What to expect on your first day in China.
China Phone Card
It is highly recommended to buy a Chinese phone card for everyone. 12306 (for train tickets), DDT (for taxi apps), Meituan and Dianping (for takeout) and various small programs all require a local Chinese phone number for verification.
If you don’t have a domestic phone card buy a short-term one, foreigners buy it with their passports and Chinese with their ID cards.
We entered Shanghai from Pudong Airport and bought a 30-day phone card for 230 RMB. I don’t know how much traffic we got, but it was definitely enough.
Hotel Check-in
When you arrive at the hotel, you need to check in with your ID card and passport, you need to take a picture for the camera, and you need to make a photocopy of your passport page and visa page.
Foreigners don’t need to go to the Public Security Bureau to check in the hotel.
Translation Software
Although you are the translator most of the time, there will be times when you are separated and the foreigners will find that the “How are you” and “Thank you” that you learned before you left are not useful at all.
We used Microsoft translator, after selecting the voice, the app will automatically recognize whether it is in Mandarin or English, and you can type, speak or take a picture.
Although occasionally the homophones will turn out to be wrong, but most of the conversation is still quite accurate, my crooked people use this app to go to the barber store to get a haircut, and at the same time I realized the freedom of sleeping ✌️
Alipay Binding Foreign Bank Cards
Although I exchanged RMB on Alipay before I left, and most of my spending intends to go from there, it is still highly recommended for foreigners to download Alipay to bind foreign bank cards, the specific operation is not complicated, and there are notes on the Little Red Book.
In addition to the freedom of code and payment, it is more important to use Alipay’s Transport function to take the bus and subway.
Alipay will automatically switch cities and suggest relevant bus cards based on your location, open it and you can use it.
Some bus cards can only take the bus, some buses and subways can ride, get on the bus or enter the station when scanning the QR code (QR code), it is very convenient.
⚠️ bind foreign bank card after using Alipay payment will go to Alipay’s exchange rate, a certain amount of money above the commission, can not be transferred but most of the consumer payment is no problem.
