Samantha S Like 0

"Samantha"  Mrs. Yanzhi Song is a lovely person. She is always professional, reliable and trust worthy. I had the pleasure of meeting her when I was visiting Beijing. She helped to make the experience rewarding and allowed me to see the things that I would enjoy with little trouble. I hope to see her again some day and would surely use her services again. Thanks again for your help.

We spent a couple of very pleasant days with Samantha, who turned out not only to speak very good English, but to actually enjoy getting to know foreigners and showing them around, which was certainly a change from the last travel guide I had in Beijing, who would obviously have preferred to have stayed in bed.

She has a good knowledge of Harbin and its history and was able to show us a few places that were a little bit off the beaten track. And I doubt if we could have negotiated the ice festival without her.

My kids and I spent a week in Harbin. On the first day, we did not have Samantha as a guide, we had a woman from another company (found on the internet). What I remember most about that woman was her telling us, as we were crossing over a bridge on the Songhua River in a taxi, how long the bridge was in metres, and how wide!!! Good grief! She rattled on and on about totally unimportant things, making the day boring, and with the kids rolling their eyes at me... That evening, we told that woman we would not require her services any more and I then called some friends in Beijing, and they recommended Samantha. From the moment Samantha appeared, everything changed. She immediately struck up great relationships with the kids, took us first to Saint Sophia which was good to see --- even if to me it is a shell without spirit --- and then, over an excellent lunch of dumplings (I forget the name of the chain but it is apparently quite famous in the NorthEast), she figured out exactly what we wanted to do with our time. The kids were of course very keen to visit the Tiger Park and Sun Island (in the end we went to the Tiger Park twice!) It is really fascinating looking at those big tigers, probably the best zoo I have seen anywhere even if it is (bizarrely) underfunded by the local government. On the cultural side, Samantha did not limit herself to must-sees like Saint Sophia, she also knew about the wooden church built by the Russians in 1900 - Saint Nicholas - and destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and, when I questioned her about this, she was able to take me to see a replica of the building which I found amazing. I was keen to visit the very sad but very moving Unit 731 Museum (the place where teams directed by the notorious Japanese scientist Shiro Ishii operated on Chinese and Russian "logs") which is housed in its original buildings and to which the Chinese Govt charges no admission. In my opinion, this museum is the most memorable war museum in China, more affecting than the museum in Nanjing. The dark hours of history aside, Harbin is a lively place. Every morning Samantha showed up at our hotel as we were finishing breakfast. On one occasion she even brought a little gift for my daughter! On our last day, she took us to a place to buy authentic Harbin sausage. She was a lively, sensitive, knowledgeable guide with excellent English. It was a real pleasure to meet her and learn about Harbin with her.