Roach motel

We are staying in a roach motel in Pingtung. It is very inexpensive – listed price is TWD1200, which is all the company will allow, but you get what you pay for, including Internet that doesn’t work, sheets that feel more like plastic than cotton, patches of mold growing on pillows and…cockroaches. Samsung had the moldy pillows. We both had roaches. Before dinner, there was a roach on my bed. It scurried beneath the pillow after I flicked on the lights. After dinner, there was another, bigger roach on the wall that was in no hurry to go anywhere. I called for service and the owner came with a can of bug killer and started spraying everywhere. She said, “the spray’s not harmful, it’s OK, you can still sleep in this room. There was only one cockroach here, and I killed it already too.” I insisted that I be given another room. It took three rooms to be roach- and trash-free (at least that I can see). Walking into the third room, the first thing I see is an extra sleeping mat stuffed between the bed and the wall. I ask her to take it out, which she does, but stashes it at the end of the hallway. As I re-unpack my things, I find a partially blacked fingernail clipping on the table, a dirty refrigerator, someone else’s hair in the sink… Sigh… I would have liked to changed hotels if I could. The next time, I’m going to try asking my liaison to recommend a place whose listed price is between TWD1500 and TWD2400. Perhaps that way I can stay at a better place and haggle down the price to TWD1200. And I will forever remember to avoid “國民” in Dapeng Bay if I come back here again.

An ant just crawled up my leg. Oh…………… :(

I’m definitely not going to take advantage of the free breakfast that comes with the room in the morning. A vitamin jelly liquid diet from 7-11 sounds real good right now. My jaw still hurts.

(written last night in the hotel room where the internet was broken)