June 19, 2010 | Filed Under Wifi Around China | No Comments
Last time this blog did a Wifi Around China post, Starbucks got hammered for what turned out to be sub-optimal wifi at the Beijing Capital Times Square outlet in Xidan. The wifi network there was without passwords. And from that moment on, we’ve learned to distrust or at least be very suspicious of Starbucks outlets with wifi networks without passwords. (Could be that folks next door are stealing the signal.)
Well, it looks like the Starbucks on the eastern side of town — on Ritan Road just east of Jianguomen — has no such fault.
The Starbucks on Ritan Road lies in the middle of Beijing’s more diplomatic-and-commercial territories (which doesn’t say a lot, we admit). It faces the international-esque International Club (pardon the pun if you will), which in the early 1980s was expat heaven. (Now expats are allowed in just about every last place in the Jing. How times have changed.)
In a config seen again at the Pinnacle Plaza in Shunyi and the Xuanwumen Junefield SOGO, this Starbucks is right next to a SUBWAY sandwich shop. (Why are these two “in love”? Please don’t give your tech blogger the Tuna Sandwich Connection as a reason — both offer you the delicacy, by the way.)
Wifi here is relatively fast and is VPN-friendly, and the best time to come is during evenings. Your blogger’s in here sometimes — and has been here on two Saturday evenings. It’s pretty quiet especially this time of the day, and the not-too-loud background music playing non-cliché pop/rock music makes it a somewhat pleasant environment to get some work done.
The only fault we could find was with the iPhone 3G checking into Gowalla (sans VPN) — it didn’t work that well over wifi. With wifi off on the iPhone, though, it was better. Also a note here for 3G people on China Unicom’s 3G service — you don’t get a full signal. (Then again, China Unicom was never known for an always-on full signal…)
Tested: 20:30, June 13, 2010 with a 15-inch MacBook Pro and iPhone 3G
Wifi: Free; no password needed
Signal: Good all-round
VPN support: Good support
Transit links: Subway Lines 1 or 2 to Jianguomen; exit B. Head left at the exit and continue straight for about 5 minutes or so, then turn left at traffic lights. Starbucks is to your right.
Starbucks Ritan Road
Ritan Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China
June 13, 2010 | Filed Under Wifi Around China | No Comments
The Starbucks inside Capital Times Square is minimalist, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Just inside the back entrance of the Beijing Capital Times Square is this Starbucks, which apparently manages to place itself in harmony with this huge escalator that nearly splits the thing into two.
Were it not for the fact that the back entrance (closer by a hutong instead of the massive Chang’an Avenue) were not a semi-indoors thing, you can actually come real close to nature. Its massive windows are a delight — your tech blogger actually spent close to a year working at a city museum where the amount of light in the museum offices was close to jailhouse standards. No surprise, then, that this Starbucks wins in terms of prime position and in terms of a good aura.
Sadly, this Starbucks is a mere flower vase, wifi-wise. There’s no password to get you online, but that means that others encroach on the freedom as well. Getting a VPN to work on the network is impossible (you have to help yourself to other wifi hotspots nearby — offer good only as long as it’s valid!) or you have to get yourself a China Netcom card, which can easily suck out a whole day’s work for just an hour online. (Talk about “serving the people”!) Even without resorting to reading “reactionary propaganda” in officialspeak (by using a VPN, for instance), getting online and getting some real work done is an exercise in futility.
Tested: 19:45, June 13, 2010 with a 15-inch MacBook Pro
Wifi: Free; no password needed
Signal: Good signal; poor Internet access
VPN support: Poor
Transit links: Subway Lines 1 or 4 to Xidan; exit at Line 1 exit E or Line 4 exit G closest. Line 1 riders can head straight into the Capital Times Square using an all-underground passageway; Line 4 users must first interchange to Line 1.
Starbucks Capital Times Square
Ground (1st) floor
Off Chang’an Avenue and Xuanwumen Inner Street; Xicheng, Beijing, China
June 9, 2010 | Filed Under Wifi Around China | No Comments
This was one of the first Starbucks your blogger noticed outside central Beijing. Shunyi is Shunyi — you know, that bit with the big airport in the Jing — until you realize that it’s also home to loads of expats as well. (By the way, the airport is supposed to belong to Chaoyang District. Strictly speaking. Trust us…)
Shunyi is a funny mix of three different parts: the airport (which, again, is — strictly speaking — supposed to belong to Chaoyang); old Shunyi; and new Shunyi, as in, the Shunyi New City. Oh and we — once again — forgot the fourth bit, right next to China National Highways 101 and 111, and within striking distance of the airport.
