Harbin Joysome

Joysome Apartment was a lot better than we were expecting for 200RMB a night. The room was clean and cozy, and had a large fridge and stove top. The beds were typical Chinese hard-as-rock style and the pillows were lumpy, but it was really really warm and we had hot water 24/7, and those were the most important things to us. There was a DVD player and TV in the room, and the TV had one English channel and one channel that showed Chinese movies with English subtitles - perfectly adequate for an evening's entertainment after wandering around in the cold all day. The check-in process was a bit weird, so be prepared. We got a taxi from the airport and showed the address in Chinese. We pulled up to a building called "Naughty Crazy Happy Warm" or something like that. We handed our reservation information to some grumpy looking guy behind a desk who, without a word, took us to a room with elevators and left us there. We were getting worried at this point. We went out and found a slightly less grumpy guy who told us to go to a room on the 16th floor. A really friendly woman who had impeccable English greeted us and did all the check-in stuff. She also gave us directions and was kind enough to phone up some of the tourist attraction places to find out if they would be open and what their hours were (we were there on Chinese New Year). The location was quite good, very close to one of the main roads with a Walmart and shopping mall down the street. A lot of tourist attractions were also within walking distance. The Flood Control Monument, Zhaolin Park and Russian Street were about a 10-minute walk. We also walked to the Cathedral in about 30 minutes. There's a bus stop close by that will take you to the Snow and Ice Festival for 3RMB. The Siberian Tiger Park and Polar Land Aquarium were about a 20RMB cab ride away. It was fairly easy to get cabs in that area. I was pretty happy with the apartment, mostly because for the price we were paying, we were expecting a lot worse, so we were pleasantly surprised. It really was excellent value for money, but this is not a hotel - no one cleans the room or replenishes supplies like toilet paper (they did provide towels, soap and toothbrushes though). Go in expecting a cheap and cheerful studio apartment to stay in for a couple of days in a good location to do touristy stuff, and you'll be fine.