Where We Stayed in Beijing: Furun · Jingyuan Hotel (富润·璟院) gave us a small boutique base near Wangfujing, at the edge of a hutong neighborhood — comfortable enough for a few nights of exploring central Beijing.
When choosing a hotel in Beijing, Dad usually asks a very practical question:
How much of our holiday do we want to spend traveling from our hotel to the places we actually came to see?
Beijing is enormous.
And many of the places a first-time traveler wants to visit are scattered across the city.
So for this part of our Beijing stay, Dad wanted somewhere reasonably central.
Not necessarily luxurious.
Not an enormous international hotel.
Just somewhere comfortable, pleasant and well located enough for Dad and Elaine to use as a base.
We found:
Furun · Jingyuan Hotel (富润·璟院)
near Wangfujing (王府井, Wángfǔjǐng) and at the edge of one of Beijing’s hutong areas.
And it came with an unexpected bonus.
Three cats. 😂🐈
🎥 Come Inside Our Beijing Hotel
Dad filmed this walkthrough so you can see the hotel rather than relying only on booking-site photographs.
The first thing to know:
This isn’t a big hotel.
The corridors are compact.
Our room wasn’t enormous.
The lobby was small.
But everything felt nicely designed and comfortable enough for what we needed.
Because on this Beijing trip, we weren’t planning to spend our days sitting in a hotel room.
We had Beijing to explore.
🌿 Then We Found the Courtyard
This was probably Dad’s favorite part of the property.
Walk through the hotel and you reach a small open-air courtyard.
Plants.
Wooden decking.
Tables.
Umbrellas.
Hanging chairs.
A quiet place to sit for a while between days of sightseeing.
And wandering around the courtyard…
cats.
Not one.
The hotel had three resident cats when we stayed there.
😂
That immediately gave the place more personality than another anonymous city hotel.
In fact, those cats became part of another thing Dad started noticing while walking through Beijing’s hutongs:
Beijingers and their pets.
Small Hotel, Lots of Character
The lobby continued the boutique feel.
Warm lighting.
Tea tables.
Chinese decorative touches.
And a large swallow-shaped kite decorating the wall.
Nothing particularly grand.
But it didn’t need to be.
Dad’s impression was simply:
Nice environment. Nicely decorated. Comfortable.
For a short Beijing city stay, that worked for us.
📍 Where Exactly Did We Stay?
Our hotel was:
Furun · Jingyuan Hotel
富润·璟院（北京王府井隆福寺店）
It sits along Chaoyangmennei Beixiaojie (朝阳门内北小街) in central Beijing, around the edge of the Dongsi (东四, Dōngsì) hutong area.
That location was one of the main reasons Dad liked it.
We weren’t staying right on Wangfujing itself.
But we were close enough to central Beijing that getting around by DiDi was easy.
Dad estimated Wangfujing at roughly 4 km away from the hotel during our stay.
And we have a photograph that makes the point much better than saying “centrally located.”
🚕 Here’s What One of Our Beijing DiDi Rides Actually Cost
This is the kind of travel photograph Dad likes keeping.
Not beautiful.
But useful. 😂
Look at the screen:
Distance: 3.8 km
Estimated journey: 11 minutes
Fare: ¥18.05
That’s why Dad doesn’t necessarily insist that a Beijing hotel must be directly beside every attraction.
Sometimes being a few kilometers away in a good central location is perfectly workable when a short DiDi ride is inexpensive.
Of course, Beijing traffic changes everything.
Eleven minutes on one journey doesn’t mean every 4 km trip will take eleven minutes.
But this screenshot shows what we actually experienced on this particular ride.
🗺️ Why Location Matters So Much in Beijing
First-time visitors sometimes look at a Beijing hotel and think:
“It’s only 8 km from the attraction. That’s close.”
Be careful.
In a city this large, distance on a map doesn’t always tell you how convenient a hotel will feel.
Traffic.
Subway access.
Which side of the city you’re on.
How often you’re returning to the center.
All of these matter.
For us, staying around the Wangfujing/Dongsi side of central Beijing meant we were positioned reasonably well for exploring many of the places on our itinerary.
And there was another advantage.
We were right beside a hutong (胡同, hútòng) neighborhood.
