Motel 168

I forgot to mention accommodation in my previous post, so I thought I'd drop a line about it now. Since the hotel that we initially booked when we booked our Dalian trip suddenly became unavailable (due to renovation) 2 days prior to our departure (is it only me, or is that just 'so China?!') we had to find a new place to stay. We suggested a few hotels to our travel agency but were told that those were 'only for Chinese people' (I didn't know that rule still existed here). So, in the end we decided to settle for Motel 168. I don't know why, but I was a little bit against staying there at first, I thought it was going to be small, old and dirty, so imagine my surprise when we walked into our room and found it to be both newer and cleaner than any of the 500 kuai + hotels where I have stayed before in Shanghai. Motel 168 was perfect! Located on Youhao Lu, with walking distance to the Victory Square, train station and with a bus stop just across the street. My only complaint would be that they didn't have any hairdryer and that sort of sucked, especially during our last day when it was minus degrees and ice on the streets... Fortunately I had 5 different hats to hide under :)