Power Adaption – Solved

I was chatting with my mate Paul earlier this year about the power adaption issue and we came up with a neat (but in hindsight obvious) idea – rather than taking 2 plug adapters for 2 devices, take a power board, or double-adapter, that way if you are visiting multiple countries with different adapters you only need 1 plug adapter for each place.

I decided to take 2 double adapters, on my RTW trip – they are smaller than a power board, and can be used in a 2x or 3x capacity (generally I just need one in the 2x), in China which has Australian points everwhere, they are useful just on their own as well.

Milk Jug – Canadian style

This is a sweet invention.  It’s a milk jug that you don’t have to wash out every day, or worry about the contents expiring without your knowledge.  Plus you save the environment by reducing wasteful packaging.

Instead of buying milk in cartons, Canadians can buy it in bags.  These bags fit conveniently into stylish plastic milk jugs, all you do is cut the corner and pour.

If I ever have to create a society – this is how you will drink milk.  And there will be lots of lotte pies.

Update: “milk bags” are also everywhere in South America, though I never saw this type of jug being used or sold. The jug really makes the whole concept IMHO.

RTW Ticket Changes

Changed my second flight today, going to get the hell out of Denver. Would have been nice to stayed for some snow – but would be better enjoyed with a friend I think.

Changing the ticket was a real pain this time – Air China could not help and bounced me around the world for a while. But I learnt the easiest way to work it:

- Ring the Carrier who the flight is with
- Wait until the flight you want to change is your next flight, it just makes it all easier when they bring it up on the system

Given this, to anyone booking a RTW ticket, and planning to do date changes, I would highly recommend booking things for dates too far in the future than the other way round – because then you can at least bring them forward one by one as you need them, rather than doing a massive juggle which I am VERY thankful I have not had to do. And maybe it is easier not booking 16 flights either…

China Mobile – the definitive guide

Here’s some really useful information I wish I knew from the start.  Most of it was rather painfully obtained, through trial and error (lots of errors).

• Firstly, the English support is really good.  Ring 12580 [NB: I was told today that the correct line for changing plan details is 10086].  The automatic menu may not be, but the people are.  Use it!  It’s far better than getting a chinese speaker to ask the questions for you, and then translating for you – unless they are *really* good at english.  Telecommunications lingo isn’t exactly the first thing they teach in english class.

Plans and Expiry

• When you walk into a shop and get a SIM card, you are put on a prepaid plan.
• You may be told “your number will not expire so long as there is money on the account”
• This is true.  Sort of.  What I didn’t know is that China Mobile will deduct money from your account every month as a monthly-fee.  So if you want to keep your number alive for when you return – make sure there’s enough yuan in the account to pay the monthly fees until you return.
• Also, there are expiry dates – I think it’s half a year for a 100 yuan card, up to a maximum of a year or something.
• I think it would be possible to recharge from abroad (if you already have a prepaid card), and you could certainly ask a local to do it for you.  There are some websites offering this service, but they all seem a tad dodge.
• If your credit is exhausted, I believe you get 90 days to recharge before the number is recycled.

Data

• Data rates China Mobile without a plan is 0.01 yuan per KB.  0.01 yuan is almost nothing.  But so is 1 KB.  That’s actually 10 yuan per MB – which is expensive.
• You can subscribe to a data plan.  20 yuan gives you 150MB, 50 yuan gives you 500MB.
• The data plans are activated on the first day of the month – so if you want a plan you must ring BEFORE the first of the month to set it up, then wait (so potentially you could do this before arriving in china)
• Actually, the plan is activated on the second day of the month.  Yeah it’s bizarre – everyone told me the first of the month.  But the money is deducted at midnight in the morning of the 2nd, and that’s when your data plan is active – don’t use it on the 1st or you will still be paying 10yuan per MB.  Go figure.
• To setup data access on an iPhone, go into Settings -> Network -> Cellular Data.  Set the APN to cmnet. Leave the username and password blank.  Your iPhone must be unlocked to see this option.
• If you want data on your iPhone – don’t go with China Unicom.  I could not get them to work with my SIM.  Go with China Mobile instead.
• What I plan to do is call China Mobile from abroad a month before arriving next time to set this up so I have data when I arrive.  Yeah… I’m a geek.
• There is no 3G access in China

Rates

• To call an international number, use the IP dialing, it’s way cheaper.  Just a little above SkypeOut for AU mobile calls.
• Dial 12593 then your four digit country code, e.g. 0061, then the number
• The guy on the phone said to “punch in the code” every time, and not save it to the address book or else it may use the standard, non-IP (read: expensive) dialing.  I’m not sure if he’s right but I’m not game to test it.
• Apparently this incurs a 5 yuan per month service fee
• Rates on the IP line is 1.5 yuan per minute.
• Intra-China rates are rock-bottom.  0.1 yuan per minute.  0.1 yuan per SMS.  If only every mobile carrier was that cheap!

SMS Commands

• You can SMS certain commands to 10086
• YE is ‘balance inquiry’
• CZ <recharge pin> is ‘recharge with this pin’  (only works if you have a positive balance)

Recharging over the Phone

• dial 13800138000
• 2  [for english]
• 2 [to recharge]
• 1# [to recharge current mobile]
• 1 [to confirm]
• enter PIN
• # [to end]
• All done…
• more info

If this was useful for you, perhaps you might like to buy my iPhone App – GPS Log ;-)

Air China – RTW Ticket Rebooking – Easy!

I have a mega RTW Start Alliance (*A) ticket, ticketed on Air China Paper. I picked Air China because:

• You must be ticketed with a carrier who flies your first leg – sucks, because UA has cheaper taxes which would have made the ticket about a grand cheaper
• Air China allow free date changes, as does UA (but I couldn’t pick them). Air New Zealand does not – they charge NZ$50. As I have 16 flights, and plan to change 14 of them – I don’t really want to pay $50 a pop.

