Eish! London 14 September

Monday, 14 September

The walk to get to my hotel, The Bridal Tea House, from the airport train (100 Hong Kong dollars a trip) drop off point turned out to be much longer than expected and the end of my walk brought the beginning rainfall for an anticipated typhoon. Thankfully, I passed a group of policemen who pointed me in the right direction to get to my hotel via the Chinese on my map. When I arrived at the hotel they were closing for the typhoon, just great! The person on reception didn’t speak English and had to find another person who spoke a little bit of English to help me. They wouldn’t give me a room key until I gave them my credit card details for a deposit; I argued and said I’d already paid upfront for the room, so they didn’t need a deposit. After much ‘discussion’ I gave them my South African credit card details so I could get my key.

Then I braved the rain to walk down the road to my sister’s five star hotel with its mini-bar, five star service, luxury restaurant and facilities. The comparison between two stars and five stars is just embarrassing, but there you have it; if you want five stars take a corporate job and clock it all to expenses. Matt and his colleague treated my sister and I to dinner and I said: “Thank-you!”

Back in my hotel I tried showering and the shower exploded water if I turned it up too high. The shower space is less than a square metre and the area next to the shower that holds the basin and toilet is an oblong square metre. That’s two square metres of bathroom, if I’m lucky. The cupboard is about 30cm wide and the dressing table is behind the dual purpose mirror sliding door that closes off either the dressing table or the bathroom. The main feature of the room is a double bed that is roughly 1.6 metres long; and how do I know that? I’m 1.58 metres tall; so with the pillow under my head I didn’t quite fit on the bed long ways and needed to position myself on the diagonal. At least for £34.00 a night my total room space is twice the size of my £11.00 a night room in Preston Road.

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