The City of Hefei
Adoptions from Tongling take
place in the city of Hefei. Hefei is about a 3 hour car ride away from
Tongling. Here are some facts and links about Hefei. Followed by Hotel
Information.
Hefei is the capital of Anhui
Province, China. The Yangtze River runs through Hefei. The population
listed for Hefei in the year 2000 is 763,829 people. The main agricultural
products are wheat, tea and rice.
Hefei is an educational
center. One of the four Scientific and Educational Bases in all of
China. Best known for the University of Science and Technology of
China, Hefei has 13 Institutions of higher education.
An ancient city with over 2000
years of history, Hefei is graced with many temples, gardens and beautiful
mountain peaks.
Hefei Welcomes You
http://china-window.com/Henan_w/ChinaInvestment/
Region/hefei/indexe.htm
Lycos Destination Hefei
http://travel.lycos.com/Destinations/Asia/China/Hefei/
Pictures of Hefei
Please click to enlarge picture
Bao Zheng Park Where some of
the Hefei Museum
Workers
Traffic
adoptions take place
Anhui Hotel
18 Meishan Rd.
Hefei, Anhui, China
Tel. 011-86-551-281-1818
(3 Star Hotel)
See picture at http://www.anhuinet.com/Tourism.html
A comfortable place to live with your
travel group for the week!
The rooms are your standard Chinese Hotel
room with two three-quarter style beds
separated by a radio. The back of the hotel provides a beautiful view
of the city moat. When we were there in 1998,
the carpeting could have been cleaner,
but was certainly acceptable. The hotel provided metal folding cribs
that would be banned in this country, but had a certain charm of their
own!!!
Buffet style meals were served in the main
dining room, providing a good variety
for everyone. There was a small restaurant advertising "western"
style meals that didn't quite have the art of
"Western" cooking. The bar and
grill had very good grilled sandwiches and Chinese noodles.
The lobby provided comfortable seating and
beautiful chandeliers. We were able
to watch over a balcony as the nannies brought our children through the
revolving doors and waiting to be called up
the winding staircase to "Honored
Guest Hall" for our introductions.
The floor staff was outstanding! They
helped in any way possible. We were fortunate
to have one staffer sing lullabies to our daughter to calm her down
(she was a screamer). We were allowed to gather in the middle of a large
expanse of floor with a birthday cake and a dozen or so babies.
If you are in this hotel you will want a
stroller for passing the time and moving
around.
Several brothels surround the property, but
are, for the most part, tucked away
from view.
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Here is my hotel review (and please keep in
mind that we were pretty much confined
to our hotel due to some of the children being ill and that I was really,
really sick of the place by the time we left. You must take my review
in this spirit).
We stayed at the Anhui Hotel in Hefei in
December 1998. There was quite a bit
of construction going on at the entrance to the hotel on the street. It
looked like a sewer or water project. If
it's anything like our "Big Dig" here
in Boston, it is still ongoing. When you walk into the lobby of the
hotel, you really see that it is a four star
hotel, all marble and high ceilings.
It was appropriately decorated for Christmas. The lobby gets VERY
smokey by the end of the day and is not a place where you want to sit
with your child. If fact, the Chinese
even smoke in elevators -- in all hotels,
not just this one. It isn't until you get to your room that you are
disappointed. I've told people that it
has a Ritz Carlton lobby and Holiday Inn
rooms. There is a station with a small refrigerator, a hot water
thermos, and an electric pot to boil your own
water. A small bathroom and two
full sized beds with a nightstand/headboard built into the wall. We
were truly horrified when we saw the
crib. It was a metal job with springs that
had metal ends that stuck out. Our guide hit the crib with his knee
when he went to turn the light on and it
keeled right over. After discussion
with our travel mates, who had the same exact cribs, we all decided
it was best to wrap the cribs up with the spare comforters that were in
the room. The hall attendants were wonderful, they would provide you
with boiled water any time you needed it and
were helpful with questions. The
laundry wasn't outrageously expensive and I recommend you do as much as
you can in Hefei before you get to Gaungzhou.
