Beijing & Shanghai 8D8N below RM5,000

Shau Hong
Shau Hong

Published



It has been 5 months after my trip to China. Yet, those moments spent there are still fresh in my memory.


I couldn't remember how did we decided on this detination, but eventually we landed on Beijing and Shanghai being two of the main cities of China.


Before I start, let me summarise our itinerary as below.



Itinerary (15 Dec - 23 Dec 2019)


Day 0 - 15 Dec 2019

Evening flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing


Day 1 - 16 Dec 2019

Tiananmen 天安门 - Dashilan Street 大栅栏 - Beijing Olympic Park 奥林比克公园 - Taikoo Li Sanlitun 三里屯太古里


Day 2 - 17 Dec 2019

Forbidden City 紫禁城 - Jingan Park 景安公园 - Wangfujing Pedestrian Street 王府井步行街 - Summer Palace 颐和园


Day 3 - 18 Dec 2019

Mutianyu Great Wall of China 慕田峪长城 - Yandai Byway 烟袋斜街


Day 4 - 19 Dec 2019

Free and easy - overnight train to Shanghai


Day 5 - 20 Dec 2019

Shanghai Disneyland 上海迪士尼乐园


Day 6 - 21 Dec 2019

Yu Garden 豫园 - Zhujiajiao Water Town 朱家角水镇 - The Bund 外滩 - Nanjing Rd Pedestrian St 南京路步行街


Day 7 - 22 Dec 2019

Xintiandi 新天地 - Tianzifang 田子坊 - Yi Ou Lai Premium Outlet 奕欧来奥特莱斯 - IFC Mall 国金中心 - Oriental Pearl TV Tower 东方明珠


Day 8 - 23 Dec 2019

Afternoon flight from Shanghai to Kuala Lumpur





Some people might ask...why did we not consider Hangzhou 杭州 or Suzhou 苏州 as there was a saying in Chinese “上有天堂,下有苏杭”, which emphasizes on the beauty of these two cities.


Well, at that point in time when we were planning, we could only afford for 8 days, and we were not sure if we want to go Shanghai Disneyland either. So happen that there was a physical KLOOK sale going on, which one of the deals was "BUY 1 FREE 1 Shanghai Disneyland Admission Ticket". How cheap would that be!


Hence, we decided to try our luck - if we got it, let's drop Hangzhou and Suzhou and go for Shanghai Disneyland instead; if we don't, then we will drop Shanghai Disneyland.


Lucky enough, we managed to grab the very limited voucher for the B1F1 deal!! Which translates to about RM109 only per person!! Hence, the decision to go Shanghai Disneyland instead haha.


However, would definitely recommend to include Hangzhou and Suzhou in your itinerary if possible.


Note that any currency translation was at around RM59.50 per 100 Chinese Renminbi during that time.



Flight - RM1,356 per pax




Deciding on the flight is THE most important part of my trip planning, as this would dominate the entire cost of the trip, which would affect how much we could afford on other expenses.


We started scouting for flights around 4 months before the trip (ie around August 2019). While AirAsia X is normally the default choice being a low-cost carrier, we realised if we were to add on our meals and luggage allowances, the total fare amounted to about RM1,200 per pax if I recall correctly. In contrast to Malaysia Airlines which was having a promotion, a return flight between Kuala Lumpur and China is only RM1,356 per pax all-in, not to mention a more comfortable seats we get to enjoy throughout the 6.5 hours flight duration with just about RM100 extra.


The choice was very clear then, and we were really grateful for it.


However note that during AirAsia's sales, flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing/Shanghai can be as low as RM700 if not mistaken - which could save your pocket even more if you are willing to sacrifice the comfort.


The flight arrives at Beijing Capital International Airport (yeah...sadly MAS only flies to the all new Beijing Daxing International Airport in January 2020 onwards), whereas for Shanghai its at Pudong International Airport.


The flight experience was satisfactory, definitely much better than AirAsia whether in terms of food, in-flight entertainment or comfort. I can't even remember when was the last time I actually fly with MAS already.



Accommodation -RM734.80 per pax


Accommodation will be the second most important consideration in our trip. As we are mainly travelling by public transport (primarily metro), generally our rule of thumb is - it must be close to metro stations (ie walking distance), and there must be a balance between the comfort and price.


In our trip, we stayed at two different hotels - one in Beijing another in Shanghai.



TianAn Rega Hotel 天安瑞嘉酒店 @ Beijing - RM213.90 per night for 2


北京天安瑞嘉酒店(TianAn Rega Hotel)_高档型_预订优惠价格_地址位置_ ...


It's not really a fancy hotel, but at least it is affordable enough for us to rest peacefully, and it is strategically located - near Tiananmen Square and Wangfujing.


