That must’ve been bizarre XD Someone pressed the rewind button
So, you didn’t look behind you the entire time? Did you stop for breaks or just keep going? How long did it take you to complete the 15km?
Sorry for all these questions. It’s not often I meet someone who has broken a world record for walking backwards
I listened to the song! I didn’t know what they were saying, but I guessed it from the gestures That must’ve been an interesting time. Did you repeat any of the songs or do many, many different ones?
Every now and then you glance to see if anything’s in the way. It was a quiet country road so not too many cars to worry about. We were allowed a break every half hour but we found that we didn’t need that many breaks at all. I was in one of those slower groups and we didn’t want to delay it any more.
I don’t remember how long it took but the same time as walking this speed in a normal way.
I probably should have given you the gist when I posted it. It’s a silly song that doesn’t 100% make sense. It’s a play on words a bit and an excessive repetition of syllables that’s only saved by the rhymes.
Crude translation
On the table there’s milk, on the milk there’s a froth
And I keep waiting for my lover.
And under the balcony of a beautiful Donna
A knight plays a mandolin on his horse.
Oh, beautiful Donna, become my wife
Oh, beautiful Donna, become my wife.
And the beautiful Donna, very moved
Fell off the balcony into his arms.
But the knight on a horse didn’t catch Donna
Because Donna weighed three tons.
And she said, very angrily
I don’t want you, you airhead.
And the knight, very offended
Rode his horse far away.
Buahaha. It sounds even worse in English.
We sang probably fewer than 10 songs so there was a lot of repetition.
No worry about the questions. You did warn that you would ask.
They eat all dragons. There are a few farms but only from the most experienced people. And depends on what part is used, like there’s things similar to chicken wings, hamburgers, etc.
A popular dish is a stew that has dragon meat along with potatoes and dumplings.
Wait, what? I thought you were much younger! When’s your birthday?
I thought so for a hot minute but it’s hard to tell lol. And I was at first, but then I just shrugged it off because then someone at least had it which seemed kind of cool to me. Lol. But if that stolen book is the one on Amazon, it’s freaking hilarious because in my mind, it sucks, so like, why would someone pay 30 dollars for a few poems written by a 13 year old with sucky writing? Like, I can understand if I was famous or something, but I’m not, so they’re just failing at their scheme.
I mean… there’s quite a few…
Abuse from horrible management.
This one is a given because it happens in any industry. But it can be rough because, in a lot of ways, you do multiple jobs for the price of one simply because the owners or corporate doesn’t want to hire more people. When my mom used to manage the hotel here in town (before they moved) back in 2019-2020, my mom constantly fought with the owners because she couldn’t do her job in making sure the hotel ran smoothly since they didn’t want to hire more housekeeping (which was desperately needed). Instead, us as a family (my mom, me, my dad, and my little sister) were forced to help clean rooms many times just to ensure they had rooms for the people who had a room booked but not a clean room. There was a time when I was helping to clean five rooms (because they had 30+ rooms dirty with a full house booked that night and only two maids that day) and one of the owners came in to help, and saw me helping, then gave me another clipboard with ten more rooms to do. And I wasn’t being paid to clean either. I told my mom she gave me more to do after the five I initially got done, and my mom took the clipboard away and said that I was done for the day.
But when they left and I became a night auditor, I was forced into doing laundry because they didn’t want to hire a laundry attendant… and the housekeepers rarely left me a cart to put new stuff in and toward the end of my employment there, one of the washers broke and the doors to the driers broke, so it took twice as long to clean stuff. And no one wanted to fix it.
Thing is, when a room didn’t get cleaned or cleaned enough, it’s usually because of management… because of how short staffed they are when it comes to cleaning. Each housekeeper also has a time limit on cleaning, like you have to clean an entire room within 25-30 minutes. The maids at the hotel I worked would come in at 8am and usually leave by 7pm, and even then, they’d leave rooms dirty that we couldn’t sell because of how filthy they were. And then you get people complaining about not being able to get into a room… well, if people made it easy to clean the rooms, I can guarantee you you’d have a room. But since there was usually a lot of people who would thrash it, those rooms would take much longer to clean. And then it sucked even more for us front desk staff because we’d be overbooked since people were booking rooms that couldn’t be cleaned and then complain that they didn’t have a room… and we couldn’t prevent people from booking them because the owners didn’t want to prevent people from booking rooms. It’s so dumb.
