In October 2008, my cousin and I stayed at the Liuyang Hotel for two nights. We paid 528RMB per night. I had corresponded with a person at the hotel via email several months prior to our trip, which had told me the entire hotel was booked due to a conference. I was told to check back later, which I did. Still, no room was available. My last email to the same woman was, “That’s alright, I’ll find another place but will stop by to say hello.” A couple of hours later I received another email saying the manger of the conference gave up one of the rooms for us. Talk about nice people!

We were in room 2105, which is located on the ground floor. No view to speak of. It was a small, basic room, probably equivalent to a 2-star hotel in Europe. The beds were very hard and the bathroom was small. Also, the bathroom had the ‘hose’ type hair dryer, which I hate.

The hotel was located right on southeast side of West Lake and is set in a lovely garden area with bamboo and other trees, shrubs, and flowers. It looked very tropical. The ancient street of Hefang is just a 8-10 minute walk away. We were lucky to have encountered a large food festival. Other sights in Hangzhou are just a short taxi ride away.

Service was friendly at the hotel, as best can be. Being in China run hotels has its limitations with the language barrier, but we did well communicating. We had a problem figuring out how to use the t.v. and someone came to our room within minutes of my call and fixed it for us.

We enjoyed our stay and if I ever get back to Hangzhou, I would most likely return to Liuyang if I want to stay right next to the lake; otherwise, I would try another hotel for a different experience.

While In Hangzhou, we enjoyed some delicious meals. Our first dinner was at Zhiweiguan, which is a well-known restaurant. We dined outside on the terrace. Fortunately there were no bugs or mosquitoes. We ate sautéed beans, whole fried shrimp, and a beef dish, which was similar to short ribs. They were the tastiest dish of the night. Realizing it was too far to walk back to the hotel (we had walked about 20 minutes), we grabbed a taxi back. The next night we dined at Haveli India Restaurant and Bar, located on Nanshan Road (#77), which was just a 5-minute walk from the hotel. The restaurant was quite colorful with purple chairs, silk draperies of assorted colors, and a beautiful woman who danced every so often to Indian music. Having Indian food (Tiki Masala Chicken, chickpeas and lentils, raita, a mixed vegetable dish, and rice for 220 RMB for 3 people) was a nice change from all the Chinese food we had been eating – we spent 3.5 weeks in China.