TianAn Rega Hotel is a few blocks away towards the north, in between the Tiananmen East 天安门东 and Wangfujing 王府井 metro stations on Line 1.


We booked the hotel via agoda, and checking in was pretty smooth. The room we got is equipped with basic amenities - free internet, bottled water....nothing to shout about (apart from its location) and nothing to complain either, for the price we pay for.


Probably the only thing is that its furniture and fittings may be a bit old - although still functional. This could be better perhaps. There were also not many shops around, the nearest convenience shops are like FamilyMart and some other local ones, situated at about 5-10mins walk towards the east of the hotel, which is still acceptable.


We stayed for a good 4 nights in this hotel during our stay in Beijing.


Personal rating: 3.0/5.0



Jinjiang Inn 锦江之星 (风尚店)@ Shanghai - RM204.66 per night for 2


Jinjiang Inn Select Shanghai Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street Hotel ...


Again, this hotel is strategically located at Nanjing East Rd Pedestrian St 南京路步行街, close to People's Square 人民广场 metro station.


Despite the location being a bustling shopping street, somehow we were not disturbed much by any noises from the street. The interior is much more modern as compared to the one we stayed in Beijing, although smaller in size.


We stayed in this hotel for 3 nights during our stay in Shanghai. One of the pros we can tell is the location, not just being close to the metro station and tourist attractions, but also the convenience of having many shops around in case we need to buy anything.


Would definitely recommend this hotel to someone else.


Personal rating: 4.0/5.0



Internet - RM67.50 per pax


Staying Connected with Roaming Man Pocket Wifi (Review/Contest ...


Of course, internet - I have always been a loyal user of RoamingMan - which provides pocket wifi service to its customers. I booked mine via KLOOK for 9 days with 3GB unlimited 4G data per day, which served us pretty well throughout our trip.


The collection and drop-off are pretty easy and straightforward too! Just head to the collection point at either KLIA or KLIA 2 which the front desk will be able to assist you. They will get you to check the device, and brief you on some kind of sticker attached to the device if it has come into contact with water. To drop off, simply drop it at the drop-off box in the premise and off you go.


One thing I like about the drop-off procedure is - they actually allow you to return the device within one day (if I recall correctly, if not a few days) after your rental period has ended, which is very thoughtful as we may not need the internet during our return flight.


THE BEST PART is - the Pocket Wifi is already VPN enabled - meaning you don't need to bypass any proxies in order to connect to Facebook, Whatsapp etc which are blocked in China supposedly. Simply connect to the Pocket Wifi and browse your Facebook or chat on Whatsapp as usual!



Transport - RM502.84 per pax


Generally, travelling around Beijing or Shanghai city is pretty convenient as their metro network gets you almost everywhere you need.


The breakdown of costs is as below:


Beijing metro - 42 RMB per pax

Shanghai metro - 60 RMB per pax


Beijing to Shanghai sleeper train - RM340 per pax


Attached below the metro network of Beijing and Shanghai respectively updated as of December 2019.






Transit card for Beijing - Yikatong 一卡通


Beijing Public Bus - Beijing Tours


The Beijing Transportation Smart Card, more commonly known as Yikatong , is a contactless card that can be used in Beijing metro, city buses, Airport express train and many other places.


Benefits

> The card is cheap - only 20 RMB which is refundable with no other extra charges.

> Save time queuing at ticket machines (which only accepts 5 or 10 yuan notes) or ticket counters just to purchase one-way token.

> Receive a 50% discount when taking city buses.


Yikatong Tourist short-term pass packages


Package Cost (RMB) Usage Limits

3-day Pass 10 18

7-day Pass 20 42

15-day Pass 40 90


Tourist pass is also available for further savings. However, note that no refills are available for tourist pass.. The pass is also not usable for buses with its number beginning 8 or 9.


How to get yours?

> Generally, you can get your card at major metro stations, as well as some convenience store, bus stations, and at Beijing Capital International Airport T2.

> No identification document is required.

> You will need to pay a refundable deposit of 20 RMB, and minimum top up for about 20 RMB upon application.


How to get your refund?

> For balances below 100 RMB, just head to stations with refund services to get your remaining balances and 20 RMB initial deposit refunded immediately.

> For balances above 100 RMB, you will need to go to Beijing Transportation Smart Card Service Centre with your passport, Yikatong, receipt to process your refund with a 10% handling fee charged.


Therefore, I would strongly recommend not to over-reload your card, or make sure your balance is below 100 RMB before you ask for a refund.



Transit card for Shanghai- Shanghai Public Transportation Card 上海公共交通卡

How to transfer your Shanghai transit card balance to iPhone or ...


Like the one for Beijing, the Shanghai Public Transportation Card, is a contactless card that can be used in Shanghai metro, city buses, ferries, maglev trains etc.


How to get yours?

