Guogeli Harbin

First let me get the bad out of the way. *Nobody speaks english at this hotel... not really anyway. The beautiful young lady at the counter spoke just enough english to make me feel welcome (about as good as my mandarin) but not enough to communicate fully. *The showers have mats in them that are rough! Even standing on the mat for a couple of seconds my feet began to hurt. Imagine a honeycomb metal grate with pieces of metal that stick up. That's this mat, but rather made out of hard rubber. Ok.. the good! *The location is phenominal. Plenty of places to eat here. Upscale resteraunts close by or you also have a KFC and McDonalds within a 60 second walk. There is a chinese drinking club with live "entertainment" across the street and down a few doors. This is a MUST SEE location if you can handle cigarettee smoke and drunk chinese men yelling with their shirts off - very memorable in a positive way. *The Rooms. The rooms were clean and well updated. The bathroom is dirty by US standards but superb by CN standards. One touch that I enjoyed greatly was the heated marble floor in the bathroom. The bed was large and comfortable - very soft by CN standards and firm by US standards. I travel to this area regularly for business and pleasure. When I don't have to pinch pennies I stay at the Guo Ge Li Hotel. When I need to save money I stay at the Long'an hotel which is a 5 minute walk away.