Beijing Shindom Inn Dashilan

We stayed at Shindom Inn (Da Zha Lan) for two nights in June 2012. It was a bit of a trek from the subway considering we had huge backpacks, made more difficult by the fact that it is tricky to find. Once we figured out where it was, we didn't have any more issues finding it again in the future. It's in a small back alley, which is actually quite an interesting area but I did feel a little unsafe the first night at ~10pm as it was an unfamiliar area. We were given a twin room that smelt very smokey and musty which was disappointing as we had requested a double bed (non smoking), but I understand they can't always accommodate requests. We got in late after a long day so immediately jumped in the shower, and there was no hot water! After 2-3 minutes a tiny bit of hot water trickled out. The next day however the water pressure was much better, if not great. The room is quite small but clean. The bathroom is okay too. There is a sink with a mirror, a Western toilet, and a showerhead (no separate shower - there is a curtain that separates shower + toilet half from the sink half of the bathroom). It didn't seem very noisy, but then again we were so exhausted by the end of the day I don't know if anything could have kept us up! As we cannot speak Chinese and the staff cannot speak English cannot really comment as to service except to say that the staff did make an effort to understand us. Check in took extraordinarily long, but check out was speedy. On the first morning I went to ask them for an ethernet cable as there was a LAN connection, and the staff member called a translation service to figure out what I was saying. I believe this requires a deposit of 10RMB as when I returned it at checkout the (different) staff member tried to give me 10RMB, but I was not asked for it when I borrowed the cable. Overall, it was decent value for the price I got it from on Agoda (~$27AU/night/double room) but I would probably not return as it was too far a walk from the subway after long days spent at the Great Wall, etc. If you're not as lazy as us it could be worth a shot, however!