After living for many years in Thailand, my wife and I finally decided to visit Taipei. We had read great things about the eating opportunities in the city and, never ones to ignore the possibility of a good meal, booked a few days to eat and hike in and around Taipei. We booked at Amba Hotel in Ximending (which we loved - read about that here). One of the surprising perks to Amba is the free laundry service. I don't recall ever staying in a place with free laundry service, and Amba has a nice laundry room (with soap!) for all guests to use whenever they want.
We were in Taipei for only four days and had just enough clothes for the trip. Even when I don't have plenty of clothes, my tendency on a trip is to just do laundry when I get home. It's not that big a deal for me to wear something an extra time since most of the people I see on a holiday will never see me again. As long as I have clean underwear, I'm fine.
In this particular case, we were going to be going to stay with my wife's family. This meant that doing laundry would not be a problem once we arrived. My wife (considerately) didn't want to arrive with a bunch of dirty clothes and have one of the first things she said be, "Do you mind if we do some laundry?" This was compounded by the fact that we had done a really beautiful but sweaty hike in Yingmingshan National Park that left us with some particularly pungent articles to wash. Leaving them in our bags didn't appeal to my wife.
On our last day she suggested that we do our usual daytime exploration and eating, return to the hotel in the late afternoon to do laundry, and then head out in the evening. We had picked out a Sichuan restaurant that sounded fantastic. We both crave a daily dose of chiles, and, as good as everything was in Taipei, chiles were generally lacking. The restaurant was actually owned by a friend's sister and often ran out of food fairly early, so our plan was to leave at about 17:00 to get there in time for a good meal. We even had a small bar in mind for drinks afterward.
We went down to the laundry room together to find three gleaming machines. Now the first hint that something might be amiss was that these machines were washer/dryer combos. Not the stacked washer AND dryers that are common in apartments these days, but one unit the size of a typical small washer that also did the drying. Neither of had ever seen one before, but we proceeded anyway.
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| The machine |
Next, as one would expect in Taiwan, all the instructions on the machine - the buttons, the settings, and the warnings - were in Mandarin. On the wall of the laundry room, however, there was an enlarged color printer image of the machine's control panel and brief English instructions as to what to press and when. One note was particularly prominent - 'When the wash cycle finishes, please wait approximately 15 minutes for the machine to cool down. Do not attempt to open the machine or switch off the power.'
Hmmm. We paused for a moment and asked each other what we should do. I said (again) that I didn't need to do laundry but that it was okay with me if my wife really wanted to go ahead. With a little trepidation, we pressed the buttons indicated on the wall to start the process. My wife insisted that I go up to the room to read/rest since she was the one who really wanted to do laundry. I agreed.
It was 15:33.
Oh, it's worth noting that my wife, because she wanted to arrive at her family's with all her clothes washed, was wearing a pair of running shorts, a bra, and a little light wrap - no buttons, no zippers etc. - that she had to keep tight against her body with her elbows.
A few minutes after going upstairs to the room, my wife messaged me to say that the machine said 2:45. What?!? We both figured that it was some kind of washing machine misunderstanding. There was no way it could take almost three hours to do laundry. Could it?
I offered to go downstairs to check the machine, but the message came back saying 'no'. Selfish as it may sound, I had a good book to read, and, as my wife pointed out, I didn't really want to do laundry anyway. We messaged back and forth a few times about how we might have to change our dinner plan, but other than that we both settled in with our respective reading materials, me in the room and my wife in front of the beautiful Hitachi washer/dryer combo.
The machine kept on chugging along; as it did so I received periodic messages indicating the machine's progress. At 18:33 my wife messaged again to tell me that the machine had stopped but that the door was still locked. I replied that it must be that 'cool down' thing mentioned on the sign on the wall and went back to my book. Another ten minutes passed and another message arrived - the machine was still quiet (no spin) but the door was still locked. I went down to join my wife or at least offer to give her a break from her washer/dryer vigil.
I arrived and together we examined all the buttons, reviewed the sign on the wall, and pulled on the locked door. We repeated the same steps a few times and came to the exact same conclusion - we had no idea what we were doing. We even took a photo of the text on the machine and used google translate to see if it would give us any clues as to what to do. See below to get an idea of how helpful that was. At this point my wife asked me to go down to the front desk to see if they could help us out. Now if you know me, you know that this was no small request. I hate asking for favours, and I really hate asking for favours if it might even occur to someone that I might have accidentally made a mistake in choosing the machine's settings.
Seeing my hesitation, my wife pointed out that she was basically wearing only a bra with a thin wrap to cover herself, not the best outfit to visit the lobby of a busy hotel. Besides that, my wife had already put in three hours of laundry duty, so my lobby distress call was really nothing in comparison. I went down and spoke with the very friendly woman on duty. I told her that it had already been three hours and the door would not open. "Oh, that's normal," she said.
