The cleanest place I have visited in Asia
A cool thing about China is that most nationalities can get a free 24 - 72 hour visa in center cities.
Before I went to China people told me the craziest stories and the US media didn’t help either. With this in my mind, the first two hours of my stay were very scary. I took a taxi from the airport to my hostel, and the cab driver was taking photos of me and sending them to his friends. At that moment I thought I was going to die but through out my travels in Asia many people have stopped me to take photos. This is because westerners aren’t always that common, depending on where you are. After arriving at my hostel and meeting some fantastic people I was final able to experience the culture without worrying more than normal when traveling. The people were so friendly and incredibly warm. I recommend you to give it a shoot because it isn’t as scary as people make it out to be.
Things to remember
Not all airports have free wifi for foreigners so make sure you have all your logging information before you land.
China censor the Internet this includes web browsers, WhatsApp, socials, etc.
Apps to download before
DIDI - Chinese Uber, they now have it in English and it just makes it easier but there are a lot of taxes.
WeChat - Is like Kakkao talk (Korean) or Whatsapp.
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These work all over the world
Maps.me - Offline maps or Google maps if you are more conferrable downloading maps from there.
Tripit - To keep track of you trip but also to look at safety rating in the area you are staying.
Based on other Asian cities, I was expecting trash piled high in the streets and for my accommodations to be discussing. In reality though, it was spotless.