China Hotel Roundup

Image: Taken 6/22/07 in our room at the Suzhou Hotel. Evan Lum, my roommate, and I, Jonathan Fung, got smart this time, and took our pictures of the hotel room before we got settled and wrecked the place.

I have to say that I wasn’t exactly expecting to stay in the best hotels while we were in China. It was sort of an “expect the worst, but hope for the best” kind of deal. However, I was actually quite satisfied with our accommodations. All of our hotel rooms included a television set (which broadcasted all of the government-sponsored stations, as well as a set of cable channels.) A bathroom with running water and warm showers also came standard. A nice bed for each person, and a pair of chairs for lounging was also a recurring theme in these hotels. Oh yes, can’t forget the fact that we got a/c too. And of course, room service did a consistently good job cleaning up our messes and replacing our towels. But the quality of our hotel rooms didn’t matter much anyway, since we were generally out for most of the day, and only returned to sleep and throw the occasional dance party.

Beijing- Beijing Taiwan Hotel: The Beijing Taiwan Hotel definitely had great location, near one of the most prominent shopping streets on Beijing, Wangfujing. And yes, we did get some opportunities to shop there at night. As for the actual hotel, I was markedly disappointed when we rolled into the nice part of town, past some very ritzy hotels, just to pull into the parking lot of a building with a chintzy neon sign. I guess that’s what happens when you get your hopes up. Ok, in the end it wasn’t that bad, and was still a three-star hotel with running water, toilet paper, relatively clean sheets, and no chalk outlines of bodies on the floor. Of course, I still had some complaints. For one, the toilet was too small, and was rather uncomfortable to sit on (I’ll withhold the details.) The buttons on our phone didn’t work very well, and it often took several tries just to do a simple room-to-room call. The safe was completely broken, as well as one of the lamps. And the hotel soap and shampoo didn’t seem to rinse away any dirt, and the low-pressure showerhead did not help much either. Nevertheless, a warm water shower was a blessing.

Luoyang- Peony Hotel: The Peony Hotel was a very nice four star hotel, which was a great relief. I had expected a two-star airport-hotel-style fleapit, since we were only staying in the city for one night. But this hotel was seriously nice. In our chaperones’ illogical attempt to keep the guys’ and girls’ rooms separated, we, the men, were granted rooms on a higher floor. As typical with hotels, a higher floor meant nicer rooms. The bathroom and general furnishings of the room were plain, but classy. The outstanding feature, which we unfortunately did not see in any other hotel during the trip, was the crystal pantry loaded with champagne-drinking accessories. The facilities in the hotel were also commendable, most notably, their weight room with a wonderful massage chair. (I think the posted rules said that we were supposed to pay to use the weight room, but there was no attendant to enforce it, so we just brushed it off as a bad translation. Hah.) However, I did have my complaints about the hotel. For one, the breakfast was awful, with a slim selection of cold food which was generally flavorless. And the leopard-pattern carpet was also quite gaudy. The fact that the corner of the room smelled like piss didn’t help either. (Evan Lum later confessed to the crime, but I forgive him.) Overall, it was a nice hotel.

Xian- Xian Hotel: The Xian Hotel was the only hotel specially noted in our tour itinerary as a four star hotel. So I was expecting it to be the best hotel on the trip. While it was definitely one of the better-looking hotels, in terms of layout and functionality, it was a disaster. The walk from the elevator to our rooms was unnecessarily long, and through a dimly-lit almost creepy hallway. Then, let’s get to all the defective stuff in our rooms. Everyone’s fancy-looking glass shower leaked due to missing caulking at the bottom. Furthermore, the mini-fridge in our room thought it was a cupboard, and refused to chill our drinks, while the toilet adamantly refused to flush. (Naturally, we only discovered that problem when we actually needed it to flush.) Room service wasn’t particularly helpful either, sending two women to our room, who took a look at our fridge, who, in broken English, tried to tell us that it was working perfectly fine. What an insult to our intelligence. Thank god the key-people were more helpful, after Evan Lum left our one and only key locked in the room. Continuing on this positivism, the hotel did indeed look beautiful, and featured a glass platform in the lobby with a grand piano, raised over small fountains. Every evening, a female pianist would play contemporary Chinese pop hits on that piano for guest entertainment. The dining hall also looked great, as well as the indoor pool, exercise facilities, and the trippy glass floors near the bar. The hotel also had decent location, along a strip of electronics stores, which allowed me to buy a pair of speakers. A nearby convenience store also granted easy access to a wide variety of snacks and drinks, while an ice-cream stand offered very cheap cold refreshments. Finally, the Xian Hotel was also our first opportunity to use the internet in China, although at the staggering price of one Yuan per minute (with a 15 minute minimum.)

