Beijing or Hong Kong?

In article .com,
says...
Hing Kong for a 1st visit. Lot more user friendly. Easier to manage
with English.
Beijing is a purely tourist expereince unless you speak Chinese. In
Beijing after you see the Wall and the Ming tombs and the forbiddne
city there is not much you can do becaise of the lansguage issue.
HK is easier to move around in and is quiote interesting. Like someone
else saif make a trip acrross the border to guangjhou.

Saying that about Beijing is like saying that there is nothing in Las Vegas except gambling. I have taken my wife and two daughters to visit Beijing 4 times, each time lasting 2 weeks, and we still haven't managed to cover all the interesting things we want to see and experience.
J.

"Kirans Cousin" wrote in message
...
As I explain in another post, I may have to choose between taking a
stop in Beijing or doing so in Hong Kong, although I had hoped to do
both. No flames please, but I would appreciate opinions on which would
make a better stop for 3-5 days?

Visited Beijing last year. Excellent place. You do not need to speak
Chinese and as with all foreign destinations you can get by with sign
language Also, because of the Olympics in two years time, a lot of the
people of Beijing are learning to speak English. Not being able to do
anything because of the language barrier is rubbish. I think the language
barrier adds to the experience. Even a lot of the restaurants have pictures
in their menus. We tried to order ice cream in a restaurant (no pictures of
ice cream in this particular venue) where everything was in Chinese and none
of the staff spoke English. We didn't get our ice cream but we had a good
laugh trying.

However, I feel the amount of time you have set aside will not be enough to
fully experience the city. As you have only 3-5 days then I would advise
Hong Kong. Is a gentle intro to china and because it is an ex English
colony everything (well nearly) is in Chinese AND English. People are
friendly and, as westerners, we feel we fit in better are more comfortable.
In beijing, if you are western, be prepared to be stared at and have
attention drawn to yourself. On four seperate occasions, locals covertly
took photos of us at the tourist sites. Twice I was asked if I could have
my photo taken with their family/friends (not in Beijing this time but in
Shanghai...still mainland China though). Quite funny thinking back.

Do Hong Kong. You will not feel rushed to see everything in the time you
have and you will feel quite satisfied with what you will have seen and
done.

As a footnote, the wife and I are visiting Hong Kong again this December for
the 4th time (we normally visit 2/3 days each way as a stopover to
Australia). We absolutely love the place.

MC

MC wrote:

First thank you for your advice. You also write:

: I feel the amount of time you have set aside will not be enough
: to fully experience the city. As you have only 3-5 days...

How many days at minimum does Beijing require?

Alfred Molon wrote:

In article , Kirans Cousin
says...
Alfred Molon wrote:

: Depends on the season.

Late March, early April.

Then both places would be fine.

Yes, we went last year mid-March for 18 days. Started out in Beijing
and finished in Hong Kong in early April. Both ends of the trip had
perfectly tolerable temperatures, and mostly decent weather. The next
time we go will probably be at about the same time of year.

For the original poster, either city would be fine, but for only 4 or 5
days I'd probably go to Hong Kong. Most things will probably be more
expensive, but I found it easier to get around on our own, and ran into
almost no language barriers.

In Hong Kong see if you can get to the Sam Tung museum. It's a restored
Hakka village that we stumbled across while wandering around, and we
actually wound up spending several hours there.

--
Mike
NO Junk Email, please! Real email to: amphoto [at] blarg [dot] net.
WANTED: Experienced Kamikaze Pilot

J.Venning wrote:


says...

Beijing is a purely tourist expereince unless you speak Chinese. In
Beijing after you see the Wall and the Ming tombs and the forbiddne
city there is not much you can do becaise of the lansguage issue.
HK is easier to move around in and is quiote interesting. Like someone
else saif make a trip acrross the border to guangjhou.

Saying that about Beijing is like saying that there is nothing in Las Vegas except gambling. I have taken my wife and two daughters to visit Beijing 4 times, each time lasting 2 weeks, and we still haven't managed to cover all the interesting things we want to see and experience.
J.