Expats live in this bit of Shunyi which is close to Beijing Airport. Incredibly enough, they’re spared of the aural cacophony of the planes taking off or landing, despite being just miles from PEK. In this part of town, there’s a huge bit of Shunyi known as Pinnacle Plaza, which is basically full of fast food joints — Subway, Domino’s Pizza — and a Starbucks. (If you’re more for Costa Coffee, try Euro Plaza, basically a stone’s throw from Pinnacle Plaza.)
The Starbucks in this bit of town is a bit on the huge side. It’s often full of people during the day time, but come into the place around evening time on a Monday evening and it’s incredibly devoid of people. Along with the offer from the baristas to convert your “for here” tea to a “to-go” tea (for free, did we hear?) comes the pleasure of uninterrupted wifi access.
Right around the corner, of course, is the Subway joint. It’s a mix of the arrangement seen only at SOGO Xuanwumen: a sandwich joint right next to Starbucks. Zero commute. If you’re coming back from the countryside and want the wifi without the jams that make up central Beijing, Pinnacle Plaza has a Starbucks that might be worth checking out.
Wifi: Free; password needed, given upon purchase
Signal: Good
VPN support: Good
Transit links: None yet, although Pinnacle Plaza is expected to be a 15-20 minute walk from the China International Exhibition Center station on Line 15
Starbucks Pinnacle Plaza (星巴克 - 荣祥广场, 顺义)
Shunyi, Beijing, China
May 13, 2010 | Filed Under Wifi Around China | 1 Comment
Ah, Xizhimen. It’s transit hell and heaven — two in one, at the same time. Where else can you link a railway station with a three-line Subway interchange? But then again, why’s everyone still walking a million miles just to change from Line 13 to Lines 2 or 4? And why do you have to “flip three times” on the bridge just to execute a right turn? (Road traffic hell as well!)
Still, the good thing about Costa Coffee Xizhimen is that it’s linked straight to the Line 13 station. When the transit gods get their act in order, in future, you will be able to get to the place through underground tunnels — regardless if you are here by train or by Subway. (Right now, passengers from the nearby Beijing North Railway Station will have to use an above-ground connection.
Costa Coffee has lots of outlets in the Jing, but the one at Xizhimen is noted for its accessibility. It is linked straight into the Xizhimen CapitaRetail Mall, and finds itself on the ground floor (or the first floor if you’re so inclined). During especially summer, the café has a somewhat-Shanzhai “porch lounge” as in a bit that “juts out” into the rest of the mall. (It’s Shanzhai because it’s all indoors!)
In the very same building is also a Chamate, for those who must do tea. Signals here are pretty good, although they’re not that great if you’re doing VPNs. (12vpn finds itself with more mileage here than Witopia on your blogger’s end.) If you connect and reconnect it’ll work — but man that’s a lot of hassle…
Wifi: Free; password needed, given upon purchase
Signal: Good
VPN support: Iffy. Some VPNs won’t link up to Twitter or Facebook after a bit.
Transit links: Subway Lines 2, 4 and 13 to Xizhimen (exit at Line 13 Exit A; you have to be in the Line 13 part (the dull grey building) and exit from there; do not enter the Line 13 platforms if interchanging from Lines 2 or 4). Beijing North Railway Station nearby as well.
Costa Coffee CapitaRetail Xizhimen (Costa Coffee 西直门嘉茂购物中心)
Xizhimen, Beijing, China
May 9, 2010 | Filed Under Wifi Around China | No Comments
This has got to be one of the closer Starbucks to a Tianjin Metro station, which rings of heavenly delight for your mass transit freak. He picked up a Starbucks flask emblazoned proudly with the word TIANJIN on it — and still he is not happy about the Starbucks there, unfortunately. Probably a victim of its own success, getting online there can be a wait that will drive you up the wall.
