I am back from Beijing and a few days of not being able to blog left me tremendous amount of work. Updating nine blogs is not exactly a walk in the park so I probably will skip some of them. I got sick for a few days too so that made it more difficult. It must have been the terrible smog in Beijing that gave me a terrible nasal and throat irritation.

For those of you who are planning to visit China, here are some of the things you need to bring other than your camera and things that are normally in your luggage.

A little pocket dictionary: I don’t know how much this is going to help you but just expect the worst. Think that not a lot of Chinese can speak English. If you are going to big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, you probably won’t need it unless you’ll drive with the taxi.

Medicine: In China, there are all sorts of medicines for all sort of sickness but you can never know if you are buying the right one because 99% of the medicines in pharmacies have Chinese names and the dosage instructions are in Chinese too.

Ointment with Eucalyptus or Mint smell: You’ll probably want to dab this on a small part above your upper lip every now and then. Why? Let’s just say… this smells a lot better.

Once, you have these you should be ok. Now, when you arrive there are some things you have to be careful about. China is a shopping haven because every thing comes in a cheaper price especially if you have nothing against fakery. You’ll find just about anything from Old Navy to Chanel. But be careful because they also fake money here. Check the money they give you (change from taxi drivers and vendors) if these are real bank notes just to make sure that it’s real even if the person handling it out to you seems to be the most trustworthy person on earth.