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Review: Jinhong Garden Villa (Lijiang, China)

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Introduction
China Eastern 734 737-700 Economy Class Hong Kong to Kunming
Transiting Kunming Airport – International to Domestic
China Eastern 734 737-700 Economy Class Kunming to Lijiang
Jin Hong Garden Villa Lijiang
Biking in Lijiang, Day 1: Baisha Village
Biking in Lijiang, Day 2: Down to Lashi Lake
Biking in Lijiang, Day 3: Into Dali Villages
China Eastern 733 737-700 Economy Class Lijiang to Kunming
Transiting Kunming Airport – Domestic to International
China Eastern 733 737-700 Economy Class Kunming to Hong Kong


The Jinhong Garden Villa is a classic Naxi style hotel situated five minutes from Lijiang Old City. We were booked in the hotel for about HK$200 a night, which is really cheap, so I went in with virtually no expectations.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Lijiang exterior

There’s a billboard signalling the hotel that especially works at night, though seemed slightly tacky and out of place.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Lijiang billboard

The entrance is Chinese pillar-style and almost looks haunted at night.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Lijiang Entrance

The courtyard is similarly themed, and is actually designed exactly like a Naxi courtyard.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Lobby Courtyard

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Jinhong Garden Villa Lobby Courtyard

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Jinhong Garden Villa Lobby Courtyard

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Jinhong Garden Villa Lobby Courtyard

There were some fish in the pond, which we hung out near.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Lobby Courtyard Fish

We arrived at night, and the hotel stayed up late to prepare my friend’s late birthday present (while we bought the cake, they helped, which was appreciated).

There were also birthday hats, which were ridiculous, though also appreciated.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Birthday Cake

The hotel rooms are featured at the end of the courtyard. The hotel itself has four floors, and has ten rooms on the first three floors and three on the top one, so it’s a 33 room hotel.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Reception

The stairs led to all the floors. There are no elevators at the hotel.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Stairs

At each landing there was a little lounge where I liked to hang out at (though it seemed like I was alone every time). Each floor featured a differently designed lounge, almost like it was an afterthought when they couldn’t fit all their furniture in their storage unit.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Landing Lounge (Second Floor)

We were assigned room 206, which was right beside the staircase.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Hallways

Jinhong Garden Villa Lijiang
Check-in: Sunday, May 10, 2015
Room Type: Standard Twin
Room Number: 206
Stay duration: 5 nights
Check-out: Friday, May 15, 2015

The room was fine – it was outdated, especially with the white light shining down, but in no means unacceptable.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Standard Twin Room 

The room featured two (rather low) beds, a desk, a few power ports and a flatscreen TV.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Standard Twin Room Bed

Each bed featured a thin duvet, a thicker fur blanket and a square pillow, and I used the latter two to build a fort of sorts while covered myself in the substantial duvet.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Standard Twin Room Bed

I found it interesting that each power port had to be switched on. At first I thought that neither of the ports worked and resorted to using the one in the bathroom, but I soon figured out that you had to turn the power ports on.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Standard Twin Room Power Port Switches

The room also featured two comfortable chairs with a boiler and two bags of tea.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Standard Twin Room Tea Party Set

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Jinhong Garden Villa Standard Twin Room Bedside Table

The bathroom was…flowery. It featured a walk-in shower (which flooded unless you took the drainage filter out), a toilet and the sink, all in a line. It was like a bathroom-shower combo.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Standard Twin Room Bathroom Soap

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Jinhong Garden Villa Standard Twin Room Bathroom Toilet

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Jinhong Garden Villa Standard Twin Room Bathroom Shower

The toiletries were unnamed and not too bad.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Standard Twin Room Bathroom Toiletries

It wasn’t a perfect bathroom, but at least they covered up the defects.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Standard Twin Room Bathroom Hole

Overall, for HK$200 (US$25) a night, it definitely was acceptable.

The hotel has a mini-buffet at one of the many pagodas at the hotel, which serves cakes, bananas, coffee and tea. The milk was fresh, but that’s really all I can say about it…

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Jinhong Garden Villa Breakfast Restaurant Seating

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Jinhong Garden Villa Breakfast Spread

There was an egg station and noodles. While the eggs were only served over medium (ick), the noodles were delicious. Admittedly they say that all good food in Yunnan is spicy as f*ck, but as spicy as the noodles were, we went back for seconds every day.

As far as the amenities go, the hotel has a laundry station. While the laundry is done yourself, there’s a lounge up there where my roommate and I hung out to catch some fresh air. It was a great place to spend some time to chill out, and the views over there were amazing.

With all that said, the laundry machine was as crap as the crap that goes in the toilet bowl. It was basically useless. The clothes got a rinse, but it wouldn’t have made a difference if I wet the clothes at the sink.

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Jinhong Garden Villa Laundry Service

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Jinhong Garden Villa Laundry Lounge

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Jinhong Garden Villa Laundry Lounge Views by Day

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Jinhong Garden Villa Laundry Lounge by Night

We hung out until about 2 A.M. in the laundry lounge after I accidentally spilled some pungent (no kidding) acne oil in the room.

Speaking of views, the hotel makes for some nice photos…

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Jinhong Garden Villa Courtyard

Bottom line on Jinhong Garden Villa

I felt like the hotel was a great place to hang out and was kind of a landmark in itself.

But it’s definitely not “dripping in class”, let’s get that right…

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