Monday, June 26, 2006

Tales from the Rooms - Part 1.1 Hotelier's Believes

It has been a few years since I work in this huge international hotel covering a few properties. Along the years here, I have heard many spooky tales from some of the veteran staffs here, some tales are quite scary or even bizzare also. I, myself also has some personal out-of-this-world encounters at this place.

So I'll try to share some of the tales I have heard from the veterans and also some of my personal encounters.

But first I'll start with the one of hotelier's believes.

One important advice given by the veterans is:
Never ever insisted on getting a vacant room, if the front desk already told you that the hotel has no more empty rooms left. Never ever try to charm/bully/bribe your way into getting a room. You never know what type of room you will get if you insisted.

Why? you might ask. Here's why:
Almost every hotels in Asia (also applies to some hotels in other parts of the globe), there are always will be a few rooms, which is on the room list but is blocked as OOO (Out Of Order) permanently. But the rooms are perfectly OK, nothing is broken in the rooms. So why blocked it as OOO? Because there IS some "problems" within those rooms, it just that usually you can't see those "problems".

Those rooms are commonly known as the haunted rooms, or "special visiting" rooms. Where there are high frequent complaints from the guests staying there about the paranormal activities, like seeing white lady figures in the rooms, toilet flushed by it selves, and etc.
So in order to reduce down the complaints from guest and also to take care of the hotel's reputation and images, usually the hotel will blocked off those rooms as OOO permanently.

Some hotel will block off one or two rooms before the opening, this usually applies to the newly opened hotels. Before the opening, the hotel will hire some chinese medium/bomoh/witch doctor/whatever you call them, to invite all of the spirits/ghosts in the building into one or two rooms. In those rooms, the spirits/ghosts will be given offerings to establish a pact between them and the hotel. The pact usually will bound those spirits/ghost to those specific rooms, while the hotel will give them offering from time to time, to make sure them stays in the room and not roam around the hotel scaring their guests.

There was a few cases happened before in this hotel I worked for. One of the guest bullied the front desk receptionist for a room, even he doesn't have a booking and the hotel is full. So the receptionist gave him the "special" room, either in desperation or in revenge, I dunno...
The next thing we know is the guest ran down to the lobby in the middle of the night, his face pale like paper, shivering with cold sweats all over him and wearing nothing but his boxer short. He complaint there was an old lady wih long white hair in white gown, sitting beside him on his bed, staring at him.

So, next time still want to insist for a room while the hotel is already full? ;)

Saturday, June 24, 2006

There is Nothing

Well... Here is it... my very first blog post...
Hmm... what should I put here first?

OK... I'll just put my tag line I used in my forum avatar
here it goes...

There is no Good or Evil
There is no True or False
There is no Black or White
There is Nothing...


Some say it's kinda Zen like... but I dunno... It just hit my mind one day and I kinda like it...

Ok, I'll bring some ghost stories in the next few post... some are even my personal experience ;)