Living in a Hotel Room for Months

How does living in a hotel room for months feel like?

Several people proposed that question to me referring to my experience living in a hotel room for nearly four full months early this year. And if you think it’s a five-star hotel (or at least four star), well, you got it wrong. I stayed in what you call budget hotel or as they put it ‘no frill hotel’; where my room is just 15 meter square, completed with an en-suite bathroom, one small window, one television, one safe deposit box, one ceiling fan, one air conditioning, and one big thigh-length mirror. Hot water and wifi? Of course available.

A note: basically, I am the kind of person who doesn’t like staying in a big hotel room. Something about hotel room I find very cold and uninviting. Not to mention, a little intimidating. So clearly, living in a hotel room for months was challenging. 😀

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But turns out, it was okay. Every things available there was just enough to my senses.

I don’t like big rooms (especially for a bedroom), so 15 meter square room is just lovely. My apartment is 30 meter square in total, including the balcony. It has two separated rooms which is the bedroom and the living room – all tiny ones and I feel content with them being tiny. Size-wise, I don’t think 15 meter square hotel room bugs me. 😀

I changed rooms four or five times during those four months. First room changing was because they gave me a room too small. Too small I had to walk side-ways at the side of my bed. LOL. I don’t think that room was 15 meter square (or even 14 meter square), so I asked for another room. A room of their standard size. Of course the receptionist said no at first and said that that room was their biggest one (spoken in a plain face with no smile), which almost made me snappin my fingers back at him and said ‘Boy, like it’s my first time staying at your hotel! D’UH!’ 😛 At the end, no, I didn’t snap at him, I did a more graceful act: sending an email to the CEO directly.

And I got their standard size room plus a smile that day. YEAH!

All of common activities that I did back home in my apartment like sleeping, watching movies online, putting on makeup, taking a shower, getting ready, browsing the internet, realizing how amazing I am can be done inside the hotel room. There’s nothing to be complained about. I don’t like watching TV, so that television was a big vain. LOL. I don’t like cooking, so the absence of a kitchen is not a big deal. Besides, there’s a cafe and a convenience store downstairs that I can run to for a midnight snack.

I don’t see why people say living in a hotel room is boring when you can actually do all of the things you normally do there. If living in a hotel room is boring, then so is your life – no matter where you live, basically. 😛

Bedroom is a very personal space for me; so clearly, four months living in a hotel room, I rarely want to have people coming over. That makes the unavailability of a living room is nothing to be worried about. Fortunately, the hotel I’m staying in is located strategically, only walking distance to a mall, a monorail station, and several restaurants. Not-so-close friends can meet me outside, a close friend won’t hesitate to share the small space to have a chat. 😀

As a magical unicorn fashionista diva normal person, of course I need to change clothes. So what about laundry, you mean? Thankfully, there’s a laundry room at the hotel I’m staying in. A washer and a dryer were my friends for the weekend. LOL. Living in a hotel room, by yourself, no friends in the other room, opens up many new things. One of them: I never thought doing laundry could be quite fun. The moment I saw my clothes spinning inside the dryer was just as good as when I took them out and felt how warm they were.

And because I don’t like ironing clothes (although I brought my mom’s super amazing stewardess’ iron and there’s an ironing board at the laundry room), living in a hotel room and gotta-do-everything-by-yourself-unless-you-are-Paris-Hilton-who-travels-with-her-own-laundress forces me to be more creative and find a trick to make my clothes ready to wear and doesn’t make me look like I just got out of bed, pull a shirt, put it on, and go like a crap.

Place your clothes on top of your hotel room’s blanket, spread it nicely, and make sure there’s no wrinkled blanket underneath. Then place your notebook on top of it. It’s better when the notebook is warm (because of you using it), but it’s fine if your notebook is off, you just need more time to take out the wrinkle. Wait for 3-4 minutes and voila! No wrinkle clothes! Hihihi.

Other tips:

Roll your clothes right after you take them out of the dryer. Just when they’re still warm. Place it inside your suitcase (or wardrobe or whatever) in a good roll. It makes the wrinkle in the body part disappear. Wrinkle in the collar part may still exist, do the first tip above to deal with it. 😀

Magical tips:

Just bring non-cotton clothes. 😛

Bottom line, living in a hotel room for months is really not a bad experience, nor it’s a bad idea. Take it as a new experience of moving your whole life to a whole new place. It surely can open up many new things to discover. You are forced to find a replacement to some things and or not doing some other things. And turns out, your life will be just fine without doing all those things. Are you up for it?

Senyum dulu ah.. 🙂