Really? Three hours for a wash and dry cycle? In our normal life I usually do the laundry, so I knew that this was not normal for me. At the same time I was relieved because it meant that we hadn't accidentally chosen some marathon washing machine setting for really dirty clothes. It was just the way the machine worked, odd as it seemed to me.
"Are you sure? Three hours? And then, how long should I wait?"
"Yes, yes, it's not a problem. After the three hours, it's usually another 20 minutes, but I will ask someone to come check the machine."
Somewhat baffled but trusting, I returned to the laundry room and told my wife the news. In the interest of some modicum of fairness, I told her to return to the room while I waited. Kindhearted person that she is, she reluctantly agreed. I settled in to wait. I had a bunch of articles that I had saved to read in Pocket, so it wasn't such a bad thing.
While I was reading, another hotel guest came to the laundry room to do some wash. She checked the machine to my left and to my right and saw that both were full of clothes. She went to check mine, but I showed her that it was locked. A few minutes later, the same woman from the front desk came up herself to check on the laundry. She checked the door, looked at the buttons, and got on her walkie-talkie to, presumably, speak with the housekeeping staff. After a few minutes of chatting interspersed with examinations of the machine, she reassured me that all was fine and that I merely needed to wait.
Fair enough. I was just glad that she didn't think I had broken the machine.
The other guest asked her a question about laundry. Now what follows is one of those situations where you don't speak the language, but you can figure out what is being said because of the context and the way events unfold. I am pretty certain my interpretation is correct. She showed that she had laundry to do but pointed at the different machines to show that they were in use. She picked up a piece of paper on the first machine, and I realised that there was a room number written on it.
The woman from the front desk pointed to some laundry bags (yes, they even provided those) and indicated that she could take the laundry out. She piled the clothes into the bag and loaded her own things in. And then she left.
It was now 18:51, by the way. Dinner at Sichuan place was now looking unlikely.
Yes, I reminded myself, this was Taiwan. Like the woman who had just left, I/we could have actually trusted people not to steal my/our clothes and gone out to eat as per our original plan. I/we didn't have to sit a silent vigil for our spinning laundry. This was entirely my fault. I am the paranoid one who thinks someone might want to take my 8 year old old t-shirt.
I messaged my wife that perhaps we should just go out and come back for our clothes. She replied to remind me that essentially she was in her bra and underwear. So, correct that: I/we could have actually trusted people not to steal my clothes and gone out to eat as per our original plan if one of us had kept something to wear.
I settled back in to read and finished a few more articles. Every few minutes, I would reach for the handle on the machine and give it a gentle tug with the same result. Finally at 19:08, my wife called back down to the front desk to get help. I returned to the laundry room and a couple of minutes later both she and someone from housekeeping showed up. They repeated the same steps - examine the buttons, do a little poking and a little pulling - and said quite formally, "We don't know what's wrong. We're very sorry. We will deliver your clothes to you later."
I went upstairs and told my wife. While this was in some ways encouraging, it did not change our circumstances. We were stuck in the room and could not go out. What was worse was that we were now starting to worry that our clothes would come out horribly shrunken from baking for hours in the dryer. These were the clothes that we would need for the next six weeks, so it was kind of a big deal. That said, there was nothing we could do, so after worrying aloud for a bit, we resumed reading.
Then, at 19:46 there was a knock on our door. Our laundry had arrived more than four hours after we started. The woman who brought it was very apologetic. My biggest fear had remained that the staff would believe we were somehow responsible, so I was ecstatic about this. It was perhaps even better than actually getting the clothes back (at least for me). Our evening plans had been ruined, but we weren't in trouble and we had our clothes. Relief. We hugged to celebrate and got ready to go out to eat.
And then we noticed. Our clothes were still damp. And wrinkled from their extended session piled in the machine.
A few lessons learned from this experience:
The machine kept on chugging along; as it did so I received periodic messages indicating the machine's progress. At 18:33 my wife messaged again to tell me that the machine had stopped but that the door was still locked. I replied that it must be that 'cool down' thing mentioned on the sign on the wall and went back to my book. Another ten minutes passed and another message arrived - the machine was still quiet (no spin) but the door was still locked. I went down to join my wife or at least offer to give her a break from her washer/dryer vigil.
I arrived and together we examined all the buttons, reviewed the sign on the wall, and pulled on the locked door. We repeated the same steps a few times and came to the exact same conclusion - we had no idea what we were doing. We even took a photo of the text on the machine and used google translate to see if it would give us any clues as to what to do. See below to get an idea of how helpful that was. At this point my wife asked me to go down to the front desk to see if they could help us out. Now if you know me, you know that this was no small request. I hate asking for favours, and I really hate asking for favours if it might even occur to someone that I might have accidentally made a mistake in choosing the machine's settings.
