Arriving in Beijing

Before arriving to China you should print out the address of the place you will need to go in English and in Chinese, you can then give this to the taxi driver when you arrive at Beijing aiport. It is quite simple to get from the airport and should cost about 150 RMB and take about 1 hour, depending on traffic.

The first thing you will need to do is to get your accommodation sorted. There is some advice on accommodation here. Below is also some information about getting your phone working, and banking.

Phone

One of the first things you will need to do when you arrive in Beijing is to get a phone sorted:

You can buy a Chinese sim card from a China Mobile or China Unicom store, or from the many small street huts (also selling drinks, magazines and snacks). To add credit to your phone you can buy prepaid cards for 50 and 100 RMB from these huts. To top-up your phone just dial the number and scratch off the back of the card.

Banking

The main banks are: Bank of China, ICBC and China Construction Bank.
To open a bank account you can go to the branch with your passport to fill out some forms and the whole process should take about 20-30 minutes. Some of the major banks have English language service, but it might be easier to bring a Chinese speaking friend to help set it up.any banks also have internet banking which you can also set up when you open the account, ICBC is known as having the best English internet banking in China