Welcome to Suzhou — China's classical garden capital, just 25 minutes from Shanghai by HSR. The 9 UNESCO gardens here were designed by Ming-dynasty scholar-officials as 'paintings you can walk through' — every window frames a different composition. Walk the 1,000-year-old Pingjiang canal street, hear traditional Pingtan ballad music in a Song-era tea house, and visit I.M. Pei's last major project (Suzhou Museum, 2006).
Step-by-step deep dives covering the questions every foreign visitor asks before flying in.
Step-by-step 2026 guide to using Alipay in China as a foreign visitor — Tour Pass vs full Alipay, top-up tricks, daily limits, and where your foreign credit card still won't work.
Plain-English 2026 guide to China's 240-hour visa-free transit (TWOV) — who qualifies, which 60 ports accept it, what an onward ticket really means, and the mistakes that get tourists turned away at the gate.
Honest 2026 guide to staying online in China as a foreign tourist — which apps are blocked, which VPNs still work behind the Great Firewall, and why an international-roaming eSIM is the lower-stress alternative.
Google Maps in China is broken by design — your blue dot lands 500m off, transit fails, no Street View. Here's the 2026 setup with AMap, Apple Maps, and Maps.me offline.
Visa, vaccinations, VPN, Alipay, SIM, banking — the ordered 30-day timeline so you don't show up at the airport unprepared. Tested by hundreds of first-time travelers.
WeChat Pay accepts foreign Visa, Mastercard, Amex since 2024 — but should you use it instead of Alipay? Side-by-side comparison plus 5-minute setup for tourists in China.