Tianjin is a truly ge’er (哏儿), or “cute” / “funny” (in the local lingo), city. It’s one of these places that throws you something unexpected — all the time — and at the same time, takes away that bureaucracy and straight-grid-as-hell avenues from the Beijing from you and rewards you with a real river or two. The city is just a thirty minute ride away by high speed rail, yet always manages to differentiate itself from its more capital-istic neighbour.
The Xiaobailou Starbucks is spread out over two floors, which is one of the “spacier” Starbucks in the area. (Right next by is, amongst other things, a Starbucks sandwich outlet, a config we’ve seen again at SOGO Xuanwumen, Beijing.) And while you get a probably bigger share of soft, plush sofas, the wifi seems to be sucked away as well. Some months ago your blogger was happily tweeting away. Some months later, it seemed like everyone’s suffering the wifi blues. Things get especially bad around 2 PM in the afternoon, when it seems like every living organism in the area comes into the café.
The place is probably located in the best spot on the map — right by Xiaobailou Metro station. If they can get their wifi in order, this is a great place to chill out.
Wifi: Free; password-protected (they give you the password with any purchase).
Signal: Difficult to get on.
VPN support: OK if you can get a smooth connection; if you can’t, sorry — forget it.
Transit links: Just by Exits A and D near Xiaobailou station, Tianjin Metro Line 1.
Starbucks Xiaobailou, Tianjin (星巴克小白楼 - 中国天津) (see on foursquare)
Xiaobailou
Tianjin, China
April 27, 2010 | Filed Under Wifi Around China | No Comments
China’s a republic built on tea, not coffee, so when Starbucks wanted to dig deeper into the country, it had to do tea. Thankfully, Starbucks now does Green Tea, English Breakfast, and a host of other tea.
But no chrysanthemum tea.
And according to traditional Chinese med experts, that stuff is supposed to be good for ya. It’s supposed to make you chill… and make you feel a lot better. It’s too bad Starbucks doesn’t offer that stuff: Starbucks’s loss is Chamate’s gain.
Chamate (一茶一坐), a tea house chain that is supposedly Taiwanese by origin, is one of those places where you lose yourself in their menu. They have just about every last variant of tea you could probably name — or not name, rather. For Tea Gods, it’s a dream come true. It’s true that they have smoking areas — hence giving them one less point in their favour (smoking is bad for ya), but at least they’ve adequate wifi. We say adequate as it seems to be doing the wifi waltz every so often, disconnecting especially your tech blogger.
There are a host of Chamate outlets in both Beijing and Shanghai, and there’s even one in Tianjin (right by the Yingkoudao Metro station). This particular Chamate (as in Chamate Guomao) is located in the China World Mall, where a Starbucks on the ground floor has sucked in more expats than you can imagine. Provided you don’t mind about the rather dim lighting, next time you want to invite someone to tea (or get invited “to tea” by the secret police — Chinese Netspeak for being grabbed to a cop station in order for them to tell you “what not to say on the Web”), try this place. It’s also a good place to escape the Starbucks crowds, which at times can seem — well, too PRC. (People’s Republic. Get it?)
Wifi: Free; password-protected.
Signal: OK in general. Disconnects happen.
VPN support: Generally OK.
Transit links: Guomao Subway Station on Lines 1 and 10 (exit A for direct access to China World Mall).
Chamate Guomao (一茶一坐國貿店)
Underground Level 1; west area
China World Mall
Beijing, China
April 25, 2010 | Filed Under Wifi Around China | No Comments
Ah, “US imperialism” in a Chinese airport. When they designed Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK), they wanted to make this as “Chinese” as possible. As if printing out more Mao notes was nothing, they made sure T3 (as it’s known for short) was the kind of super-face project that could win a Skytrax award or two.
And it did. Beijing’s T3 cannot be described without using the word “kick-ass”. From the rarely-experience lush deluxe of personalized security checks and luxury lounges in the rarely-accessed VIP terminal to the massive hall housing what must be a trillion check-in desks, Terminal 3 is a sight to behold, whether you’re here going out of the country, or if you’re just out to, say, Nanjing, or if you’re even just here to “weiguan” (围观) or have a look around. When T3 came out, the best thing about it was the food. No longer the churned out result of the planned economy of yesteryear, there’s that fattening Burger King (sorry, no Fatburger here) to Thai treats, both in the arrival and departure halls.
