Everest and 3 parks

[SWofDisorder]

I am in the very early stages of planning our trip schedules for around late April to mid May.

On the schedule is the following:

HK, park and city
Shanghai, parks city
Tokyo parks and city
Beijing city, great wall, aerobatic show, etc-train
Xian, tomb warrior, city wall bike ride-train
Chengdu, Panda, Giant Buddha-train
Xinging to Lhasa, train-train
Everest 8 day tour-April 27th *I want to be there for this date to avoid golden week in the city.

My problem is what order to put this in? I would like to use HK express from Tokyo to HK or reverse as RT is $167.

The Beiing part is all by train until it is time to get out of Lhasa.

I am truly at a loss on how to put this trip together. Suggestions please.

 

[gelatoni fan]

Make sure to price out the HK express flight with all the extra baggage, booking and other fees. I believe they don't allow outside food or drink on board and even water is not free.
From the US, round trip flights to Hong Kong can be really cheap so it may be good to book that and then add additional pieces within Asia. I would try going from HK to Tokyo to Shanghai and then price out flights vs trains in China. High speed rail can be easier and less likely to be delayed.

PVG in Shanghai is closer to Disney but is a pretty terrible airport. I'd avoid flying out of there if possible. If you're going straight from the airport to downtown Tokyo (or downtown to the airport), it's easier to fly through HND.

I also advise buying all your SIM cards in Hong Kong. Japan SIM cards in Hong Kong are the cheapest I have found anywhere and mainland Chinese SIM cards bought in Hong Kong automatically get around the Chinese firewall.

 

[SWofDisorder]

Thank you for great tips on the SIM and travel. I am trying hard to put this together by end of week and purchase tickets so I can work on my visa.