Day 2: My favourite guest of 2018!

[Paul1255]

Hello everyone!

With the year quickly coming to a close, I thought I would reflect and share with you my favourite guest and the interesting hosting experience they brought me this year.

As hosts are we allowed to have "favourites"? I've heard as a parent you're not meant to, or teachers now to think of it...as hosts surely it's fine as our guests don't know where they fall in the ranking (unless you most multiple guests at the same time of course!)

My experience with my favouite guest actually started out pretty badly: she lives in China and couldn't write or speak English, so the Airbnb app (poorly) translated the very few interactions we had before she arrived!

She instant booked, was new to the platform, didn't have a profile picture or any information up and her first question to me was to ask if I would collect her and her husband from the airport! I was planned to be working when they arrived so I had to decline, but I agreed to pick them up locally once I had finished work.

Radio silence for weeks and then a message to say due to a family emergency she would travel alone, and could I still pick her up, of course I agreed and the following evening went to the local station to pick her up- having explained as much as possible how to arrive there from the airport.

She didn't show up! I still waited. 30 mins later I got a frantic call from a taxi driver saying he had a Chinese woman in his taxi, she was crying and gave him my phone number to call...so I explained the situation and he drove to the station to pick me up, and then drop us both at my place.

Even though she couldn't speak English or I Chinese, we still spoke to eachother as if the other could understand and she seemed much better after I got in the taxi. Because I didn't know what she was going to look like as she didn't have a profile pic, I was surprised she was around my mothers age, around 65 years old.

At home we chatted through a translation app, and even though it didn't translate everything quite as we'd liked we communicated well!

I went to work the next day, taking my guest with me to the underground station to buy a pass and explain how to travel around- she wanted to go to China Town, and off we went our separate ways. I worried about her all day! She sent me a message later to say she had bought food and would I like some, so I said yes.

I reached home, walked down to my door from the street to some amazing smells, to find her cooking up a storm in my kitchen, and she had cooked the most amazing Chinese meal for us from scratch, it was so wonderful, and she looked so happy and bright for the first time since she arrived, I didn't have the heart to say that I don't allow guests to cook in my kitchen!

She stayed for 3 days with me, and insisted on cooking for me everyday, she couldn't understand why I was living alone, and was concerned that I wasn't able to look after myself or cook properly as a single man...my lack of a rice cooker very much worried her 🙂

We got on so well, had some brilliant chats through the translation app, and I ate very well for those 3 days...I really felt like I had my mum living with me and not a guest!

That was when I was new to hosting: I didn't manage my settings especially well and I wonder now if I'll ever have an experience like that again...probably not, and maybe that's why I look upon this guest with such fondness 🙂

Feel free to tell me about your favourite...if you allow yourself to have one!

Paul 🙂 

*Part of the Community Center's Month of Celebration

[Paul1255]

*Part of the Community Center's Month of Celebration

[Clara116]

@Paul1255 What a charmingly sweet story! Thanks Paul. Don't you just love how we are able to communicate even without command of a different language ?  so many small expressions, gestures and such that just say it all. And it is so sweet that you shared this with us - so we can imagine about her as well. I used my rice cooker tonight and thought of your post - the rice was perfect just wish we could have shared it with you. Peace 

[Paul1255]

Hey @Clara116 ooo would have been great to share a meal with you- and see how the rice cooker works! 

It always amazes how everyone on the CC is spread across the globe but still so well connected 🙂 

[Barak4]

Great!

[Cathie19]

I have a rice cooker, and my homestay space also has one! To me they are an essential item.🙌🏼

So much easier for all dishes.... wild rice, jasmine, basmati, short or long grain... sushi rice or even a glutinous rice for sticky rice and mango. Yum!  It makes easy any guest’s  rice choices.

Being living in Darwin, a multicultural city, it really is Australia’s gateway to Asia!  So from our own travels, we eat a lot of Asian stirfry meals, many an Indian curry or middle eastern styled rices.

But I digress......

I love the story @Paul1255! 

[Huma0]

My last Chinese guests actually arrived with a full sized electric rice cooker. It was huge and I couldn't believe they were travelling around with this in their suitcases (they were in a different city every couple of days), but then they couldn't really understand my astonishment at it either! I guess it really is an essential item for a lot of people.

I have a microwave rice cooker. I know that sounds terrible, but it really works. It's quick, simple and makes perfect fluffy rice everytime (microwave egg poachers on the other hand are rubbish). You can then throw it in the dishwasher as the rice never sticks to it. However, I have never offered it to my Chinese guests to use as I am sure they would be appalled. Or maybe I'm jumping to conclusions and microwave rice cookers are common in China?

I have been pretty impressed with the Chinese (and many other Asian) guests when they have used my kitchen to cook. They take a handful of really boring looking ingredients, like instant noodles and cabbage, and quickly turn it into something quite mouth watering that I'd happily pay for in a restaurant. I wish I could do that!

[Ilonka9]

@Paul1255 Thank you for sharing, I absolutely loved it. I giggled at your rice cooker comment and certainly hope you have bought one now! 

[Bronwyn38]

It's a couple of years back now, so not current enough to offer up for this year's collection but another beautiful experience I had was a Basque (ie between France and Spain) family who were making a habit of cycling 1000km in different countries (they had a blog site accordingly, to record it), and this in Australia was their third expedition (previously France and America). I received a phone call from my little town's Café, asking whether I could accommodate them that night, and they drove them around to my B and B a few minutes later.

Their story on this occasion was that they generally camp in a little tent on their travels, however we had just had some heavy rain the day before and they had had to abandon their tent as it was saturated and too heavy to carry on bikes, and everything they were carrying was also drenched. They just wanted somewhere warm and dry to stay for a night. They were very happy to have my smaller unit (like a little studio apartment) and I washed and dried their wet clothes for them. Next morning as they were preparing to leave, they found the wife's bike had a puncture, so while that was being repaired we chatted. Their little boy was 3 years old (he didn't speak a word of English) and he travelled in a little kiddy trailer set up on the back of his dad's bike,  entertained for a maximum of 3 hours at a time by his recorded children's programs. They were very kind in their praise of their stay with me, and said that their little chap had enjoyed it especially as he had watched "Finding Nemo" THREE times! The only sad thing about their visit for me was that their camera had broken the day before they arrived, and so our beautiful region was not featured at all on their blog.