Shannxi Guesthouse — Hotel in Xi'an

This is a very official hotel built by the Shaanxi Provincial Government with the style of large, walled building compound with its own river and bridges inside. It is like a park or college campus and has many numbered building: no2, no.18, etc., that scatter inside the huge compound. Waking from one building to another you might get lost! They also have a large conference hall and nice restaurants. The staff there are nice and professional. In the room, the ceiling is high and facilities are new. I bet the government take it seriously as their guesthouse. However, one problem is, of course, the other side of its advantage: location. It is in a remote, formerly suburban area. Even today, once you walk out of one of its gates, you can hardly find even a restaurants and street food stand (their staff have to rely on online order and delivery of food for their lunch break!). The surrounding area is just way too boring but that was because the government's concern over quietness and safety. You can take a taxi to city center which runs for about 30 minutes if you are too bored in...

This is a state-run hotel attached to a convention center. The hotel-conference center complex is carefully planned for official state events. As such, everything is enormous in proportion. Hallways, ceilings, rooms, everything is made to look enormous and accommodate even the largest official delegation or visit for the mandatory event picture. Given the obvious purpose of the place, I was disappointed to see the lack of services that are staples in Western hotels. The most obvious was the lack of wireless internet in the rooms. There was internet access in the rooms via ethernet cable, though, but I was unprepared. It had been a while since I used an ethernet cable in a hotel. Another disappointment were the restaurants. For the event I attended, restaurants were segregated for Chinese attendees and non-Chinese. Paradoxically (or purposely?) the restaurant for non-Chinese attendees was the Western restaurant (because it was on the Western wing of the hotel, apparently). Food wasn't spectacular but...

This is a very large conference/convention center, and appears likely to have hundreds, if not a thousand or more rooms. The decor and comfort are good. My room had aircon controls, a western bathroom, a fridge and tea-making facilities. There is no wifi here, but there is an ethernet port for the wall. Don't forget your adapter for Chinese sockets, as I did. Service here is rather poor: very few seem to be able to speak English. There's no pool, gym or fitness facilities of any kind (I was instructed to go 'run outside'). There doesn't appear to be room service, or facilities for wake-up calls etc. You get your room key, access to your room, and...