Primary Cities covered: Shanghai
General #
Apps to install:
- Alipay
- Can pay for food, taxis, etc or even online payments.
- Didi (Chinese Uber) and Metro/Bus tickets are integrated. Don’t need their separate apps.
- Indian credit cards work.
- May trigger fraud alert on Alipay side. If so, they may ask you to send a photo of your credit card (with some part of number hidden) etc.
- Change iPhone account region to some country other than India to be able to install from app store. For Android, can install apk from internet.
- Can switch back to India region after installation.
- WeChat (Not preferred since it needs someone to invite you)
- Baidu maps. Google maps are not that good (even if you make them work with vpn). Apple maps are passable if you can’t understand Baidu maps.
Transportation #
- Airport to city taxi can be tricky
- Easy to get Didi, but they may not be able to find you where you are at the airport, and hard to communicate since they only speak chinese.
- Local taxi drivers will try to rip you off
- Best to book a hotel shuttle or from klook etc
- Otherwise didi is easy to book in the city, or from city to airport
- Metro is easy to use and cheap
Food #
- Vegetarian food is not that common in Shanghai, but look for Buddhist restaurants or vegan restaurants.
Shopping #
- Very few people shop offline in Shanghai and everybody orders from TaoBao
- Hard for foreigners to buy from taobao. May need help from a local.
Attractions #
Visa / Paperwork #
- Need to physically visit Mumbai VFS to get visa.
Data / Phone #
- Physical sim available at the airport.
- Google etc and most non-china sites/apps dont work on this until you connect a vpn
- Google and all other non-china sites/apps will work on your roaming pack on home country sim
- Can buy a HK sim/eSim as well to use locally which also works for google etc.
Money #
- Alipay is used everywhere. Not much cash needed but keep some for emergency if it doesn’t work.
- Credit card usage is not that common