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My parents born in China and HK got 2 year visas. But they had help from a personal friend who has connections at the consulate. Check out this site in Google Chrome for automatic translation into English: http://visa.ywpw.com/visatypes/visa_l2y.html
For milk, we buy imported New Zealand milk powder on TaoBao:
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=9653183639
Ends up being cheaper than buying fresh milk obviously and tastes pretty good when you use a blender. Plus its imported so we feel safe.
When you get here read up on http://taobaofieldguide.com/ to figure out TaoBao. You can buy almost anything online on Taobao.
We bought a very nice Midea brand water filter from a local Guomei appliance store (which are everywhere). They sent a guy to install it under our sink. We always have a supply of super clean water on a secondary tap on our kitchen sink. Very convenient and better tasting than bottled water. Every 6 months they send a technician to assess whether the filter cartridges need to be swapped out for new ones.
Be sure to take Sascha’s advice on children’s tylenol. Can’t get that here. They don’t believe in it.
From what I hear, if you want to make friends with locals, don’t move to the upscale Tongzilin neighborhood.
This thread prompted me to sign up for an account. It wasn’t too hard using the Perapera Chinese plug-in on the Firefox browser which translates any character shown in a tooltip.
Signing up with a VPN didn’t require any person ID number.
As far as I can remember, being that your wife was born in China, she could get a 2 year visa. But you and your kids are another matter. Make sure to get marriage and birth certificates (for your children) translated into Chinese and authenticated by the Chinese consulate in SF plus whatever is the “state department” for California (perhaps the Lt. Gov’s office). When you get a job, your new employer will handle getting you a work visa. Then your children can fall under that and get matching tourist visas (I believe).
Preschools are jam packed with kids and may require registration at least one year in advance to get in.
Most expensive apple I’ve seen in Chengdu at the Raffles City supermarket, Treat.
To be fair though, everything else seemed only just a little more expensive than Carrefour. But I’d definitely buy this Tiramisu cake for a party for 108 kuai; way cheaper than Ganso, I think.
Lots of foreign food stuff in there. Treat is a large supermarket. The mall is great, too, and a fairly nice crowd of people; not dead empty like lots of other upscale malls in town.
Hope you like A’Re!
Yak and Pickled Carrots – very tasty
This chicken dish looks just normal but it was AMAZING!
This meat pie was a bit bland but when you combine it with their hot sauce it was out of this world.
My friend’s favorite dish here is 牛肉盖饼. I have to try that next. I tried it today at another restaurant and its kinda like beef fajitas.
I just had the best meal I ever had in Chengdu a few days ago in a Tibetan restaurant across the street from the entrance to the Wuhouci park next to Jinli Street. It’s called 阿热藏餐吧 A’Re Tibetan Restaurant.
I run here and thankfully I haven’t gotten any respiratory problems so far because of it.
I would advise running early in the morning (i.e., 5-7am) when it is cooler and the streets aren’t clogged with people.
I’ve been thinking of buying one of these to go running even if I might look like an alien from out of space. http://totobobochina.taobao.com/
Sasha, that’s amazing that you heard about this via friends in Hawaii and you posted it here! Sorry to say that the residents of the apartment have already found sitters for their house. Thanks for your interest.
Just discovered the 8th floor food court at the Far East department store just to the south side of Tianfu Square. It’s got a pretty good free wifi signal, nice big tables and a very clean environment. Awesome view of the square. Don’t see any power outlets but if you have a full charge on your laptop could be a nice place for 4 hours.
I think he gave me 70 kuai because my office mate who has used him a lot called for me. With Tan shift, he goes by Xiao Cheng. I just told him I’m Xiao Cheng de pengyou.
Truman
I don’t think Tang speaks English. You could call and ask him if he could stand by the exit with a placard. If you use Tang shift, please let me know how it goes. I hear he has a pretty old minivan, but its clean. One good thing is that it seems that he speaks pretty standard Mandarin rather than Chengdu-hua.
There’s a mini-van driver I’d been using for over a year named Yang Bing (13658058464) for airport pickups and Panda park runs. But he’s increased his airport pickup fee to 120 kuai. So I found another guy, Tang 师父 (13438867795), who will still do an airport pickup for 70 kuai. Hope it goes well with Mr. Tang.
It’s nice to have a driver with a van to do airport pickups when you’re getting more than one person. There’s more luggage and can be hard to fit everyone and the luggage in a single taxi cab. Plus its nice to not have to wait in the taxi line.
I’ve also used another Mr. Wang before (13018228136) who has a nice comfortable sedan.
I’d still call Yang Bing though to take visitors to see the variety show. He got me good seats and provides a ride for free. http://trudat.info/2011/04/fu-rong-guo-cui-chengdu-variety-show/
Wow, I found it! Baidu map
I’m out there sometimes. I’ll check it out. Thanks.
According to Google, it’s called Yafeila – Namashidi. Ate there with an Indian medical student who said it doesn’t taste like Indian food in India. Their cooks are all Chinese. When she applied for a job there as a cook, they didn’t want her because her cooking would be too Indian! But as I’m not Indian, I couldn’t tell the difference. I think she said the food was more spiced with black pepper than she’s used to. That being said, the decor was nice, service was fine and food was pretty good.
I agree with Ray, Cacaja is better deal and food is good. Just don’t get the lamb kedai.
I like Cacaja. Here it is on a map.
Anyone want to help me map out the wifi hangouts in Chengdu? Here’s my first one:
Hi guys, our next meet up will be next week Tuesday night 7pm.
Chengdu Cloud Club
Topic: Javascript Primer
Interested in enhancing your web sites and web apps with Javascript? Come to a short presentation on using Javascript frameworks (with MooTools as an example), a few great Javascript plugins, best practices for keeping Javascript from slowing down page loads and examples of how you can start writing your own Javascript.
For directions and to register go to:
Over the last few months, I’ve gotten to know Mr. Yuhong Wu, of the Sichuan XingYuan Law Firm (四川兴远律师事务所), who is fluent in English. He worked as a software engineer in the U.S. before becoming an attorney, licensed both in the U.S. and in China.
He did a presentation for the Chengdu Cloud Club on Internet Law in China. Check out the mp3:
http://chengdu-cloud-club.s3.amazonaws.com/2011/06/internet-law-yuhong.mp3
It was an interesting talk for me as I didn’t know a lot of what he presented.
You can contact him at [email protected]
