Chinese Water Torture

I have been traveling on business for over 25 years and, like many, have become very set in my ways. I do things a certain way every time (it can drive Julie a little nuts).  If you have a system, use it.

One of the things I do is “steam my shirts”.  I pack my shirts in a particular way to minimize wrinkles, but they still get wrinkled.  So when I get to my hotel one of the first thing I do is hang my shirts in the bathroom and turn on a hot shower for a few minutes.  I let then hang there for a while after the shower is off to let the wrinkles fall out.  Usually they need just a small touchup with the iron, if anything.  It works well most of the time, but not on this week’s trip to China.

I arrived and the Kerry Hotel (Shangri-La) in Beijing.  It’s a great property and a less than 5 minute walk to our office.  There is an attached shopping mall (seems like a standard feature on many hotels in Asia) with some good restaurants and a very hip Starbucks.

I did my usual unpacking of shirts and took them into the bathroom to steam them.  It was a good setup.  The shower and bath were behind a glass door so a good steaming was possible.  The tub even had a clothes line built in that you could string across the tub.  There was both a rain showerhead and a handheld one.  I hung up both of my shirts and turned on the handheld to hot, aimed it to the far wall, and shut the glass door—steam away!

I took about 5 minutes to sign onto the wifi and downloaded emails.  I headed back to the shower and saw that the handheld had twisted and was spray DIRECTLY on to my shirts—they were soaked as if they had been dunked in a bucket of hot water and they were the only two shirts I had.  What to do?

I called the desk and explained the situation—they understood most of it and said they would send someone up.  3 minutes later there was a knock at my door and someone picked up my soaking wet shirts and said they would be back in 30 minutes.  And they were—all dried and neatly pressed.  Service in Asia can be wonderful—both shirts were dried and pressed for about $10USD—well worth it.