It’s always good to save a few bucks, especially when you are travelling. Why spend more on a hotel room, when you are only staying in it for a few hours a day only?
This is a tale of me scrimping and landing myself in a creepy hotel, stuck in a foreign land!
I found this hotel in Shanghai, China while planning for a stayover during a work trip. As we all know, Shanghai is a bustling metropolis, so any hotel stay meant spending about SGD200 and more per night.
Being the “savvy traveller” I am, I also know there’s always a catch if I find a deal, too good to be true. Therefore, when I saw that this hotel called “Supreme Tower” (明城大酒店) had this offer, I went to dig around more.
Unfortunately, reviews on China products were scarce in a Google world outside of China, so I made do with what I had.
The facade of the tower looked decent – it was not some 4-storey doingy building accessible only via a back alley. In fact, the marble cladding tower looked no different from any other skyscrapers found in downtown Shanghai. Especially when the hotel itself was just a 5-minute walk away from Century Avenue subway station in Pudong, right smack in the central business district!
Armed with the satisfaction of finding a SGD100 per night hotel room in prestigious Shanghai Pudong, I flew to Shanghai with no worries at all.
Even up till the point when my transport pulled into the hotel driveway, to the time I was checked in at its cavernous, marble-clad hotel lobby, I did not suspect what was about to come.
The lift was a bit shaky and was groaning too much, though I brushed it aside. When the lift door opened, reality hit me like the musty carpet smell that swept through the lift.
The whole lift lobby and corridor was cladded in carpet, carpet that smelled like they had not been cleaned for many years. As I turned into the narrow corridor leading to my room, my shoulders barely brushed against carpet that was peeling off the wall.
I grew worried when I was nearing the end of the corridor and I could not find my room. The end of the corridor was covered up with a white plastic sheet that was drooping off from a corner. From the hole through the plastic sheet, I could see that renovation was being carried out on the other side. Though the place looked like it was cordoned off for a murder crime scene.
My door, alas! was right beside the plastic sheet. That was when I realised I was given a normal turn key, rather than a card key.
The key could barely unlock the door without threatening to break off. After pushing the creaking door open, I searched for the light switch to find… the most un-hotel room I had ever seen.
I had booked a suite with a living room and a bedroom. From the doorway, I could only see the living room, which was dimly lit from the single light source at the ceiling. Dark corners filled the whole of the living room.
The fridge at the corner looked like the one in my old house, back in the 90s. And it was creaking even though I had not touched it.
Did something just move inside the fridge? I dare not try to find out…
The curtains were drawn and I could see it moving slightly from across the room. Gosh! I was not sure if I should go and check out Shanghai’s night view….
Whereas the corridor was fully carpeted, there was none in the apartment. Each step I took resonated within the bare walls. Heck! Even my breathing sounded louder just by being at the doorway!
I closed the door after me and reached for the bedroom door.
I had to search for the light switch again and as the light flooded across the room, I thought I saw something move from the corner of my eye.
It could be a cockroach, I tried to assure myself.
Though I can’t tell you whether a cockroach or a ghost would be scarier…
The bedroom had felt wallpapers, but the beds just looked so uninviting. Even the beds in Tekong looked softer!
Sure enough, the mattress creaked noisily under my weight, as I took in the scene of a CRT TV and chairs from the 80s. The idea to check the underside of my bed for a hidden corpse flashed across my mind.
And I hated myself for even flashing that idea…
The bathroom looked as tired as the rest of the apartment, which was evident from the yellowing of the toilet bowl. What worried me most was whether any bugs would crawl out from the drainage while I was using the bathroom!
Throughout my shower, I struggled between pulling the curtains and wetting the whole toilet floor. I decided that safety was paramount, given that I was staying alone and help would only arrive when the staff realised I didn’t check out, like 10 hours after I slip and fall.
Safety over opening the curtain to see someone other than myself standing outside the shower area.
hmmm…
I took a deep breath and flung the shower curtain aside. There was no one waiting for me outside. And I congratulated myself for making the wise choice as I stepped onto the dry floor and crossed over to the wide vanity counter.
And I struggled again whether to wipe the mist off the mirror.
F***! F***! F***! F***! F***!
I hated myself for watching Ju On and The Ring.
Before going off to sleep, I thought I heard something coming out from the wardrobe, which was beside the doorway, opposite the bedroom. Again, I went into a mental debate on whether to go and find out if there was indeed something behind the wardrobe doors.
Crazy, right?
Thanks to the seven stars in the sky, I was met with an empty wooden space.
That was when I realised my apartment door only had 1 lock. There was no bolt for me to make sure no one could enter while I was sleeping.
So I went to get the dining chair and propped it against the door handle.
So much for watching apocalyptic zombie films.
My last gripe before I laid onto the mattress that looked like it housed a thousand bed bugs, was how far the light switch was from the bed.
I had to decide between sleeping with the light on, or walking from the door to the bed in the dark.
I thought health is more important than bumping into something other than the furniture in the dark.
Hurray!
To be honest, this is a well-equipped apartment, save for its super old furniture and decor. In fact, when the morning came, I threw open the curtains to find a beautiful Shanghai city skyline bathed in morning sunlight (and not an apocalyptic zombie world). My experience would be much better if I had checked in with another person, so we could at least die together if a ghost really showed up.
My last regret was my decision to write this piece of story alone, at night, in the month of Hungry Ghost.
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Till then, stay spooked!