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[El Jefe]

It's armee!

Those statues are rather common actually.

[Armee]

Nice to see you El Jefe.  We plan someday to tour the Chengdu area.  Apparently there are lots of Three Kingdoms related stuff there.   ...have to figure out how to get a guide for reading...cause I sure ain't got no hope of learning to read Chinese or Mandarin.

[El Jefe]

Yeah, if I had to do a speed tour of some Three Kingdoms stuff, I would be hittin' up Chengdu as well. Saw some footage in travel shows of places in the area that were also pretty awesome.

[Armee]

There are actual tours that you can lookup online.  I wonder how free travel is there.  Not as in cost, but can any tourist motor around the country freely, or is movement - regulated.

[El Jefe]

When I was in China in 2002 it was rather regulated...but that was 10 years ago. I know I'm preaching to the choir with you, but know before you go. 

I'd like to say it's better now but as a tourist back in '02, I had to flash the passport in Tiananmen (I've not had to do this anywhere else in Asia on demand by authorized security) and had to use foreigner-authorized travel agents to book onward tickets. I'm sure it's not a problem if you jump in with a specific itinerary and the travel agent makes the necessary travel arrangements, but as a Westerner, I've never seen China as a place where I could just jump in and sink my teeth in without any prior planning.

[Armee]

I've never been to a communist country...with my luck, I'd stumble into a super-secret military installation (since the only Chinese I can read is '3') and end up my days eating fish heads and rice.

[Yue Fei]

I've never been to a communist country...with my luck, I'd stumble into a super-secret military installation (since the only Chinese I can read is '3') and end up my days eating fish heads and rice.

You'd be lucky to get rice... Or fish heads.

Good thing you don't know the number '4', otherwise you might be in more trouble, since it sounds similar to the Chinese word for 'death'.

[El Jefe]

I'll tell you this much Armee, the countries I've traveled to are fairly tame, but China is the only place where I've had to produce my passport on the street. Tiananmen Square, probably more for show than anything else really, but it still happened.

Also, when I traveled there back in 2002, only authorized travel agents were allowed to deal with foreigners. Shouldn't be a problem for you since I imagine you'll get some sort of package deal, but movement was somewhat restricted.

[GuanXing-Shu]

I'll tell you this much Armee, the countries I've traveled to are fairly tame, but China is the only place where I've had to produce my passport on the street. Tiananmen Square, probably more for show than anything else really, but it still happened.

Also, when I traveled there back in 2002, only authorized travel agents were allowed to deal with foreigners. Shouldn't be a problem for you since I imagine you'll get some sort of package deal, but movement was somewhat restricted.

Curious, would nationality affect where you could go while in China?

[El Jefe]

Not sure, but I should clarify my statement. There isn't a restriction on where foreigners can go per se, but rather that (by rail, at least) tickets can only be obtained at the official ticketing office. This generally isn't an issue but I came across a random travel agency while on my way to the train station in Shanghai and they apologetically informed me that they could not assist me.