Ever since my laptop broke and I’ve been chained to my desktop I’ve not been nearly as productive as when I used to be able to go ‘away’ from my internet and get my work done.

Besides… if they’re providing a free room you can save some dough over a hostel.

Thanks for the tip Erik. If I end up going to deepest, darkest Sichuan I will look into that. As it is, I have internet in Beijing and only getting that for a month probably isn’t worth it. Wish I would have known about that before I arrived because I had a similar thing in Bangladesh and it was great.

You can buy a PCMCIA card from China Unicom or China Mobile that slips into your computer and acts like a cell phone to access the internet. It has it’s own SIM card and a little antenna that improves the reception.

With mine, I can access the internet from a taxi, or a park, or really anywhere there is cellular signal.

The cost for China Unicom was about 1000 RMB all in. That included the laptop card, the SIM card, 4 months of free access, an additional 4 months at 1/4 the normal price (25 RMB per month instead of 100 RMB/month), and all activation fees. The normal cost of this service is 100 RMB / month with a max of 60 hours per month (there is a higher per minute fee after that).

The speed is OK but not great. Sort of like dial up. However, the flexibility and the independence it gives you are well worth it.

You can still use your laptop’s WiFi or a wired connection, but this just gives you one more (independent) option.

Good Luck.

btw- Sent you an e-mail…dunno if you got it or not!!! so be on the lookout!