Guilin- Guilin Park Hotel: The Guilin Park Hotel was my personal favorite on the trip. Of course that’s because our room was special and got a nice extension which made it considerably bigger than everyone else’s. Another four star hotel, it was located along a beautiful river lined with artificially lit, but still, rather romantic trees. It looked fabulous when we pulled in at night, driving slowly to admire the trees, and then going over a bridge to cross the river and get to our moat-protected castle of a hotel. And as a four-star hotel, the rooms were very nicely decorated, and had a distinctly Chinese touch to it with eastern-style wooden décor. Breakfast was also great offering French toast, pancakes, and muesli, among other things. The only complaint that I had about this hotel was that the card-key didn’t quite work. It was the type of card-key that you simply touch to a sensor, rather than inserting it into a slot or swiping it. While novel, the sensor wasn’t strong enough, and we couldn’t just leave the key in our wallets. In fact, it would often take several tries before the lock would beep and open, since we had to find the critical sweet-spot on the key. I would be very sad to leave this hotel for the place we stayed in at Yangshuo.

Yangshuo- Yangshuo New Century Hotel: The Yangshuo New Century Hotel was the most highly rated hotel in Yangshuo, but still wasn’t all too spectacular by western standards. The first day there, I saw and killed at least three varieties of bugs. Then, the next morning, I still woke up to find that my arms and legs had been ravaged by mosquitoes. Speaking of mosquitoes, one morning, I even found a dead mosquito in my orange juice. And no, it didn’t just fly in. I saw it come out of the juice-dispenser with my juice. Gross. One morning, we didn’t even get juice dispensers or a buffet-style breakfast, since the hotel didn’t have enough guests that day to justify offering a buffet breakfast. Oh, then there was the view. The first day, I opened the curtains to check out what glorious views of the mountains we could see. Our window looked straight into an old, narrow, gloomy, and grey alley. I’m not exaggerating. It would be difficult to find a worse view. The halls were not air conditioned, which made them an unhappy place to be during the day, with the high temperatures and humidity of Yangshuo. I know that the Sheraton Moana Surfrider, here in Hawaii is similarly un-air-conditioned, but temperatures in Hawaii aren’t nearly as unbearable as those in Yangshuo. The fact that there was only one very slow elevator located all the way at the opposite end of the building also made it far more pragmatic to climb the spiral staircases. Fortunately, the building was only three stories tall. Well, at least Mr. Bickel was happy, since he had an especially large room.

Hangzhou- Hangzhou Lily Hotel: The Hangzhou Lily Hotel was probably the most vanilla hotel we stayed at. The rooms were small compared to those of the other hotels. In fact, Mr. Bickel’s room was so small that we couldn’t even have our nightly meeting in there, and had to crash Chris Wong and Kevin Duong’s room. But on the whole, it was quiet, clean, and just very normal. The only thing that stuck out about this hotel was that the night we arrived, someone had puked in the driveway, and nobody had gotten around to cleaning it up yet. The view was nothing special to write home about, but at least was an improvement from the grey alley in Yangshuo. However, in general, the hotel was just rather unmemorable, especially since we did not spend much time in it at all, with our packed schedule in Hangzhou.

Suzhou- Suzhou Hotel: The Suzhou Hotel had the best location out of all the hotels we stayed at. While in Suzhou, we got tons of free time, which was great, since the hotel was right along a very long shopping street. While it was a heaven for “dress-shopping,” it also offered a host of stores selling pirated DVDs, knock-off designer clothing, and what not. It even had an affordable (but professional) massage place, a few bars and coffee stores, as well as a pair of music stores. The hotel itself was a comfortable four-star place, and our rooms were all very nicely furnished. They even put a real carnation on the coffee tables. The selection of television channels was also the best of the trip, offering MTV as well as HBO (which broadcasted awesome movies like Madagascar and V for Vendetta.) The in-hotel meals were also great. The buffet breakfast, in my opinion was among the best in the trip. Many nights, we also went for simplicity and convenience and just ate dinner at the hotel, which as also quite enjoyable. The quality of the food was better than most of the tourist-restaurants that we dined at throughout the trip and the menus were arguably the best. By this point in the hotel, the teachers had already given up on separating the boys and girls by floors, so all of our rooms were located conveniently next to each other, and we could move from room-to-room party with ease. Furthermore, the hallways were particularly clean, so we could even walk room-to-room barefoot.

Shanghai- Shanghai New Asia Hotel: The Shanghai New Asia Hotel, was definitely not the Grand Hyatt Shanghai, but was definitely better than what our local tour guide had hinted at. The rooms were very large and comfortable. They were probably the largest rooms of the whole trip (our special room in Guilin notwithstanding.) The view was also pretty nice, as we were on a high floor and could see a healthy portion of the Shanghai skyline. In particular, our room had a fantastic view of one of the buildings which had a neon sign that displayed famous images including the Mono Lisa. Unfortunately, the Shanghai New Asia Hotel was not located along any particularly good shopping streets. When we did go exploring outside the hotel, it was a decently long walk to the nearest stores, all of which turned out to be big disappointments. I also had some other minor complaints, including the long hallway which creaked when you walked on it, and the very dimly lit bathroom which made showering a nearly-claustrophobic experience. But overall, while we did not stay at one of the famous Shanghai hotels, this was definitely a good substitute.