Replies: 13 - Last Post: 28-Nov-2007 01:31 Last Post By: ellyse
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts ~ Mark Twain
1
I did give you the Chinese name of the hotel on TripAdvisor forums. If you simply want to see what the hotel looks like, put that into Baidu Image or Google Images.
2
Ellyse, I'm sorry - on the TA forum I didn't see a Chinese name...you gave me Liaoning Hotel and an address but I couldn't find anything online or on any maps, and your response when I questioned it was basically "yes, it's really hard to search for". I see when I go back to that comment that there were some little squares that would indicate that you also provided a Chinese name (which I am unable to download - or read for that matter:) and if I tried to search would not have been able to read the results because I am totally unfamiliar with Mandarin or anything other than English or a bit or Portuguese I am embarrassed to say! )Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts ~ Mark Twain
3
You should try to change your browser encoding settings to Chinese, and see if it helps. The setting that works for me is Chinese Simplified GB2312. Simply copy and paste those characters (when they show up) and plug them into those 2 image search engines.
4
I think I know what this is. Every provincial government in China maintains its own big liaison office in Beijing. Often these places have as part of the complex, accommodations and a restaurant (serving the "home cooking" of that province of course). The accommodation part is normally used by officials from that province when they are in Beijing visiting on official or personal business. Many of these do tend to be around the north 3rd ring road. I think that is what you are booked into. I find it curious is that during the Olympics, the party faithful from the various provinces have not already booked up these rooms. It will be a good location for access to the main stadium areas (by the new subway line to be opened next June, or by taxi or bus). However, I wouldn't expect 5 star service, and possibly little or no English spoken.
5
Hmmm....that sounds very probable, jiejie! I wonder if it would be a good place for two very untraveled Americans who have never yet been anywhere in Asia (or Europe or anywhere really) to stay? We have a room confirmed for 10 days during the Olympic Games but now I'm getting concerned :~( My friend had said that it was confirmed in his name but it's ok if we check in...he will handle it. Is there a chance that we might have a problem when we arrive? I guess I need to wait for him to return and ask him these questions!!Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts ~ Mark Twain
6
Yes, do ask him when you can. I suspect he was able to get you in there because he has connections to Liaoning province, or is from there/an official himself, etc. As for check-in issues, ask if he is going to be in Beijing when you arrive--this would obviously be of comfort just in case there are any issues. I'm sure there's no way a foreigner would be able to book these rooms directly themselves. Actually, they might be tickled to have some foreigners around. Not sure how they are set up, but you may find that there are not rooms dedicated to "non-smoking," there won't be a western-food coffee shop, and normal hotel services (concierge, etc.) will be limited or not geared to non-Chinese speaking foreign tourists. This may not be an issue, since I suspect you will be there mostly to sleep and wash up--and there are plenty of alternate places to get a variety of food and locate English-speaking services. Beijing itself is big but pretty easy to get around, and you have a good head start to learn some key phrases and words in Mandarin. At this point, I wouldn't turn my nose up at his booking, although you can certainly keep looking for alternatives in the months to come.
7
#5: I'll email you with a printable jpg file for the Chinese characters, just in case that would be of use.
8
I had a colleague at work pull up a directory of provincial offices (in Chinese only), and here is the information for Liaoning, which I'll give in pinyin as the characters aren't going to be useful to you at this point:
9
#8: No, the address I found was 1 Deshengmenwai Dajie, Xicheng district.
10
Well, we seem to have two different possibilities for the OP now! I'm just going by the original post and description of location, and the comment in #2 about it being an "official" hotel. I'm sure OP's friend can solve the mystery when he returns.
11
This is dejiavu all over again. I'm sure I saw these exact same comments for this question about two months ago.john
12
No, I think time has just warped a bit with the new format. It was my original post, on 11/13 but it's been hidden way far down beyond where most people would look since it was 2 weeks ago since the last response. I don't understand the way things are ordered now - and they seem to shift all the time (ok, maybe it's MY time that's warped and not yours, John!)Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts ~ Mark Twain
13
Yes, the time thing is warped. Argh I'm starting to really hate this new system!
Posted By: VenessaP -- 28-Jan-2010 15:01
Posted By: VenessaP -- 09-Dec-2009 17:01
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