Travel Without Visa through Shanghai?

[HKLP]

I have a flight to Japan that has a transfer in Shanghai later this month. I won't be leaving the airport and will most definitely stay less than 24 hours, and according to the Chinese embassy's website, I should be okay to do so without a visa (Canadian passport).

However, I was just wondering if anyone knew what the actual procedure of doing this would be? If I'm just doing a transfer, will I still go through immigrations/customs in Shanghai? Or do I clear immigration before departure in Hong Kong?

Has anyone done this *recently*? I'm especially afraid that the Olympics have changed the rules for this as well, though my searches haven't turned up anything conclusive yet - just similar questions to mine and some people reporting getting hassled about not having a visa while in Shanghai.

[timklip]

though i haven't done it since the recent visa madness, i have transferred through shanghai onward to vancouver, and required no visa. we did have to go through the entire immigration process again in shanghai (very inefficient dump of an airport imho) and basically the whole experience of laying over even for a few hrs, put us off ever going through shanghai again

[HKLP]

Oh yuck. Add to that the fact that my flight is on China Eastern (great track record for delays, apparently), and I'm not very comforted by this at all. I haven't confirmed my booking yet, so I think I might end up looking for a more expensive flight that doesn't go through Shanghai.

A bit off-topic from the title of this post, but if anyone knows of some good travel agents for good deals on flights to Japan (I want to go to Osaka to meet some friends) that accept in-person booking/cash payments, I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks for your reply!

[timklip]

i was on china eastern as well! on good thing was plane was 3/4 full so we had room to lie across rows of seats! but yeah, i'd avoid it if you can