Advertisement
Advertisement

So near, yet so feared: That sinking feeling

Cecilie Gamst Berg

For me, the worst thing about being middle-aged is that I have completely lost my sense of intense, relentless, dizzying joy. The days drag themselves past in various shades of grey and even when a good one comes along I barely notice.

I've lost my joy mojo.

That's why I keep going to the mainland - like a heroin addict trying to relive the first kick, or in my case, those first months in China when everything was new and incredible and every day filled with crazy, hardly containable delight.

All ship-shaped: maritime design meets Liberace decor at the Cruise Inn in Nanshan. Photo: Cecilie Gamst Berg

Although the euphoria of 1988 can never come again, I always feel a renewed interest in life when crossing the border. Something fun is guaranteed to happen and, even if it doesn't, the food is superior to Hong Kong's.

So when my sadly departed friend E (no, not dead, just gone from Hong Kong, but it's the same) mentioned the Cruise Inn, a hotel in the shape of a ship in Nanshan district, up the coast from Shenzhen, I could hardly wait to get there.

Because, you see, she said it was "surreal". That word works on me like a cowpat does on the senses of a fly.

The place looked great on the website - maritime, but with Liberace characteristics. Gold fittings ahoy!

Unfortunately, I was in such a hurry to get there that I forgot the most important part of my luggage: a travel companion.

A ship-shaped hotel is a hotel that must be stayed in ironically. But how could I stay ironically by myself? At whom would I hoist my eyebrows meaningfully?

As soon as I saw the place, set at the edge of a vast boardwalk-like open space clustered with "Western" restaurants - where, indeed, Westerners sat, grimly staring at their iPhones - I knew I had made a terrible mistake.

A rule of thumb in the mainland is that the more expensive a hotel is, the longer it takes to check in. The Cruise Inn, at 800 yuan (HK$1,010) a night, therefore, was a steal - only a torturous 25 minutes, accounted for by a member of staff who had seemingly never met anyone wanting to check in before.

There was no window in the room, so I had to pay 300 yuan just to upgrade to the kind of room I had booked on the website, and when I wanted to e-mail E in America, so she could suffer vicariously through me, I discovered the Wi-fi, widely advertised on the website - along with the aforementioned windows - didn't work.

If it hadn't been for a soon-to-open coffee shop bearing the name Cat Shit Coffee - and a sign declaring "Sincerely hope to share a cup of coffee swept the world with you" - I would have gone straight back to Lo Wu.

At least there would have been Chinese food there.

 

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: That sinking feeling
Post