The stereotypes aren't true... well, not exactly.
I’ve often seen people say things like, “The first thing I’m doing when I check in is make sure there’s no bed bugs, no cameras, and ask for new bedding since they don’t clean them.” I’ve lived in hotels most of my whole life and I can verify that the majority of hotel housekeepers do in fact wash the bedding (comforters/duvets, to be in fact, as that’s the one in question). The higher-rated hotels like Marriott and Hilton usually don’t have bed bugs, cameras, and actually do clean the bedding—unless the management sucks and is gross. When you’re dealing with those three things, they’re typically linked with lower-rated motels, like cheap places to stay for a night. The motels where I live are crap. My mom once went over to one of the main ones called the Thunderbird Motel (it literally looks like Bates Motel out of Psycho/Bates Motel lol) and the manager tried to put her in a room that had a massive hole in the wall in the bathroom. My sister who works at a church often gets people who need a place to stay and that hotel is where most drug addicts and homeless go, and we’ve heard that bed bugs thrive there.
The hotel I worked at is part of Marriott, and we rarely had bed bugs. The only times we did was because the person who rented the room was filthy and spread it around. I remember this one guy who constantly rented a room out off and on and worked somewhere in town—I can’t remember where or for what—but he always came back muddy and looked like he had never taken a shower in his life. When someone would rent the room after him, they’d say there were bed bugs…
But my mom always yelled at housekeepers if they didn’t add the comforter/duvet into the basket of dirty laundry, and when my dad was helping out with cleaning rooms, he would make sure all rooms got rid of their dirty laundry.
Third party websites/apps are a pain.
A lot of people use third party websites, like booking(.com) and Expedia. If they needed something changed or wanted a refund or whatever it was, as a hotel front desk clerk or manager, you couldn’t do anything because it’s those sites you have to talk to. If you book through them, you talk to them about anything else regarding your reservation. I hated it when people would complain about how their room was booked for a king when they wanted two queen/double beds, and I couldn’t change their reservation because the reservation was blocked since it wasn’t booked through us (whether on the Marriott app or from a phone call).
Hotel breakfast is horrible for an overpriced room.
I don’t know much about other hotels in other countries, but for the most part, here in the US, most of the hot food is pre-made, frozen or refrigerated, and then cooked in a microwave. At my hotel—and depending on the day and what we had—we had bacon, sausage, fried eggs, egg omelettes with cheese, scrambled eggs, sausage gravy and biscuits. Along with a waffle maker, fruit, bread items (like bread, bagels, muffins), and yogurt. The hot breakfast was cooked in a microwave and was absolutely disgusting, and some people would complain about it but it’s free… so like, what do you expect? The price of your stay is mostly for the room, not for the food. I’d often tell people that if you wanted more than a continental breakfast, you’d need to stay at the full service hotels which have bars and or restaurants, but you’re still paying more for the restaurant because it’s not included with your room.
But, some people don’t often know about the horrific kitchen circumstances when it comes to the free breakfast hotels. The only thing that is good is the “cold foods” such as the fruit, yogurt, and bread items. And the only hot food you can trust is the waffle machine since the waffle mix is typically fresh.
Too many drunks and creeps.
Working at a hotel, specifically the graveyard shift? 10/10 do not recommend.