> You can get your card at all metro stations, all branches of Shanghai Pudong Development (SPD) Bank, Bank of Communications etc.

> No identification document is required.

> You will need to pay a refundable deposit of 20 RMB, and minimum top up for about 10 RMB upon application.


How to get your refund?

> For balances below 10 RMB, just head to any metro station to get your remaining balances and 20 RMB initial deposit refunded immediately.

> For balances above 10 RMB, you will need to bring along your receipt to process your refund with a 5% handling fee charged.

> For balances above 2,000 RMB (for whatever reason), you will need to bring your receipt along with your passport with the card to the designated card-returning agencies to process your refund, with a 5 handling fee charged, within 3 working days.



Sleeper train from Beijing to Shanghai


We booked our tickets via KLOOK, again. Nope KLOOK didn't pay me for advertising, but I really find KLOOK as a good travel companion to ease our travelling experience.


Choosing the agent

Initially we tried via Trip.com which is cheaper, but for some reasons our reservation got rejected. Note that successful payment or booking via the app does not mean confirmed seat/bed booking on the train - that is when Trip.com/KLOOK will start acting as an agent to reserve tickets for us. The money paid to Trip.com was eventually refunded to us after a few weeks, but thank god our reservation via KLOOK was successful.


Choosing your train

There are generally 6 types of trains (Type G, D, C, Z , T, K - arranged from fastest to slowest). The former three are considered high-speed trains, and the remaining are considered ordinary trains. The sleeper train we took was D701, which is the second fastest train type in China. The train departed from Beijing at 9.21pm, and arrived at Shanghai at 7.26am the next day.(ie about 10 hours). However, the fastest train via Type G which its top speed can go up to 350kph, as opposed to Type D with top speed of 250kph. However, as we wanted to save travelling time and accommodation, we opted for the sleeper train which is slower.


Choosing your seat/sleeper

In the type D train itself, there are different type of seats/sleepers:


Seats - First class (soft), Second class (hard)

Sleepers - First class (soft), Second class (hard)


The one we chose was first class sleeper, which is supposed to be soft...however it is not that soft actually. Hence, I cannot imagine how hard can it be for the second class seats or sleepers.


A first class sleeper room have 4 beds, two at each sides, with upper and lower berths. Whereas a second class sleeper room has 6 beds, three at each sides, with upper, middle and lower berths. Upon reservation, we don't get to choose whether upper or lower, it depends on what the agent could get for us. Of course, there is a slight price difference depending on whether you get upper or lower, which the excess will be refunded to you.


Ticket redemption

The ticket redemption was not difficult in nature...basically we had to collect our physical ticket by showing our passport (during reservation, we would have already keyed in our passport number) from the ticketing counter. To my surprise, there were long queues at almost every counter! And guess what, they are actually not queuing to collect ticket - they are queuing to purchase last minute ticket, despite ticketing kiosks are available and online reservation is possible too. As such, we actually spent about 30 minutes just to collect our ticket which took us only 1 minute. However, we are lucky enough to first come to the station to collect our evening tickets in the noon.


Therefore IMPORTANT tip: make sure to collect your train ticket in advance! Otherwise, you might risk running late for your train. The security and ID checking procedures were quite smooth and fast - especially you are passport holder therefore shorter queue.



Others


At times when you are tired of walking (towards the metro station), DiDi (a Chinese taxi e-hailing service which works exactly like Grab/Uber) will be your best friend. It can be easily linked to your international credit card or even a tourist's temporary Alipay 支付宝 which works like a refundable prepaid card (see how to apply for it at the nextr section) for convenience of payment. During our trip, we spent for about 125 RMB on DiDi for one car, mainly due to travelling between airport and city centre.



Currency and Payment Modes in China


The only currency accepted in China is their Renminbi 人民币 or at times shortened as Yuan 元. As some of you might heard before, due to the rapid technology advancement in China, a lot of merchants have moved to e-payments (even those at rural areas use WeChat Pay or Alipay). In case you are worried if they even accept cash - fret not, physical cash is still widely accepted in Beijing and Shanghai. We have no issues of using cash at all.


However, if you are worried about theft or robbery (although unlikely), or do not wish to be locked by the currency you used to exchange for Renminbi, there are a few ways we can enroll ourselves to use their e-payment services as a foreigner.


Alipay

First and foremost - download the Alipay app into your phone from your app store. Once you verified your phone number with an SMS code, the app will ask you to choose the international version when it detects you are using an international number. Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan phone numbers are however are not considered as international.


Signing up for Alipay Tourpass


Once you are in, you can see a tour pass in your account which you are free to reload any amount you like between 100 to 2,000 RMB. Tourist can reload the money multiple times, subject to a maximum cap for each 90-days trip. At your first reload, the app will ask for your passport and Chinese visa information, which you will need to take a photo and upload for verification purpose. This is where you can fill up your international card information to be linked for reload purpose. Currently, only Visa, MasterCard, Diners Club International and JCB are supported by this tour pass.


