Good to know for China

In planning our trip to china, I've found some very helpful sites that has made the process much easier..

Flights booked at Best Travel Store (http://bt-store.com). Pros: better rates than travelocity and orbitz. Hotwire doesn't even support asia travel. Boooo.... Cons: Must say that the Best Travel store needs to hook up some sort of paypal functionality. Currently the process of reserving a flight is a little grueling. You have to fax in your credit card number and personal information. How 1990's is that?

Hotels.com (http://hotels.com) actually had the best variety of hotels in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Beijing, though it was a little hard to figure out where the hotel was located without using a map to figure things out. They should support a map finder of some sort.. just to give us foreigners some perspective. Amenities and photos make this site super useful as well.

We booked our flight on ANA (All Nippon Airways) which has the nicest customer service one can find in the flight business.

For Visa applications if you are from the Bay Area, there's a local chinese consulate that can handle everything.. Their hours are a bit on the skim side.

And of course the trusty currency converter.

Travel tips.