I was a little worried the ticket change process would be a pain – however it is easy. I just called the Melbourne office (at least I know they can speak English!), and put through the change.  And I picked a more civilized departure time to boot.

So I’m going to max out my visa, and stay in china a massive 1 extra day!  woot.  Still, it was a good dry run of the rebooking system – now I am not worried for the remaining 13 rebookings that I will have to do.

The final say: L Visa extensions in China

Here is a current (as of now) take on Visa extensions in China (specifically, Shanghai PSD) – what the other websites and the phone help doesn’t tell you (maybe they don’t know)…  This cost me 3 hours of my life to learn so maybe do me a favour and download my iPhone App: GPS Log if you find this useful information ;-)

• I was trying to extend a Tourist ‘L” visa.  These extensions are for 30 days (I think you can get up to 2)
• A visa extension is actually a NEW visa. It replaces your old visa, and you need to fill in a new visa form.  I believe this would be a zero entry visa (i.e. exit only).  I read many websites about extensions – and none mentioned this, I have no idea why.
• So it’s not really an “extension”.  Sucks if you have a good visa (like my Multi-Entry) which you don’t want to lose (bottom line from the PSD man: leave and re-enter the country to refresh).
• You need 2 passport photos, and a copy of your temporary residency registration.  This is the registration form that your hotel filled out when you signed-in, so get a copy.  If they can’t provide one you can register at any police station, and get a copy from them.
• I had to wait over an hour at the PSB – then after waiting for this time with my queue-ticket – all of a sudden everyone rushed and formed lines at the individual counters.  There was no announcement in English.  It seems after a certain time (maybe at the end of the day) this happens – I think it was about 4pm, so if you see everyone get up and run, do the same!  Your queue ticket is worthless at this point, you could have rocked up that minute (if you know when it happens – I would recommend it, hang around the counter and jump the queue!).

To save all this hassle – extensions, re-entry or whatever, I suggest if you apply for a Multi-entry VISA, go for the 90 day limit – I wish I had.  If you’re just getting a single-entry visa this might be harder because of the proof you have to show – but then with a single entry visa you can renew it OK (you just have to waste an afternoon).

I wish I could have read this blog post this morning!  Hopefully I’ve helped someone out.

GPS Log – the premier location tagging App for the iPhone 3G

Announcing GPS Log, a location logging, and tagging tool for the iPhone which lets you record the places you visit, complete with text, photos and tags – then enables you to revisit those locations later through the Maps app, and export all your data for viewing in Google Earth.

Check out all the details and videos at http://GPSLogApp.com

If you are interested, there is a free try-before-you-buy version (linked on that website), so give it a whirl and see if you like it!

If you do use it, please give me your honest feedback directly, or via the forums.

China Mobile Recharge in English

This guy has some useful tips on recharging – he’s right the english menu is not very clear at all.  I have had similar experiances with the kind shop ladies recharging for me – lol, it’s nice to be self sufficient.  Stay tuned for some more China Mobile tips.

1. dial 13800138000
2. 2  [for english]
3. 2 [to recharge]
4. 1# [to recharge current mobile]
5. 1 [to confirm]
6. enter PIN
7. # [to end]
8. All done…

‘Jeff’ has some useful tips (note: these only work if your account actually has credit)

There is a much easier way by utilizing SMS(text message). After obtaining the recharge PIN number, simply send a text message “CZ PIN number” to 10086. If done correctly, you will receive several replies from China mobile in Chinese. CZ is short for “Chu Zhi”, which means “recharge” in Chinese. You can also send “YE” to 10086 to check for your remaining balance. As “Yu Er” is “leftover balance” in Chinese. Hope this helps.

PS.  a travel related post!  and you thought this was an iPhone blog :P

New Life, New Theme

To celebrate the lunching of my ‘roll-your-own’ round-the-world working holiday, I present to you, my highly esteemed reader, a newer, bluer theme for Omega Delta.

The city in the photo is Hong Kong, taken last year just before the Olympics.

So far it has been great. It’s a little hard to concentrate on my paid work with a city and it’s culture to explore – and when I am working, my own projects – but I’m getting there. No choice really if I want to have fun in America.

Vodafone Epic FAIL

Vodafone’s global roaming isn’t global… >:(

yep it’s not.

So I was planning to blog about Vodafone and how awesome they are being the only Australian company to offer global roaming with Pre-Paid – alleviating the need to pay $29 a month for a plan when you can’t even use the credit (because it only applies to non-global roaming and you are out of the country).

Instead I am blogging about how crap they are.  Little did I realise – and no information on the website or at the shop led me to believe otherwise that Vodafone’s prepaid Global Roaming isn’t quite Global.  And it’s not like I hid the fact I wanted Global Roaming – I got the guy to set it up when I bought the SIM.

Japan and China are two countries for example that do not work on the pre-paid roaming (note this distinction ‘pre-paid roaming’ – Vodafone do NOT use that distinction anywhere…).  Hey that’s OK – who would want to go to China or Japan anyway…?   :-S

My next step while on the phone to Vodafone was to then find out if I can change my plan to one that offers truly global roaming.  Oh of course you have to go INTO A SHOP.  And it must be an AUSTRALIAN shop.  GEE maybe I DID that last week, trying to get everything set up like the good little traveller I am.

OMFG.  So I asked if I could log a complaint, which I did.  And they lady said they would call me to discuss it.

call me

on my vodafone

which does not work in China

wow

they really are smart

… NO CARRIER