Warning–Be Careful Changing Money at the Beijing Airport

On my recent trip to Beijing in October 2008, I needed to change a small amount of money at the airport in order to pay for transportation into town to my hotel. This was my first time changing money at the airport, so I didn’t want to change a large amount of money as I was wary of the exchange rates. As it turns out, I was right to be wary as not only was the exchange rate considerably lower than that offered at my hotel and at the local banks (6.65 versus 6.75) but I was charged a flat 50 yuan fee to change money–a fact I only realized considerably after the fact as I was befuddled from my long airplane journey. As I had only changed $20 USD, I should have received 133 yuan even at the poor exchange rate of 6.65. However, I only got 83 yuan back–an effective exchange rate of 4.15 RMD to 1 USD. Once I realized what had happened, I was far past the currency exchange booth and it was too late to go back. On my return journey to the airport, I saw a similar currency exchange booth. This one had a reasonably prominent sign stating that a 60 yuan fee (even more than the 50 yuan I had paid) was charged for all currency transactions. Perhaps the place where I had so disastrously changed money had also had a sign, but I was too sleep-deprived to see it. At any rate, be cautious when changing money at the airport. ATMs may be a much better way to go.

Beijing Subway - an Update

The Yikatong, or One Card Pass
Upon arrival in Beijing, in October of 2008, I decided to purchase a subway pass, called Yikatong, or one card pass, in Mandarin, to make my subway journeys more convenient.

A Yikatong costs 40 yuan upfront–20 yuan of which is stored subway ticket credit (the equivalent of of 10 one way trips) and 20 yuan of which is a deposit. (I had read that you were supposed to be able to get the 20 yuan deposit back if you turned the card back in, but the lady I bought mine from did not think this was the case.) At any rate, once you have purchased a yikatong, you can add credit to it in 10 yuan (or 5 trip) increments. It is definitely a time savings to use a yikatong, rather than purchasing a one way ticket each time. However, one complaint about the yikatong is that it doesn’t have a map of the subway system on it, as the regular one-use subway tickets do. In fact, as far as I could tell, there are no paper subway maps available at the subway stations at all–just the large maps painted on the walls.

If you are going to be using the Beijing subway system, I would recommend printing out one of the maps available on the internet–I found some quite good ones available at the following links

Metro Map of Beijing (English (PinYin) and Chinese)

Another Beijing Subway Map (English Only)