No one who knows me or who has ever read this column would dream of questioning my loyalty to the Lo Wu Railway Station Hotel. I have stood by it through thick and a little bit plump, having had many meals and all my foot massages there.
Even when the lifts were under renovation for several months - their chandeliers, mirrors and plush (if a little cigarette-scarred) plastic carpeting were replaced with steel walls and fluorescent ceiling lights, like in a morgue - I didn't abandon the Railway, but trudged lovingly up the stairs.
So what was I thinking last weekend when I impulsively found myself booking a room at the Shangri-La in Shenzhen? What could have possessed me to go behind the back of my good old Railway? Walking past it on the way to the tall, shiny Shangri-La, I averted my head, pretending to look at something really interesting happening in the mid-distance so none of the receptionists at the Railway would see me cheating on them.
The first thing I noticed as I stepped into the enormous, louche lobby of the Shangri-La was the smell. Sickly sweet, cloying and overpowering, it was the kind of perfume that's described in romance novels as "cheap".
Although I had booked online hours before (in a moment of madness, yes, madness), no one at reception (severely understaffed) had heard of me. However, a three-fruit welcoming ensemble in the miniscule room mollified me somewhat.
Unlike in the Railway, where the waitresses welcome me with ecstatic smiles, at Shangri-La's Shang Palace restaurant no one greeted me and I had to wait outside with a bunch of other neglected people because the tiny restaurant was packed.