This is the personal information you'll need to provide to use Tour Pass for payments.The app will ask you to upload your a photo of your Chinese visa, which the Bank of Shanghai will use for verification of your identity.


To pay, simply use the app to scan the merchant's QR code, or let the merchant scan yours. Both methods can be found on the home screen, either "scan" or "pay". At the end of validity period of 90 days, any remaining funds in your tour pass will be refunded automatically to your bank account.


WeChat Pay

Unfortunately, WeChat Pay does not work for most of the tourist - unless you have a bank account in China, which is not easy to open unless you have legit reasons to open one in China. Therefore, I will skip this. Otherwise, the payment functions work exactly the same like Alipay (via scanning of QR codes).


Apple Pay

As there is no Apple Pay in Malaysia, as an Apple user, I just want to try it so bad. To enable it, make sure to change your region settings to "China mainland" first. You will then be able to set up your payment card information for Apple Pay in the settings. However, international card is not supported. To go about this, the transit card for Beijing and Shanghai can be used as a source - only for transit purpose.

You can refer to here: https://support.apple.com/en-bn/HT208538 for Apple's official guide on how to add it. To pay for your transit, simply tap the double click your power button which will automatically open up your virtual card without having to unlock it, and hold it near the reader to scan.



Visa requirements


Malaysians who wish to visit China will need to apply for a tourist visa. You can do it by yourself by scheduling an appointment with the embassy located in KL via here: https://www.visaforchina.org/KUL_EN/ for an interview. However to save the hassle, we decided to get a travel agent to settle for us instead with a price of RM150 per pax.


Things to prepare for your agent include:


1) 2x Passport size photo with white background + dark coloured shirt + eyebrow visible + without spectacles

2) Fill up the visa application form

3) Return flight ticket itinerary for each of the passengers


The process took us about one week, which the agent will call us up to collect our passport with our visa in it.


Upon arrival at China, the immigration will ask for your purpose of visit, and the rough itinerary of your trip (for example, I will be at Beijing for 4 days, then take a train down to Shanghai and stay for another 4 days before returning to KL). As I can speak Mandarin, I'm not sure how good is their English.



Essential apps


As you might know there are a lot of apps that we use are not used in China, which they have their own "substitute" for it. Before you leave for China, I would recommend to have the following apps in your phone:


1) Didi Chuxing 滴滴出行


di-di-messaging


As mentioned before, this is the China's version of Grab/Uber. Like how we normally say "let's Grab" in Malaysia meaning to hail a GrabCar, in China they will say "打滴" (pronounced as "da dee"). Like most ride sharing apps, Didi has several options ranging from "Express" and "Luxe". As most drivers are unable to converse fluently in English, the app itself will translate the messages automatically.



2) Baidu Maps


baidu-maps-interface


As you should have expected, Google Maps don't work in China - likely that the map information may not be accurate either. Therefore would highly recommend for you to get this app as a substitute. Something more sophisticated about the app is, you can actually pinpoint which floor exactly is one particular location on its 3D map! How cool is that?



3) Da Zhong Dian Ping 大众点评




This app will be your best friend especially if you are a foodie. It is a user-generated reviews and recommendations of dining places in China. You would be able to see what are their recommended dishes also in one particular dining place as part of the user's review. You can also browse their menu via the app itself before actually going to the restaurant.


Unfortunately, the app is currently available only in Chinese.


4) Alipay


Lastly, as previously mentioned, this app would come in handy for any e-payments you need during your trip!



Summary of expenses (per pax)

Flight - RM 1,356

Pocket Wifi - RM 67.50 (RM135 for 3GB per day shared by two)

Accommodation - RM 734.76

Beijing Metro - 42 RMB (~RM24.99)

Shanghai Metro - 60 RMB (~RM35.70)

Sleeper train - RM340

Grab to KLIA - RM65

DiDi - 62 RMB (~RM18.58)

Visa - RM150


Attractions

Shanghai Disneyland - RM109 (buy 1 free 1 via KLOOK)

Day trip to Mutianyu Great Wall - RM71 (via KLOOK)

Great Wall Luge - 60 RMB (~RM17.85)

Great Wall Cable Car - 60 RMB (~RM17.85)

Forbidden City - RM23 (via KLOOK)

Summer Palace - 20 RMB (~RM11.90)

Yuyuan Garden - 30 RMB (~RM17.85)


TOTAL -- RM 3,155.25 excl F&B and shopping





With all the above, I believe you would be ready to conquer Beijing and Shanghai now. Stay tuned for my detailed write-up for my trip experience in China!

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