Remember this number: 106696999. Next time when you are traveling in China with a local mobile phone, try Google SMS mobile search. I find this service very useful.

Let me give you a practical example. You are in Beijing airport and want to go to the Grand Hyatt hotel. Your Mandarin isn’t good enough to communicate with the taxi driver. Now with Google SMS Mobile Search, you can compose a SMS and type “Grand Hyatt Beijing,” send it to the Google number 106696999. Seconds later, you will be returned with a SMS that contains the hotel address in Chinese. See, you can now pass the phone to the taxi driver and let him read the hotel address.

There are other special syntax to use this service. You can type “weather shanghai” and you will receive a SMS that tells you the Shanghai weather. You can also type “fy coffee shop,” and you get the Chinese translation for coffee shop.

Good job big G! This handy gadget does make life more easy.

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