Hotel HK Californication:
When I arrived in Hong Kong from Canada on March 31st I stayed at a Hotel in central HK and paid 440 Rmb for 1 night. It was a modest hotel but for the price meet our needs. When I decided to spend a night in Hong Kong before returning home on April 20th the price had doubled for the same hotel. With a major mainland Chinese holiday coming at the end of the month, suddenly hotels in Hong Kong were becoming a precious commodity.
My wife talked with a friend of hers that was staying in Hong Kong. The girlfriend had gone to Hong Kong to have her baby. She believed that the hospitals were better in HK so she paid the extra expense to have her baby there. She told my wife about a hotel that we could stay in that was very small but cost only 200 Rmb. Great price I thought but with hotels becoming scarce, I worried about its quality.
After our unsuccessful afternoon trip to the consulate we took the subway to find this little bitty hotel. Just outside of the Mong Kok subway exit tucked away on a small side street my wife spotted the sign. The hotel occupied about 4 floors in a small building. As I looked into the hallway from outside I could see stairs and no elevator. My wife commented that she would go inside to investigate while I watched the suitcases. She came back a little later. She told me the price was 200 Rmb if we waited until 18:00 because 200 Rmb was for renting the room for 12 hours. If we checked in earlier we would pay an additional 50 Rmb each extra hour. She also mentioned the place was tiny and the washroom worse then hers back home. I told her that for my last night I wished to find a better place. I had noticed on a walkway we used a sign giving directions to a hotel. I thought that this meant the hotel was probably a larger better quality one. My wife warned me that it also meant that the price would be more. I said I rather treat her nice for the last night and was willing to check it out and then decide.
So off we went following the yellow bricked walkway. After a couple of blocks we descended from the above ground walkway onto the main street. We lost the trail to the hotel as I tried to identify another sign. But from the main street we did see another small hotel that had pictures of the rooms displayed on a bulletin board. The pictures displayed a nice sized bedroom with a view into a reasonable washroom. The prices quoted on the board was 460 Rmb and beside the room another price of 60 Rmb. I found out latter this was the hourly rate. This building did have an elevator and the hotel was located on the 4th to 6th floors. Once again I watched the bags as my wife went to investigate. She returned and said that the rooms were nice just like the pictures. She said that if we waited until 10:00 pm then we would only need to pay 320 Rmb. I said okay we will take it but wished to see if we could at least check in our bags now so we did not need to tote them around. It was 5:00 in the afternoon and I was getting hungry. She also wanted to see her girlfriend and the new baby. We were allowed to check in our bags but had to pay 40 Rmb for it. The hotel took up half of the 4th floor with a locked door that we needed to ring the doorbell on to gain entrance. The bedrooms were set up like a hostel with rooms coming off at different angles from the one main hallway. In a service hallway we were allowed to stash our bags and headed off to supper. While walking to find a restaurant I noticed my wife had white paint on the back of her skirt. After supper and before going to her friends location, we returned to the hotel for her to change. We tried to figure where she had leaned against a wall or bar that had wet white paint. In the hotel we went to the suitcases and I noticed down a small hallway a man painting the wainscoting in a fresh white paint. I pointed this out to my wife that got her calling the receptionist. While my wife changed into some shorts, the painter tried to clean up her black skirt by using some turpentine and water. We left to take the subway and go see her friend and baby.
At 10:30 we arrived back at the hotel and checked in. The room was of a nice size and the bed mattress for a change was firm, thick but not hard. The washroom looked clean and had a standard toilet, sink, and bathtub. Most hotels in China only have showers so this was different; however there was no shower curtain. The room did have a fair bit of mirrors and with an hourly rate room charge; I was not that naïve to figure why.
My wife wanted to take a shower before bed and this is when we found out that we needed to wait for the water to be turned on. Even the sink tap did not work but the toilet did flush. She had left the tap open and about 20 minutes later we heard the pipes burping. Soon water started coming out in a fine rusty brown spray. Oh great, I can get my iron supplementation with my bath. But after a couple of minutes the flow turned clean and we showered and got ready for the night.
Before coming back to the hotel that night, two blocks away I did see the sign for a Man’s night club, or maybe instead, it was a store selling women’s bikinis. Well during the night I did get clear evidence that it probably was a night club. I sure wish the interior soundproofing of walls was up to a better standard in China. Not for the first time on this trip have I had nocturnal noise disturbing the darkness of slumber. Also with a locked door lobby, during the night the door bell kept toiling and not for sleep. Added to this were the fumes from the freshly painted walls giving me a headache. We needed to be up early to get to the consulate before 8:00.
So memories of my last night with my wife were one of deep sadness. Before retiring that night she cried the 1st time about my departure. Never before on other trips did she show such great sadness because of my departure. It was usually I, at least the first two trips that had tears in my eyes. Added to her sadness was the noise and fume infested night.
I believe the both of us are showing the strain of a distant relationship. It is hard on the heart and spirit the many arrivals and departures, and always at the back of the mind, the worry about the visa process.
Not all was doom and gloom. After all I got to hold two brand new babies on this trip. The little girl here and earlier on the trip a brand new baby girl from Yan's friend Sally. I had a wild adventurous time with the bandit Kingpin of Kiaping and his lovely princess Sunny. I spent an enjoyable evening with Shaun and Peggy too so I will have more stories and pictures to follow.