Okay, so it’s not that bad because in some hotels, you do get four hours of doing nothing but being able to play on your phone, but this is the case if you’re working somewhere that’s pretty quiet which in my town, is… for the most part. However, the problem with working in this industry is that you tend to meet a lot of drunks and creeps. I’ve had a guy try to kiss me in the elevator and then get me to be in his room, I had other guys try to get me into their rooms, I’ve had men who stayed downstairs to talk to me and ask for my social media while they were drunk and get super close to me, I’ve had phone calls in the middle of the night of some guy heavy breathing (I’m sure he was jerking off), and I’ve had guys on the phone ask me super personal questions (like this one time, a guy wanted to take me on an all-expense trip lol and I said I was married (which I’m not lol), and he said, “that’s cool,” and then I said my husband can tag along, and the guy was like, “No, it was just gonna be you.” And that’s just my experience, too. For the thinner, more beautiful girls out there, it’s even worse.
On top of all this, the weekends or anything with events is horrific because then you have to deal with drunken fights (or just people fighting in general) and the guys who pass out. I had one guy who was a regular and always came in drunk (I also think he always drunk drove, too, because he always came in with bloodshot eyes and slurred speech), and one time, he went swimming at 3am when the pool should’ve been closed and then my relief (who was our sales manager) came in from the back and noticed someone left their phone, wallet, and some clothes on a chair. They were his.
And again, this is just one side of the story. When my mom worked at a hotel—which is now closed now—in a place called Topkea, Kansas, ooof. That place was the first of many. There was a couple on drugs who barricaded themselves in a room and threw a TV out the window. They had a friend who was a convicted murderer who tried stealing their car that was left in the parking lot after they got arrested, and the car had drugs in it but the police couldn’t do anything without a warrant and it was stolen the next day. We also had US Marshalls come in to look for someone who was wanted. And my mom also dealt with a stalker who broke into someone’s room and watched an old lady sleep.
This industry is really not for the faint of heart.
But on the positive note, you do get to experience things or meet people because of it. We went to a circus with VIP passes because the group stayed at a hotel my mom managed. At that same hotel, we also met with the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team and got everyone’s autograph on a free basketball. At another hotel, my brother met Bill Farmer who is an actor and has been voicing Goofy (from Mickey Mouse) since the 80s. And he got his autograph. At that same hotel, a film crew stayed over and my brother, dad, and I got to be extras in a reality TV show which was a neat experience lol. And then a recent one before I left the hotel industry, I met one of the pyrotechnic/visual artists (the type of people who do explosions and stuff on film sets) for a movie that was coming out with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell called Spirited.
But this is just a fraction of your daily work life. It doesn’t happen much or at all, depending on where you work.
Yeah. They’re human clones (anyone from the army), but stronger and powerful because they’re half clone, half machine, but it doesn’t really explicitly say that in the book because my team only sees them for half a moment in the middle and then another half a moment at the end. We see more of them come the sequel and rest of the series.
OOH! YES. There should be someone like that lol.
And yes! I read the screenplay the Miracle Worker in high school and did a research paper on it. I still can’t believe Helen was a real person. It seems so unreal that someone was born blind and deaf, like… what are the odds??
I’d shrug it off and say, “So, you think the world’s population isn’t diverse? That we’re all just the same exact thing?”
There is, technically. Spoiler alert: She’s looking for the people who took her away and experimented on her because they’re the ones who are the true villains of the series. While she’s creating havoc in search of them, she’s just doing it to find them herself and end them so she can get revenge and so, others don’t experience the same trauma she went through… even though she’s not helping the case. But toward the end of the series, my character and her come together to stop them, so it’s kind of interesting to have enemies team up to fight off a mutual enemy.
That’s so cool! c:
They don’t really think he’s the chosen one, but they consider him the reason or start for the war since he gathered everyone together. He thinks he’s the chosen one sometimes, but toward the end, he doubts himself and thinks that there’s no point to him being there.
The dragon and my antagonist gets alone well, and she doesn’t ride him—not all the time, at least. And unlike my main character’s dragon, they don’t talk to each other. And I haven’t gotten to name him yet lol. A little too far ahead with planning.
