Currently typing this from the hotel in Changsha on our first night here and I am shocked and so pleasantly surprised that I can access and publish on WordPress here in the country of firewalls!! :O I vividly remember the last time I was here in China in 2013 during the Trip to China where I could not access WordPress at all to publish anything — I remember being able to log in somewhat but only by refreshing like crazy just to get a post up but this time, there’s no blockage at all. I still can’t access Facebook or Instagram of course, but WordPress is now unblocked?! So surprised! 😀 I guess I might be able to continue blogging my trip after all even while sightseeing in China (provided that each night’s hotel has good reliable wifi though). Yay! 😀
….. Wait a minute….. I just typed in Facebook in my web browser and even though it took a very long time, my entire feed appeared. What, you can use Facebook in China now?! But how come I can’t access it or IG on my phone. 
Confused. Going to investigate.
Update: So Google and Instagram don’t work on my laptop but Facebook does! :O What?!??! How? Is it because of this nice hotel? I’m confused but not complaining. But then why doesn’t FB work on my phone? Loading Facebook is slow but it’s still nice to be able to have access and check a few things. 😀
stenoodie 
hahaha..good one 😉
In some nicer hotels, like the Sofitel in Jinan, you can access FB, Word Press, Twitter, etc. Probably not after next Feb.
The Sofitel connects to Hong Kong somehow.
Yes, I’ve been to a similar nicer hotel you’ve spoken of where the firewall was down. This hotel definitely isn’t that one though :).
I wasn’t able to use google, wordpress, instagram, youtube, twitter, or facebook the last time I was in China (2014). But I heard that in nicer hotels, they allow it because they want to cater to their foreign guests.
Yes, there are some hotels that use the same networks as Hong Kong which allows them to be able to escape the firewalls put on in China. This was a strange but super pleasant surprise for me! I wasn’t able to get on anything else social media wise other than a few pages of WordPress and Facebook. It was wonderful though :D.