So the moment we stepped outside the hotel, Beijing didn’t feel as though it began only when we reached the next tourist attraction.
🚶 What’s Around the Hotel?
This is one thing Dad mentions honestly in the video.
There wasn’t a huge selection of restaurants immediately outside our door.
But walk roughly 5–8 minutes in the direction Dad shows in the video and we found more useful everyday options:
a supermarket,
local breakfast and lunch places,
and even a KFC.
That’s something worth checking when choosing accommodation in China.
A hotel can have a fantastic location on a map…
but at 8:00 in the morning you may suddenly discover:
Where do we get breakfast? 😂
Dad always likes knowing what is within walking distance.
🥟 Don’t Be Afraid of the Local Breakfast Places
For first-time travelers, we’d encourage you to look beyond the international chains too.
A small neighborhood breakfast shop might have:
包子 (bāozi) — steamed buns
粥 (zhōu) — rice porridge/congee
豆浆 (dòujiāng) — soy milk
油条 (yóutiáo) — fried dough sticks
You don’t need to turn breakfast into a culinary expedition every morning.
But staying near ordinary neighborhood eateries gives you the option.
And sometimes breakfast becomes another ChinaTravelBUG story. 😂
🐈 And Those Hotel Cats Led Us Somewhere Else
This is one of those funny connections that only appeared later.
At first, the three cats were simply:
Cute hotel cats.
Then Dad started walking through Beijing’s hutongs.
And we encountered more cats.
A white cat wandering down a lane.
A very fat tabby sitting on a roof.
A resident calling her cat down.
Dogs coming out of courtyard homes.
Suddenly those three hotel cats felt like the beginning of another little Beijing observation.
That’s one thing we enjoy about staying somewhere connected to a neighborhood.
The hotel doesn’t have to be separate from the journey.
Sometimes something you notice inside follows you outside.
🐇
What Was the Room Like?
Dad says it directly in the video:
Not very big.
And that’s worth saying.
If your idea of a holiday hotel is an enormous room where you can spread three suitcases across the floor, this may not be the style of accommodation you’re looking for.
For Dad and Elaine?
It was enough.
A comfortable place to sleep.
A pleasant environment.
A central base.
Then out the door again.
Beijing was waiting.
Dad’s Tips Before Booking a Beijing City-Center Hotel
1. Look at the map — not just the hotel description
“Central Beijing” can mean many things.
Check where the property actually sits relative to the places on your itinerary.
2. Check subway access AND DiDi practicality
You don’t necessarily need to choose one or the other.
We use both.
The subway can be excellent for longer predictable journeys.
DiDi can be wonderfully convenient when Dad and Elaine are tired after a full day of walking.
3. Read recent reviews and look at traveler photographs
Dad particularly checks:
room size, bathroom, cleanliness and location.
Marketing photographs aren’t enough.
4. Check whether international guests can stay
When booking in China, international travelers should confirm that the property can accommodate guests using foreign passports.
5. Check what’s around the hotel
Breakfast?
Convenience store?
Supermarket?
Restaurants?
Metro?
A beautifully designed hotel becomes considerably less convenient if every simple meal requires another journey.
Would We Stay Here Again?
For the right Beijing trip:
Yes.
Not because this was the most luxurious hotel we’ve ever stayed in.
It wasn’t.
And not because our room was enormous.
It wasn’t that either. 😂
We liked it because it got the important things right for us:
central enough.
comfortable enough.
interesting enough.
And with a little courtyard that made coming back after a long Beijing sightseeing day rather pleasant.
Plus…
three cats.
It’s difficult for Dad to compete with that. 😂🐈🐈🐈
ChinaTravelBUG’s Take
We’ve stayed in very different kinds of accommodation during our China journeys.
Sometimes we deliberately choose somewhere unusual because the stay itself is part of the experience.
Other times, like here, the job of the hotel is simpler:
Give us a comfortable base and make Beijing easy to explore.
Furun · Jingyuan did that for us.
The room wasn’t huge.
The hotel wasn’t huge.
But Beijing certainly was.
And when you’re spending your days exploring one of the world’s great cities…
sometimes a small room, a nice courtyard and an ¥18 DiDi ride are all you really need.
Well…
that and three cats waiting when you get back. 🐈❤️🐞