I like Beijing fine butr seriously if your a first-timne traveller
there and you are on yr own and you dont speak chinese and you only
have 2-3 days what can you do?

The acrobats are marvllous and tghe forbidden city is impressive and
the great wall is fantastic.

What did you and yr famliy do there? Do you speak Chinese? Or did you
get a guide?

This traveller hasnt even been to HK. Of the two I think HK is easier
and more interesting even if it doesnt have landmark atractions. If you
speak English you can experience a lot of the place.

On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 13:42:56 GMT, the renowned Kirans Cousin
wrote:

MC wrote:

First thank you for your advice. You also write:

: I feel the amount of time you have set aside will not be enough
: to fully experience the city. As you have only 3-5 days...

How many days at minimum does Beijing require?

Three days is enough to see a bunch of highlights, especially if you
hire a car and driver. You can see the palace museum, Great Wall,
Summer Palace, Tiananmen square, Heaven temple, have a few good meals,
go shopping on Wangfujing street etc.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

"Spehro Pefhany" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 13:42:56 GMT, the renowned Kirans Cousin
wrote:

MC wrote:

First thank you for your advice. You also write:

: I feel the amount of time you have set aside will not be enough
: to fully experience the city. As you have only 3-5 days...

How many days at minimum does Beijing require?

Three days is enough to see a bunch of highlights, especially if you
hire a car and driver. You can see the palace museum, Great Wall,
Summer Palace, Tiananmen square, Heaven temple, have a few good meals,
go shopping on Wangfujing street etc.



Sampling the freshly cooked silkworms, scorpions and other creepy crawlies
in the night market is another "highlight"

MC

"Kirans Cousin" wrote in message
...
MC wrote:

First thank you for your advice. You also write:

: I feel the amount of time you have set aside will not be enough
: to fully experience the city. As you have only 3-5 days...

How many days at minimum does Beijing require?

To "Fully" experience the city I would allow a minimum of 7-10 days. We
were in China for 14 days but in Beijing for only 7 days (7 days also in
Shanghai). We could have done with both weeks in Beijing.

MC

MC

wrote in message oups.com...
What did you and yr famliy do there? Do you speak Chinese? Or did you
get a guide?
This traveller hasnt even been to HK. Of the two I think HK is easier
and more interesting even if it doesnt have landmark atractions. If you
speak English you can experience a lot of the place.

We used a travel agent specialising on charter tours, and they have a load of outings we booked before flying out, so most of our time was taken up with these pre-arranged outings, which were well-planned and very enjoyable. Fortunately, I do speak Chinese, since I am Chinese, so during the times we were not on these outings, we would take a taxi and ask the driver to take us to places which my wife has chosen from her searches on the net (my wife is Caucasian American): just a visit to the "electronic village" in Beijing took a whole day because of the things we see and wanted to buy. Our daughters are grown up, and they are street-wise enough to manage on their own in the evenings to visit several night clubs that they themselves found on the net: one of these was called "The Red Capital Club", decorated with all the paraphernalia of the Cultural Revolution (very chic). We also know several former Chinese ambassadors who were fighting amongst themselves to take us out, and my acquaintance with a couple of ballet dancers from Beijing's Central Ballet also gave us unprecedented opportunity to visit places where the ordinary tourist would not know.

I did suggest on my first post in this thread that this traveller should consult his travel agent and see all the possibilities offered: it is most often the best thing to do, specially when one is very limited either in time or finance, or both. To give you an idea of what one Danish travel agent offers in the form of package tours to China, take a look at this link: http://www.kuoni.dk/Catalogue/Kina/R...ernes+Kina.htm .
J.

Beijing is a better stop, because Hong Kong is a European city .

Beijing is more Chinese , and Hong Kong is full of Americans, Brits,
Australians .


Kirans Cousin wrote:
As I explain in another post, I may have to choose between taking a
stop in Beijing or doing so in Hong Kong, although I had hoped to do
both. No flames please, but I would appreciate opinions on which would
make a better stop for 3-5 days?