The Geeky Asian Guy Blog

Here I am in a spiffy hotel in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province.

If you are a geek, and you are planning a trip to the PRC, here are some random travel tips, in no particular order:

1. In order to get through airport security in both the US and in the PRC, you’re going to have to take your notebook computer out and have it x-rayed separately at least 3-4 times.  Do yourself a favor, and make sure that all of your notebook computers are easily accessible, and can be returned to safety with a minimum of repacking.
2. X-rays haven’t seemed to have harmed the data on my hard drive, but you would be well advised to keep copies of important data on some other form of storage (like a CD, memory stick, etc.).
3. Travel adapters are, by and large, worthless.  (You might want to keep that in mind at Christmas time, and while browsing at Brookstone.)  It turns out that the ones my wife bought at Target have prongs that are too fat to fit into the wall outlets at the hotel.  In any event, the adapters were unnecessary, because the hotel provided us with an adapter that works just fine.  Also, you can plug a two-prong outlet directly into the wall, without any adapter.
4. Further to the above — adapters are not converters!  Make sure that whatever you plug in is rated for voltages up to at least 220V.  (Look for some printing on the device that says 110V-240V, or something like that.)  Almost all chargers for notebooks, PDAs, etc., don’t require a converter, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!
5. If you really need 110V, you’re going to have to buy a converter, and bring it with you.
6. A lot of hotels in China provide wired internet — they will provide an ethernet cable for you, so you don’t have to bring one.
7. You don’t have to bring a router — assuming you have at least one notebook with both an ethernet network card and wireless, you can convert that notebook into a wireless router by building an “ad hoc” network.
8. Skype rocks!  I’ve been calling folks back in the US for 3 cents a minute.  (Be sure to bring a headset with you.)
9. Some sites are blocked, including YouTube (sigh!).  You can get around this, by using a virtual private network (VPN), but so far I haven’t bothered.
10. A lot of people are going to be amused if you look Asian but can’t speak Chinese.  (Often, they will assume that you are Korean.)

More later!