Horrors of a Taiwanese hotel
2019-07-02 Comments
When I contracted in Hong Kong, my sister came over from the UK to visit me. To make the most out of her trip, we planned it so she spent a few days in Hong Kong with me and we would do a weekend trip to Taiwan, as it was so near - under 2 hours flight to Taipei. One of the girls on my project, Fran, was doing some training in the Taipei office and she spoke Mandarin. She gave us the idea to visit and convinced me to go over. She said she would meet up with us and show us around. We flew into Taipei on the Friday afternoon and checked into our hotel. It was rather an old place, clean and cheap so adequate for our short stay.
That evening we met Fran. She had just finished work and we headed to a restaurant near our hotel. She was staying at one of the higher end hotels which work had arranged, I'm not going to say which one. She was telling us that 90% of the hotels in Taiwan were haunted, especially the new pricey hotels. Apparently, all the new hotels are built on desecrated land. People were killed on these plots, either executed or died in former prison camps built there. The locals were very superstitious and would not make use of them. Over the years, because these areas were left untouched and none of the natives wanted to buy them, prices of the land fell. This attracted Western developers, they came along and bought them at low prices, then built hotels on top. Soon after, the hauntings or eerie tales started. Fran said some of the locals believed people's remains were still in and under the soil. She went further to say, she had experienced something just the other week.
After a long day's training, she was glad to get back to the hotel. It was around 9pm and she got into the lift by herself. She was staying on the 10th floor and as the lift was travelling up, the buttons on the lift panel all started to light up one by one. The lift stopped at every floor and she poked her head out the first couple of floors, but no one was there. She said she smelled the scent of perfume in the lift and thought it was an old Chinese brand from years ago. Something that her grandmother might have used. Then suddenly the hairs on the back of her neck shot straight up and a strong waft of cigarettes hit her. The smell was of an old brand of tobacco, it was getting stronger and stronger, enveloping her. It got so strong she thought it might choke her.
There was a security camera in the top corner of the lift and she looked up to plead for help. Luckily, the lift was reaching her floor. As soon as the doors opened she sprinted out and dashed into her room. She bolted the door behind her and took several drinks from the mini bar to help calm her down. She was a strong, confident and outgoing person but she'd never been so scared in her life. She said since then, she only travelled in the lift if someone was in it, otherwise she was taking the stairs!
With the following day being a Saturday, we met up with Fran to shop in a local market. Things were so much cheaper plus there were new and exciting fashions. I bought myself a pair of wedge sandals and my sister bought a bag and a top. After the morning of shopping we looked for somewhere to lunch. Between the three of us, we couldn't decide which cuisine we liked. We turned onto a road where nearly every eatery was Japanese, namely Sushi.
We walked up to the first place where you could see the ladies making the Nigiri and Gunkan maki. They were sat low on stools and chatting away whilst assembling and wrapping the sushi. Suddenly, when she thought no one was looking, one of them bent down and gobbled up a piece. She was blatantly chewing and her colleague carried on chatting like normal. To make matters worse, when she started to speak a bit of rice flew out and landed on a piece of sushi (pre-wrapped) and they carried on, not missing a beat. I was quite shocked, neither Fran nor my sister saw what happened. Once I told them, we all agreed to give that place a miss. Then we found another sushi place a few streets away. Same thing, we could see the ladies making the sushi, but this time no one was helping themselves. You could tell this place had better standards. They weren't squatting on stools, but were stood up by the window so everything was transparent. Another thing we noticed which reassured us, was the fact they had latex gloves on too. We felt free to indulge in as much Sushi as we could.
After lunch Fran took us to a bubble tea place for dessert. We sat for an hour chatting before we bid her farewell. My sister and I took a walk to settle our bellies after all the food. By the time we got back to the hotel it was still quite early, around 6pm but we were tired from walking around during the day. The hotel provided us with a twin room. The layout was unconventional, the room was split in two by an archway. The main door entered onto one half, which consisted of a sideboard with the television set on it, to the left of the door. There was a large window in front as you walked in and the beds to the right. The two skinny single beds were backed up on the right wall so we could watch television facing the sideboard. My bed was on the window side and my sister's was near the main door side and had the bathroom door directly on her left.
