No matter how many stars a hotel is rated, it doesn’t mean they are ‘clean’. There could be natural deaths, murders or suicides in a hotel room. Some hotels are rumoured to be haunted. Have you stayed in such a hotel?
We Chinese have a special way of entering a hotel room. We have a list of rituals and superstitions to follow before we go into the room. Have a read of this post on Chinese superstitions when entering a hotel room.
This story happened in 2005 in Venice. This was my first time visiting this beautiful place. My boyfriend (husband now) decided to visit Venice to celebrate my birthday. We thought we’d just booked a flight and hotel. So we visited a few websites and checked holiday brochures for ideas. We then booked this three-star inn via the webpage. To be honest, we had no idea how the inn and room were going to be. We were not too fussed as we weren’t planning on spending much time in the inn and it ticked the boxes for budget and location.
It took us a little time to find the inn as it was inside a small alleyway. It was pretty vintage décor and everything look very classic. Even though it was spring, the inn was dark and cold. Our room was on the first floor. It didn’t dawn on me that the room didn’t have any windows until we were leaving. But I always had a sense that it was dark and creepy.
As usual, I took a long time to fall asleep on our first night. When I finally fell asleep, I felt ‘someone’ walking around the bed. The only light coming through the room was the tiny gap from the door. Through my half-closed eyes, I could see a black shadow walking around our bed. It was so disturbing and I couldn’t sleep at all. It was so annoying, but at the same time, I was so afraid. Mr C was already fast asleep. I had to keep forcing myself to sleep and ignore the shadow. It wasn’t pleasant at all. Luckily, on my second night, I was not disturbed at all. Maybe I was so tired from walking the whole day and fell asleep immediately.
Lesson learnt, if I get a room without a window, I should change rooms. The room is so ‘yin’ due to the lack of sunlight. Definitely bad feng shui. Did you know that you should always avoid hotel rooms that are opposite the staircase or at the end of the corridor? Also, never take a room without a window not least because it might confuse you and you might not know if it’s day or night time.
The first day of the festival falls between 29th July (1st day of the seventh month) and the last day of the seventh month on 26th August. Do look out don’t dos during this festival and my Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival culture.