When your blogger met @shelisrael for the first time in late 2008, the two agreed that it was as if “we never left home”. The Starbucks in the arrivals hall is a “big”, so to speak. It has both a neat indoor section with just a few seats (that used to lie all empty) to a sizeable outdoor area which, unfortunately, has the tendency to send people to the sick bed for freezing temps during spring (especially if you’re not here with a jacket or so). In return you get the Starbucks drink of your choice and wifi.
Sadly, wifi is where the venue really, really doesn’t do well. Rather than spoiling you with in-store Starbucks, seen at hundreds of outlets in central Beijing, Starbucks has you use the airport-wide wifi, which to the uninitiated seems available to only China Mobile customers (unless you do “Roaming Partners”). Furthermore, surfers-to-be better come with their own surfboard, so to speak: even getting a signal from the CMCC wifi network (all others appear to be locked) is more than a gamble than anything. When you’re finally on, you’ll unfortunately be greeted by the kind of speed that makes the average turtle seem like the Maglev. VPNs? Iffy here.
Wifi: Free but uses airport terminal network; complex to log on.
Signal: Iffy. Especially hard to log on.
VPN support: Very iffy.
Transit links: Airport Express station not far away.
Note: Temperatures change inside the terminal; come with an extra layer, especially around spring, when the heaters are off!
Starbucks Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK) Terminal 3 (T3) Arrivals
Arrivals hall, between exits B and C (international passengers turn left)
Beijing, China
April 23, 2010 | Filed Under Wifi Around China | No Comments
I’d have loved to call this the Tanggu Starbucks outright, but it turned out the thing had a real name. The Starbucks Juchuan (巨川) store is one of those places in Tanggu where it’s dead quiet (apart from the canned music playing at near-full volume — shame to you) — and one of those places where you seem to get a decent wifi connection, although it did seem to, at times, reveal its flakier intentions.
Basically what this is is a two-storey Starbucks with ample seating. If you want your own bit of peace and quiet, try the second floor, where it’s rare to spot a soul (OK, we do have folks coming in then and now, but it’s pretty quiet nonetheless). They have a fair number of sofas — the kind of stuff that seems to have been grabbed at every last Starbucks.
The place is silent to the extent that it’s the antithesis of the Starbucks at, say, Shin Kong Place right after lunch hour (13:00), when everyone comes back to the place. Still, if you want somewhere where you can think (OK, super-loud music aside) and go online (or meet up to talk biz / “other stuff”) and you’re in Tanggu, this is pretty much it. I haven’t been here outside “right after lunch hour”, so for late nights, your mileage may vary!
Wifi: Free; password-protected (they give you the password with any purchase).
Signal: Pretty good (be it laptop or mobile devices such as the iPod touch).
VPN support: Good on Witopia.
Transit links: Often lots of taxis underneath; about a 10-minute ride from the Tanggu Railway Station.
Starbucks Juchuan (星巴克巨川店)
Just by Xuexiao Road
Tanggu, Tianjin, China
April 22, 2010 | Filed Under Wifi Around China | No Comments
Starting, in effect, as of tomorrow, we’ll be adding a new column we hope you’ll like: Wifi Around China.
Coming in the form of individual posts, this is one of our “live columns” — as in we’ll basically blog live from anywhere that has wifi available.
Wifi is no longer that rarity that was back in 2002, when you were considered a super-trendy nerd to walk in with a laptop that supported what was then called, especially on a Mac, an “AirPort wireless network”. The Chinese authorities tried to stop wifi in its tracks around 2004, but like many of its short-sighted plans (including forcing users in summer 2009 to install censorship software), it failed.
Thankfully, despite the Great Firewall, there is still that connectivity freedom up in the air — something we call wifi. We’ll tell you how wifi works from a specific place by test driving it on a 15-inch MacBook Pro and a second-generation iPod touch. We’ll probably save the place from being robbed of wifi by not disclosing any wifi passwords, but you’ll be guided as to if you need a password to log in.
We hope you’ll like it!
PS: We will also restart weekday updates for the Mac blog on the new beimac Apple User Community — tomorrow at the earliest, next Monday at the latest.
從明天起，本博客將在中國大陸各地搜出無線上網地方，並且仔細闡述各個無線上網場所。本博客將使用一台 15 吋 MacBook Pro 及 iPod touch (第二代) 來進行測試。希望大家會喜歡這些新的內容!