I fell back onto my bed and kicked off my shoes, I felt my aching feet throbbing as I lifted them up off the floor. We decided not to eat again as lunch was gut bursting and we were still digesting it. So my sister went to floss her teeth in the bathroom, leaving the door ajar. I leaned over to the night stand to get the remote for the television. I switched it on and settled back to relax. The hotel staff had left the window open so there was a slight breeze rippling the net curtain. After chilling a bit, half watching some programme, I was slowly drifting off. From the corner of my eye, I noticed something dark and long, scuttle speedily up the wall of the archway that caught my attention. I sat bolt upright, "What the...?". Then it appeared again, this time right above the archway. When realisation set in and I could cleary see it was a cockroach, I jumped out of bed and squeaked a scream.
My sister came out from the bathroom to see what the fuss was about. I pointed at the huge cockroach sat on the wall. She looked at me, "Oh my God, is that a cockroach?". "Yes!", I squealed loudly. Then whilst we were both looking at it, we noticed that it was about 4 or 5 inches (10-12 cm), with a tinge of dark green to it. All of a sudden, it dashed across the wall and disappeared round the arch. "Oh my God, Oh my God", we both starting freaking out. Not only because of it's size but the fact it was so unpredictable and quick. It appeared back on our side of the wall moving erractically. Annoyingly, the telephone was on the other side of the room on the sideboard, right next to the television. I never ran so quick before and made it through the archway to the phone without it falling on me.
I screeched down the phone "RECEPTION, PLEASE SEND SOMEONE THERE'S A COCKROACH IN OUR ROOM, PLEASE SEND SOMEONE QUICK!". The woman on the other end of the line was very pleasant and calm, she told me not to worry that someone would be with us shortly. And to their credit someone did come within a couple of minutes. In the meantime, after making the call I slammed the receiver down in panic and made for my bed. I jumped under the covers and kept an eye on the thing. It was motionless at that moment and right above the top of the arch. Then a thought occured to me to ask my sister if they could fly. At the time, she was still standing by the bathroom door, she shrugged her shoulders. She said she wasn't sure, then it was like it was telepathic or understood what we were talking about and it took flight. "Aaaaaah, aaaaaah, aaaaaah". It flew unpredictably around this side of the room. Why? the bugger was taunting us! The both of us never screamed so much and so loud in our lives. And that's when the knock on the door sobered us up.
My sister answered it, since she was the nearest. Then she dove under her bed covers too. In came this petite maid in her uniform, she wore a short sleeved white polyester uniform that was a dress which came just passed her knees and a pair of clogs. She was also armed with the latest technology in roach killing........a dustpan and a rolled up magazine. We watched as she came nervously into the room. We held on tight to the bed covers looking out to see where the hell the bloody roach had gone. Then it came into view as it ran from nowhere towards her on the floor. She gave a little yelp and moved to one side. It moved across the carpet to the other side of the room and reappeared on the far wall.
We watched the maid, gripped with drama where she tried to hit it with the magazine. She tried to whack it but it flew up and she got scared and closed her eyes and hit wildly about her. The three of us were in a frenzy as she lashed out, but missed her target - the maid was shook up, my sister and I mentally willing her on through our shrieks. I can't speak for my sister but I was in stitches. It was hilarious. I was both scared and relieved that it wasn't me that had to deal with it. I just couldn't stop laughing. Then the bug shot up the wall again just behind where the television was and dropped off behind the sideboard. The poor little maid laid in wait and then it scurried out right to where she was standing towards her clog. She jumped up in panic and landed on it. Oh, wow that was too much to take. My sides and ribs were hurting so much where I was laughing. Tears were falling down my cheeks.
Then there was another knock at the door and the maid went to open it. An older guy entered our room, he had a utility belt on so I assumed he was the handyman or caretaker and he was holding a brush - which strangely enough could have been the partner to the dustpan the maid was equipped with. He promptly took the dustpan from the maid, swept the remains of the roach into it, ushered her out the door and nodded a goodnight to us before closing the door. Hooray! Ding dong the roach is dead. My sister and I were in hysterics as we relived what had just happened. It was a good hour before we calmed down. I asked her if she noticed the maid was more scared than we were and she agreed. Poor thing, I bet they don't even pay her enough.
I think the main thing to take from this story is, that cockroaches are evil monsters and they can fly!