help if you knew what cities you'd be flying through, etc?

I don't know any good travel agencies, but the Lonely Planet guidebook is pretty nice. They have China and Japan books, so you may want to browse through those.

The cities are still negotiable, but so far, the high-value cities that I'm leaning towards on the non-work itinerary are Beijing and Tokyo (wanted to put Seoul in there, but I barely have the funds to hit up the first two, let alone a third one). I might have to drop one of the cities also, depending on how things workout with the work schedule, and if I can negotiate a combined ticket with the travel agency my company uses.

Thanks for the Lonely Planet suggestion, those books look like they'll help fill in all the gaps, and then some, in my research.

Orestus wrote: »

Awesome things are said here:

For Beijing the Great Wall is an absolute must. If you only see one thing in China it needs to be that, it will literally take your breath away. There are plenty of ways to take a day and see this from Beijing. When you are thinking about the great wall you can either do the touristy part or what's called the "Wild wall" which is unreconstructed. A normal tour is going to take you to the touristy part, likely a placed called "Badaling" that has had the wall restored to what it supposedly looked like when built. It will have lots of tourists and feel a bit commercial, but is still incredible. You can also seek to see the a wild section that is unrestored, but that can be trickier as I'm not sure the Chinese govt encourages travel to those sections as it is not completely safe (some parts of the wall have no railings anymore, etc). Badaling has a ticket booth, etc, the wild section I saw we just paid somebody .50 cents to let us walk up behind her backyard to the wall and climb up.

I've done both the touristy section in an all day tour and a trip to a wild section with a local expat friend taking me. All things being equal I would recommend you set up a day tour to a wild section to hike a bit of it. Just googling "wild wall tour" found me plenty of companies doing so. Bear in mind that you want to be in decent shape to do this, some of what is most amazing about the wall is how steep it is, and you'll be walking up those steps to get the best views. I will PM you the contact info for a tour guide I used for a touristy trip to the wall as well in case you decide to go that route. Keep in mind if you are staying in a decent hotel they will be able to arrange a tour for you wherever you want to go once you arrive too.

Other than that in Beijing I think the must see things are going to be the Forbidden City and Tienamen Square. If you start at the north of Forbidden City you can walk through it north to south and then end up out the gate into Tianamen Square. If you care about the history at all there will be a bunch of chinese guys hanging around at the ticket gates who will give you a tour as you go through for a small fee plus price of their ticket, its probably hit or miss but the guy we hired was very knowledgeable and gave a nice 2 hours or so of tour info in good English for about 10 bucks. I really enjoyed the Temple of Heaven which is in a park a couple miles south of Tianenamen Square as well.

Finally in Beijing you of course should have Peking Duck at least once. I had it at a restaurant called "Quanjude" which is a fairly big group, they have 3 or 4 restaurants around the city. I'm sure there are plenty of choices though and can't say that is the best; it is where a 5 yr expat took us for whatever that is worth. Also if you go to the location by Tienanmen Square you can then go to dessert at "Snack Street" which is 2 - 3 blocks of vendor stalls selling gross out foods like scorpion, snake, seahorse, etc. Total tourist trap but worth it to shock your family at home with pictures of you eating a snake on a stick.

Thank you! I think this is plenty to get me started on with regards to Beijing. You're awesome.

spazmojack

If by some chance you're able to make it to Hong Kong, I'd put that on my must go to list. I spent about 2 weeks there a few years ago and it became one of my favorite places. Its probably one of the cleanest cities I've ever been to, the public trans is super easy to use (and ridiculously cheap), and everyone is really friendly. For the most part people won't try to scam you and there's a ton of cool stuff to see. Things of note there: a giant Buddha statue, an enormous dried seafood market, and awesome duck. Definitely consider it sometime in the future if you aren't able to get there this time around.