China Law Blog

A couple readers e-mailed asking for travel information from this recent trip. I am hesitant to write about Shanghai because there are many good guidebooks on the city and so many expats live there, who presumably know the city far better than I ever could.  So for Shanghai, I will limit my discussion to the hotel in which we stayed, mostly because I would definitely stay there again.&nbs p;

In Shanghai, we stayed at the Radisson Hotel Shanghai New World.  The rooms are nice, the gymnasium is nice, and breakfast is good but way too expensive, so try to get it as part of your room package. The best thing about the hotel, however, is its location.  It is right across the street from People's Park and right across the street from the People's Park subway station.  This makes the hotel very easy to get to and an excellent base from which to travel throughout Shanghai.  It is also steps away from the Nanjing Street Mall and close to a whole slew of good, traditional, Shanghai restaurants.   

Qingdao:  We have an apartment in Qingdao, but when I started having trouble with Internet access and started missing my gym workouts, I fled to the 5 Star Grand Regency Hotel, where Steve (using fluent Chinese) was able to get me a room at the "local rate" of only around $50 per night, including breakfast.  Though the Grand Regency is not quite up to the standards of Qingdao's Shangri-La or Crowne Plaza Hotels, it very much has the feel of a Chinese luxury hotel and I like that.  I also like how hardly anyone there speaks any English so I am forced to work on my Chinese.   

Qingdao actually has a pretty good range of high end business hotels for foreigners.  In addition to the Shangri-La, the Crowne Plaza, and the Grand Regency, one should also consider the following:

The Huiquan Dynasty Hotel , though not quite downtown, is in a beautiful section of Qingdao and overlooks one of Qingdao's nicest beaches.   

I am a big fan of the Qingdao Seaview Garden Hotel.  This hotel has every amenity, is only a five minute taxi ride from downtown, and overlooks a beautiful beach.  I know this hotel well because it is a three minute walk from our apartment and I often go there for its excellent breakfasts. 

The Best Western's Kylin Hotel Qingdao is also quite nice, but a good fifteen minute cab ride from town.  It is, however, quite convenient to the Shandong Exhibition Center.

I have found elong.net (which has some connection with expedia.com) to be one of the best sites for searching for and reserving China hotels. 

Qingdao food is consistently excellent and, by U.S. standards, ridiculously cheap.  My favorite restaurant in Qingdao has to be Die Qiao, located in the center of Minjiang Lu's restaurant row.

This is one of Qingdao's newest and hottest (in multiple ways) Sichuan restaurants.  The chef and nearly all of the staff are from Sichuan province.  Word has it that the chef here was told not to change a thing from what he was doing previously as chef at one of Sichuan's finest restaurants and near as I can tell he hasn't.  In other words, the food here can be ridiculously hot.  One of my favorite dishes here is a shrimp dish, where the shrimp are completely covered in a mound of red peppers when the dish is first brought to the table.  The shrimp are so spicy they burn my mouth, but I cannot stop eating them.  The tofu and fish dishes here have all been excellent as well, and the fried corn makes for a great side dish.   The restaurant itself is beautiful and would fit in just fine on one of London's or New York's trendiest streets. 

I always have a couple lunches at the very good and always pleasant Japanese restaurant within our apartment complex at the Silver Garden (200 feet away from the Seaview Garden Hotel, which is at No. 2, Zhanghua Road). The chef here spent time in Japan and he always insists on speaking Japanese with Steve (who does speak Japanese, but not as well as he speaks Chinese).  The clientele here seems to be made up mostly of Japanese and Koreans who live in the apartment (or perhaps are staying at the Seaview Garden Hotel.  The cooked mackerel and salmon here are excellent, as is the ever changing array of side dishes that come with every meal.  The staff at this small restaurant are always welcoming.   

I also had excellent pizza for lunch one day at La Villa, 5 Xianggang Zhong, which MyRedStar aptly describes as being just "a pizza throw" up the street from the Shangri-La Hotel and just opposite Qingdao's World Trade Center. 

Dou Lai Shun , at 232 Minjiang Lu, is a great place to go for hot pot. 

Qingdao's two online English language information websites are good sources for restaurant (and all sorts of other) information on Qingdao.  MyRedStar.com maintains an up to date list of Qingdao restaurants (oftentimes reviewed and/or with reader comments) and That's Qingdao has a pdf list of popular restaurants here. 

On Sunday, I actually got a little time to do some sightseeing so I went to Changle Lu, also known as Qingdao Culture Street.  This long street, in the old part of Qingdao, is made up almost exclusively of art galleries, book shops, and video stores.  It also has a small outside market where street vendors line up selling mostly art and small antiques.  This is a great place to bargain for and pick up old Mao Zedong plates and authentic little red books.  A 200+ unit luxury apartment building is under construction on this street so I imagine it will be very different in a few months. 

If anyone ever has any questions regarding Qingdao, please feel free to e-mail either Steve or me and we will try to assist.