FIRST VISIT
China on the ground: what to set up before you arrive
Trips to China go wrong on small things — a payment that will not go through, a data plan that never activated, a station that wants a passport you left at the hotel. This page is the set-up, in the order it matters, for a first visit.
Set up payments before you fly. Card-only is not enough; daily spending runs through phone wallets that need to be working on day one.
Your passport is your ID everywhere. Hotels, trains, stations and museum bookings all want it, and most bookings are real-name.
None of this is medical. Nothing here touches your treatment — what you do around it comes from your written aftercare instructions.
MONEY
Paying for things
Cash and cards still work. They are just not what most small transactions run on, and being unprepared for that is the most common first-day problem visitors hit.
Phone wallets first
Alipay and WeChat Pay are how most of the country pays — shops, taxis, restaurants, ticket machines. Both now accept international cards. Install and test one of them at home, where you can fix a failed verification in your own language.
Cards still have a place
Hotels, department stores and larger restaurants take international cards without difficulty. It is the small, cheap, everyday purchases where a card is least useful — and those are the ones you make most often.
Keep some cash
A small amount of cash covers the counter that only takes cash, the stall that has no terminal, and the moment your phone is out of battery. Take more than you think you will need for one day.
Tell your bank
Travel notifications exist for a reason: a first foreign transaction from an unexpected country is exactly the pattern fraud systems block. Do it before you leave, not from an airport queue.
DATA
Getting online
Do not arrive planning to sort connectivity out later. Maps, translation, taxi hailing and payment all assume you are online.
Arrange data before you land
A travel data plan bought before departure, or a SIM from the airport counter, avoids the first hour without maps. Roaming on your home operator usually works and is usually the most expensive option.
Wi-Fi is everywhere, and not sufficient
Hotels, cafés and malls all offer it. It does not help you in a taxi, at a station entrance, or when you are trying to find the building you are standing outside.
Some services will not load
A number of international websites and apps are not reachable on networks in mainland China. If a specific service matters to your trip — a messaging app, a bank, an airline portal — arrange an alternative before you fly rather than discovering it at midnight.
Assume nothing is private to you
Hotel Wi-Fi and public networks are public networks. Whatever you would not do on an airport hotspot, do not do here — and keep your clinic documents in a place only you can open.
GETTING AROUND
Moving within and between cities
Your clinic-day transfers are arranged for you. This is the rest of the movement.
Metro
Cheap, air-conditioned and signed in English. Station entrances have security screening, so allow a few more minutes than the journey time suggests.
Taxis and ride-hailing
Ride-hailing and taxi apps are the practical option for door-to-door trips. Have your destination written in Chinese — showing a screen beats pronouncing an address.
High-speed rail
The way to move between cities. Tickets are real-name and bought against your passport, and stations run airport-style security and ticket checks, so arriving early is not over-cautious.
Shanghai as an add-on
Shanghai is about an hour and a quarter from Nanjing by high-speed rail, which makes a day either side of your appointment entirely realistic — if your plan has the days for it.
Domestic flights
Worth it for distance, rarely worth it for anything under three hours by rail once you count getting to and from airports. Book against your passport, as with trains.
Walking
The most underrated option. Chinese cities are built at pedestrian scale around their centres, and the interesting part of an evening is usually found on foot rather than from a car window.
LANGUAGE
How much English to expect
More than visitors expect in the places built for visitors, less the moment you step outside them.
Where it works
Airports, international-chain hotels, major sights and larger restaurants. Signage in transport hubs is bilingual as standard.
Where it does not
Small family restaurants, neighbourhood shops, market stalls and older taxi drivers. Not hostility — simply no reason to have English.
Two things that solve most of it
Your hotel's name and address in Chinese, kept as a screenshot rather than in your head. And a translation app that handles camera input, for menus and signs.
At the clinic
Your consultation is with the physician who treats you, and the coordinator handles the practical side. Written aftercare instructions come in a language you can act on — that is a condition of the handover, not a favour.
EVERYDAY
The small differences worth knowing
None of these are problems. All of them are easier handled if you have heard of them first.
Electricity
Mains power is 220V and socket shapes are not uniform. A universal adaptor costs little and removes the question entirely.
Water
Tap water is not drunk straight. Hotels provide kettles, and bottled water is cheap and sold everywhere, including in every convenience store you pass.
Tipping
Not expected, and not part of the routine in restaurants or taxis. Good service is just service.
Carry tissues
Not every public toilet stocks paper. Everyone who lives here knows this; visitors learn it once.
Security screening
Airport-style checks precede metro and rail journeys. It is routine and fast, but it is not optional and it does add minutes.
Numbers to have
110 for police, 120 for an ambulance, 119 for fire. Save your insurer's 24-hour line and the clinic's channel alongside them before you fly.
PAPERS AND HEALTH ADMIN
What to carry, and what happens on arrival
- Passport, on your person. Hotel check-in, train tickets, museum reservations and some building entrances all ask for it. Carry the same passport you used to book and to apply.
- Copies of the important pages. A photo of your passport's details page and your entry stamp, stored separately from the passport itself, turns a bad day into an inconvenience.
- Prescription medicine in original packaging. Bring what you take, with the prescription or a physician's letter, and check before you fly that it is permitted to bring in. Do not rely on replacing it here.
- Your accommodation registers you. Hotels handle the registration that foreign visitors require. Staying somewhere without a hotel licence makes registration your own responsibility — check how it works there.
- Travel insurance that fits the trip. Whether a policy covers planned treatment abroad is a question for your insurer before you book, not a claim to make afterwards.
- Printed reservations. Museum and attraction bookings are real-name and often booked days ahead against your passport — see Nanjing between appointments for how that works in this city.
On entry and visas: that is its own page. Rules differ by passport and change without notice, and the answer that counts is your consulate's.
Where this page stops. It is travel information, not medical advice. Anything about what you should or should not do around your treatment comes from the written aftercare instructions you are given at the clinic — this page does not second-guess them.
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You pay after your in-person consultation, before treatment begins. The price we quote online is the price you pay — in writing.
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