The first novel is of only Nicolas’s POV. The sequel will have Nicolas’s POV in the first and third act, and the second act will be of another character’s (Fara) who was the Victorian who was banished and became friends with him in the first novel. After that, I haven’t gotten that far in planning, but I do believe Victoria will have a POV in the third novel somewhere, and possibly the fourth, alongside the actual chosen one, Hiroko, in the fourth novel. c:
Maybe that was the issue… see, when I went abroad to the states,
(story time)
I arrived a day early and needed a few nights in a little inn/hotel place because they dorm rooms weren’t open yet. My mom booked the hotel for me using her credit card which such things I’ve never had trouble with before. I think she booked it through some website.
Anyway, I get there and they ask to see the credit card (which I don’t have because it’s my mom’s but I did have the number which I was willing to show them if they needed that). We then came to this point where I think I had to show them my passport or something and they realized I was not an adult. I never realized this, but in Japan, I was considered an adult then, but in the states, I was not. So, I can’t remember how it was dealt with, but I might have called my mom or had them call my mom or something like that…
Or, the international student guide staff lady who was really nice, might have talked to them about it. But anyway, I was able to stay there for the nights booked. But that was a weird and freaky problem to come across the first day of my study abroad. I was afraid they wouldn’t allow me to stay.
You think it’s because my mom booked it through a website that they had problems with my age?
Let me tell you then, in mediocre business hotels in Japan a “Western style breakfast” can include a variety of weird things. Across different hotels, I have seen, curry-and-rice, spaghetti meat sauce, and a sorry case of a tiny omelet the size of your palm. The curry-and-rice is unusual. I was shocked XD Like, you call that a “Western” breakfast? Not even Americans eat curry for breakfast. Not even Japanese eat curry for breakfast. What planet do you live on???
Idk, does anyone in the world eat curry for breakfast? Who wants that spice in the morning? With coffee?
Btw, business hotels, idk if you have them in the states, but they are the cheaper, low-quality version of the high-end hotels. They are called business hotels because people there for business use them for a couple nights usually. Usually a short stay while they do business there. Usually only for sleeping and showering. Some business hotels don’t have restaurants open for lunch and dinner, so you gotta get your own food.
Usually the rooms are small.
I can imagine he must have been gutted XD But that’s a smooth way to make him not bother you
I know those experiences must’ve been hard and sometimes terrifying, but, the writer in me can’t help but think that those would make great stories I can’t remember the title of the movie, but I watched this Indie movie about these kids who live in motel that is not far from Disney World. It was a raw story about the hardships and also the good times.
That one you told me about before? Yelling at the truck?
Have you seen this clip It’s showing how she learned to talk. Real footage. And you should check out that Helen Keller channel if you haven’t. It’s fascinating. There’s one where she’s feeling the vibrations of the music and enjoying it that way.
Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t know. Or they assume they know, but they don’t know.
Yeah, in the States, most hotels require you to be 21 to rent a hotel room, and that’s if they follow the actual rules. Showing an ID is partly for security reasons but also for them to check your age as it becomes a liability for anyone under that age requirement to rent a room. It’s really dumb, but it’s so that if an underage person is drinking and getting into trouble, the hotel doesn’t become liable because it happens on their property, and therefore, someone can sue the hotel if anything happens. Like, if an 18 year old is hanging out with their buddies in their room and is drinking, then gets into a fight with a guest down the hall because they’re drunk, and finds out the drunk person is actually 18 and not 21 (legal drinking age), the guest has the ability to sue the hotel because the hotel is responsible for their guests. There’s a lot more to it than just that, but that’s the gist of it in a less complicated way.
But for a hotel to accept someone under that requirement will need permission from the parents. So like, if two teen (like say 17 and 18) girls are going off on a trip, their parents can make the reservations and tell the front desk staff that their kids will be checking in, and some hotels will accept this. Others may not, but it varies from hotel to hotel.
However, some hotels (such as the one I worked at) won’t even care. A part of this might’ve also been because a lot of the underage people taking rooms had worked in town and would come in for months off and on, didn’t make trouble, and the hotel had partnered with their employers so they could be our regulars. We just needed IDs to ensure it was that person who made the reservation or is needed to check in. But even for people passing by, we looked the other way because they just wanted your money.