Seeing my hesitation, my wife pointed out that she was basically wearing only a bra with a thin wrap to cover herself, not the best outfit to visit the lobby of a busy hotel. Besides that, my wife had already put in three hours of laundry duty, so my lobby distress call was really nothing in comparison. I went down and spoke with the very friendly woman on duty. I told her that it had already been three hours and the door would not open. "Oh, that's normal," she said.
Really? Three hours for a wash and dry cycle? In our normal life I usually do the laundry, so I knew that this was not normal for me. At the same time I was relieved because it meant that we hadn't accidentally chosen some marathon washing machine setting for really dirty clothes. It was just the way the machine worked, odd as it seemed to me.
"Are you sure? Three hours? And then, how long should I wait?"
"Yes, yes, it's not a problem. After the three hours, it's usually another 20 minutes, but I will ask someone to come check the machine."
Somewhat baffled but trusting, I returned to the laundry room and told my wife the news. In the interest of some modicum of fairness, I told her to return to the room while I waited. Kindhearted person that she is, she reluctantly agreed. I settled in to wait. I had a bunch of articles that I had saved to read in Pocket, so it wasn't such a bad thing.
While I was reading, another hotel guest came to the laundry room to do some wash. She checked the machine to my left and to my right and saw that both were full of clothes. She went to check mine, but I showed her that it was locked. A few minutes later, the same woman from the front desk came up herself to check on the laundry. She checked the door, looked at the buttons, and got on her walkie-talkie to, presumably, speak with the housekeeping staff. After a few minutes of chatting interspersed with examinations of the machine, she reassured me that all was fine and that I merely needed to wait.
Fair enough. I was just glad that she didn't think I had broken the machine.
The other guest asked her a question about laundry. Now what follows is one of those situations where you don't speak the language, but you can figure out what is being said because of the context and the way events unfold. I am pretty certain my interpretation is correct. She showed that she had laundry to do but pointed at the different machines to show that they were in use. She picked up a piece of paper on the first machine, and I realised that there was a room number written on it.
The woman from the front desk pointed to some laundry bags (yes, they even provided those) and indicated that she could take the laundry out. She piled the clothes into the bag and loaded her own things in. And then she left.
It was now 18:51, by the way. Dinner at Sichuan place was now looking unlikely.
Yes, I reminded myself, this was Taiwan. Like the woman who had just left, I/we could have actually trusted people not to steal my/our clothes and gone out to eat as per our original plan. I/we didn't have to sit a silent vigil for our spinning laundry. This was entirely my fault. I am the paranoid one who thinks someone might want to take my 8 year old old t-shirt.
I messaged my wife that perhaps we should just go out and come back for our clothes. She replied to remind me that essentially she was in her bra and underwear. So, correct that: I/we could have actually trusted people not to steal my clothes and gone out to eat as per our original plan if one of us had kept something to wear.
I settled back in to read and finished a few more articles. Every few minutes, I would reach for the handle on the machine and give it a gentle tug with the same result. Finally at 19:08, my wife called back down to the front desk to get help. I returned to the laundry room and a couple of minutes later both she and someone from housekeeping showed up. They repeated the same steps - examine the buttons, do a little poking and a little pulling - and said quite formally, "We don't know what's wrong. We're very sorry. We will deliver your clothes to you later."
I went upstairs and told my wife. While this was in some ways encouraging, it did not change our circumstances. We were stuck in the room and could not go out. What was worse was that we were now starting to worry that our clothes would come out horribly shrunken from baking for hours in the dryer. These were the clothes that we would need for the next six weeks, so it was kind of a big deal. That said, there was nothing we could do, so after worrying aloud for a bit, we resumed reading.
Then, at 19:46 there was a knock on our door. Our laundry had arrived more than four hours after we started. The woman who brought it was very apologetic. My biggest fear had remained that the staff would believe we were somehow responsible, so I was ecstatic about this. It was perhaps even better than actually getting the clothes back (at least for me). Our evening plans had been ruined, but we weren't in trouble and we had our clothes. Relief. We hugged to celebrate and got ready to go out to eat.
And then we noticed. Our clothes were still damp. And wrinkled from their extended session piled in the machine.
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A few lessons learned from this experience:
- When using a new type of washing machine, ask how long it usually takes.
- Don't do laundry when you can't read the instructions on an unfamiliar machine.
- If you absolutely have to wash clothes, ask for help.
- When in Taiwan, trust that people will not steal your clothes.
Note 1: Our last night in Taipei turned out a lot differently than expected, but we still had no trouble finding good food in Ximending. The packed streets are bursting with eating options and we got to try a few different things before heading to bed late.
Note 2: Amba Hotel and staff are fantastic. This is in no way a criticism of them.
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