Holiday Inn Hefei
1104 Chang Jiang Dong Lu
Hefei, Anhui, China
Tel. 011-86-551-429-1188
(5 Star Hotel)
See pictures and info at: http://www.asiahotels.com/hotel/Holiday_Inn_Hefei.htm
There are 341 guest rooms at
the Holiday Inn. The hotel is extremely clean and very new. We
stayed at the Holiday Inn Hefei in December of 1999. We were fortunate to
have a deluxe room. It consisted of a westernized bathroom, king size bed
and small sitting area with a couch that pulls out. Not like our sleeper
sofas in the USA, the cushions just pull out onto the floor. Our daughter
was almost three years old, did not want the crib, so this pull out couch
was invaluable! There was a safe, refrigerator and blow dryer in the
room.
As we walked into the room,
the first thing we noticed was the very nice mesh crib and stroller with sun
canopy. I found the Holiday Inn to be the most child friendly hotel
that we stayed in.
There are 4 restaurants at the
Holiday Inn. We only visited 2 of them. We ate our suppers at the
second floor restaurant (I don't remember the name) The meals there were
OK. It wasn't the best restaurant that I ate in during our trip. We
had breakfast on the top floor in the revolving dinning room. With a
beautiful view of Hefei. They served a wonderful buffet. My husband
and I liked this breakfast buffet the most out of all the other breakfast
buffets we tried in China. It may not have had as many choices as the
White Swan in Guangzhou, but they had almost as many things plus they made eggs
fresh to order, and they had wonderful danishes, and pineapple juice (our
daughter's favorite)...all of which we did not find at the White Swan during our
stay. There was a fantastic Bakery on the first floor. We visited
them nightly!! Very yummy things and plenty made with chocolate!!!
There was a beautiful indoor
pool, which we almost went in, but just couldn't find the time. They had a
large conference room (on the fifth floor?), where all the adoption paper work
took place. The conference room opened to a large patio/balcony (didn't
look like anyone ever used it) but it was nice to go out there to get a breath
of fresh air while waiting for officials to show up. On the first floor, there
was an office center with one computer for sending e-mail. We found all
the computers at all the hotels VERY slow...but it was great to be able to
e-mail friends and family.
The staff had a very hard time
with English, but they would try their hardest to understand you. You
could always find a manager in the lobby that could understand you somewhat
better.
The Holiday Inn in Hefei was
my all time favorite hotel out of all the hotels we stayed in, in China.
Maybe I'm biased because this is where we united with our daughter, but we
really did love the Holiday Inn!!
Click on pictures to
enlarge.
Novotel Hotel
199 Wu Hu Road
Hefei, Anhui, China 230001
Tel. 011-86-551-288-7777
(4 Star Hotel)
See pictures and info at: http://www.asiahotels.com/hotel/Novotel_Hefei.htm
or http://www.novotel-hefei.com/
The Novotel Hotel has 246
Rooms. A coffee shop and two specialty restaurants (Cantonese &
Sichuan).
We stayed at the Novotel Hotel
in Hefei. It was very clean and comfortable. Appears
this hotel may have been recently remodeled. The bedspreads and bedding
and towels seemed almost new. Across the street was the Bao Zheng Memorial
Park. Very nice park to take a stroll through. Very convenient location
and felt very comfortable to walk around the nearby vicinities.
Room came with two queen size beds and crib,
refrigerator, hot pot and like a bar
which we used to organize baby cereals, milk, snacks, bottled water and
USA remedies we brought. Seems like a lot of
adoptive parents with groups of people
stayed there. We traveled alone but enjoyed talking to the other new parents.
The buffet featured a good variety of food along with great assortment
of fruits, dessert, soups and congee. The room service was quite good
too and very fancy. If I had to do it again, I would stay here again.