WHAT? I’ve never heard of such a thing. That is sooo weird! Like, I’d only accept that if it was a brunch thing.
That’s so cool!
We don’t really have those here.
Most hotels here are technically for business. Since I grew up living in them, my siblings and I had to be on our best behavior all the time in public areas of the hotel, and this was because most of the hotels you see in most towns are often what you’d call a “business hotel” because most use them for business, or while they’re on business. Even though people use them for vacation purposes (like on road trips, or like what I’d do in California later this summer for going to the beach and hanging around LA), most just use it as a place to sleep and take a shower. These hotels often come with a simple breakfast option, a small gym, a recreational pool (like super small, and most of them tend to be outside only and are often never heated), and maybe a room for meetings for anyone who needs to rent it out.
Then you have full service hotels which often are for similar things, but they include a bar and or restaurant. Some of these hotels also have a bit more to grab in the family crowds, such as indoor pools with hot tubs, and some have gaming rooms.
Besides these two types, our other types of hotels are more likely put into the “vacation hotel” categories. They’re for families or people who just want to get away. These are the hotels with water parks, theme parks, casinos, or anything else attached to it. They’re also way more expensive than the other types because you’re not going there for the room, you’re going for the experience. So, this typically includes most of the main hotels on the Las Vegas Strip (which Safiya Nygaard on YouTube has done two videos that highlights these hotel experiences and their prices) and Walt Disney resorts and other resorts like so.
But most hotels usually have small rooms as they tend to include the same necessities and decor. Like in a normal king room, you have a bed, sometimes a couch or in replacement of a couch, you’ll get a table and chair though some high-end hotels give both, along with a TV and dresser, a closet, a microwave and small fridge, and a bathroom. The way it looks highly depends on the hotel because motels usually look cheap and sketchy on the inside, like Motel 6. But the look is different to something like La Quinta, where it feels a bit more expensive, even though the layout and decor are roughly similar.
Some hotels, like a lot of Marriott brands such as the one I worked in, include full kitchens like a stove, full sized fridge, an oven, and sometimes even a dishwasher. Some, like Homewood Suites, have fireplaces included in the rooms. Even though the hotels are more for business related guests, they usually add this to make it feel more welcoming and look nicer. And plus, with a hotel like mine, the kitchen was perfect for our long term guests who would stay for months at a time.
I’ve actually been trying to figure out a way to make it into a story without it coming across as an autobiography.
Yup!
What do you do for Halloween? Does anyone over there in Japan actually celebrate it, or decorate their homes?
So just partying and costume parties? That’s mostly the adult way of doing it around here, too. Though some kids will go trick or treating, or more notably, trunk or treating (done in public spaces like parks and churches). Otherwise, our main thing is haunted (usually fake) attractions. c: Do you guys do that or walking through a “haunted house” (where actors and decorations try to scare you) not a thing there?
Ah. I’ve heard that in a lot of other countries, specifically places around Asia and Europe, don’t really decorate for Halloween. Christmas is the biggest thing, or other cultural holidays not universally celebrated.
Although, this may just be because Halloween has a bed reputation with the religious folks. Even in the States, more and more people aren’t decorating for it, and trick or treating hasn’t been as popular as it once was.
Probably? I’m not one of those that go out on Halloween They probably have some haunted event things going on. Not on the day, but like weeks before, I’m guessing.
And yeah, just partying and costumes.
I think, in Japan, people just don’t get it Also, there’s not a lot of decorations being sold around anyway. Not like Christmas.
That must’ve been an interesting time. Did you repeat any of the songs or do many, many different ones?
I thought you were much younger! When’s your birthday?
Like, I can understand if I was famous or something, but I’m not, so they’re just failing at their scheme. 
It seems so unreal that someone was born blind and deaf, like… what are the odds??
Nowhere near October.