Peace Hotel - Part II- Time Travel

(When Chuck, the rascal cat, wanders out of the lounge area of the Peace Hotel while Bob and I are sipping our Bloody Mary’s, we panic, and there’s a mad dash for the hallway.  Bob scampers off in one direction.  I go off in the other.  My heart pounds, not daring to imagine that the poor kid may be lost forever in the hotel, in Shanghai, in China.  This is PART II of that harrowing adventure . . . Part I was posted on Monday, September 17, 2012.)

Someone taps me on the shoulder.
It’s got to be Bob holding Chuck, telling me that he didn’t go far, after all.
        I’m about to heave a welcome sigh of relief.  I turn around. 
But I’m wrong.  
The Peace Hotel is well-staffed.  A well-dressed gentleman is standing there.  He smiles and says, “Can I help you?”
I fumble with my answer, “No. I’m looking for my . . .”  I’m not stupid enough to say “cat.”  I quickly insert the correct answer, “ . . . husband. He just wandered away.  We were in the bar. Having drinks.”
The hotel attendant nods.  
“I’ll just go back there and wait for him,” I add, hoping to get rid of this smiling attendant, who nods again and finally begins to walk away. 
I almost collapse on the floor as I watch him fade into the distance.
Chuck, where are you?
Could he have returned to the bar area?
Cats are great at leaving their scent behind.  That would be the logical thing for him to do.  Follow his own scent back to where he knows we are, once he realizes he’s in a mega strange place.    
I almost run down the hall now, convinced that Chuck is in the lounge area, waiting for me, probably propped up on the chair, eating our snacks . . .  
I refuse to accept any other possibility.

And that’s when it happens.  I spot the rascal cat, slinking out of a room that leads into the hallway.  Immediately he freezes when he sees me. Guilty, no doubt.  Luckily, we’re alone in the hallway. There are things I’d like to say to this cat, but I can’t speak because my throat feels so tight it’s as if I have a noose around it, so I whisk him into my arms and shove him into my smart bag.  
At least he’s safe.  Now I have to find Bob and tell him.  
I have every intention of doing so . . . because I can only imagine the anguish Bob’s going through.  He loves Chuck as much as I love him.
Somehow I become distracted. 
The room Chuck sauntered out of seems to beckon to me.
There is a soft light flowing into the window from outside. It‘s dusk, which some overly imaginative people refer to as the witching hour.  I glance into the room, and the furnishings, even the paintings on the walls, seem to harken back to an earlier time.  
Instantly, I’m reminded of “Somewhere in Time” and the scene where Christopher Reeve visits his college professor who reluctantly tells him of a moment when he felt sure he traveled backwards into the sixteenth century.  Only for a moment when the room around him flickered and the furnishings changed.  
      Time travel.
I step into the room and walk toward the window, heavily decorated with drapes. I expect, when I gaze out, to see Nanking Road filled with pedestrian traffic and cars, part of the modern world that exists around Shanghai, China.
But even as I shift the opaque curtain aside, in my heart I know I’ll glimpse a different world. For I expect this is a very special room.  By some quirk of time and space.  
The door has been left ajar for a reason.  
Chuck wandered into it.  
I was drawn to it.  
And now . . . carefully I pull the sheer drapes aside and gaze out.
And my heart metaphorically stops.
Just for a few seconds I see the hustling and bustling Nanking Road that I’ve only glimpsed in black and white photographs.  
A Nanking Road full of color and life.  I scan the scene before me and greedily take in all the details:
      Bicycles have huge woven baskets attached to the handle bars.  A red cable car squeaks past.  Several old-fashioned looking box-shaped cars drive past with their windows down.  Large cloth signs hang from poles suspended from the buildings that line the street, advertising the storefronts, in Chinese, of course.  The large, bold lettering sways in the breeze.  Men in suits wear hats, and the ladies are all in dresses. These pedestrians are in stark contrast to the rickshaw drivers who in baggy trousers and T shirts pull their load behind them.  One rider, asleep in his conveyance, wears laced, flat leather-like shoes that resemble our modern day sneakers.  

My God.  I must be  transported back to . . . the 1930’s . . .
I hear my name and stumble away from the window.
“Bob?”
He’s standing in the doorway.  “What are you doing in here? Did you find him?”
I nod.  Should I tell him?  Should I admit that for a few seconds, I was transported back in time? No. He’ll think I’m crazy.      
“Thank God. Well, let’s go to dinner.”  That’s Bob.  Hungry.
With Chuck safely squirreled away in my smart bag, we find our way to the nearest elevator. This hotel is so posh there’s an elevator attendant waiting to push the buttons for you so you land on the right floor.  
She smiles.  “Can I help you?”
“The Dragon and the Phoenix.”
In the restaurant, we’re seated near a large picture window, but I can’t look out of that window right away.  When I do, the view of the Huangpo River is spectacular.  Boats navigate down the river.  And, yes, they are modern boats.

  My tiny foray into the past is over.  
The Peace Hotel.
Some spectacular place.
And for once, Chuck’s rascal behavior has led to a good and wonderful thing.  
The kid will get extra snacks tonight.

        To read more about Chuck, log onto www.katelutter.com

         My paranormal romance, Wild Point Island, is now available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com in paperback and ebook format.  

Chuck Gives Peace Hotel a Chance

The magnificent Peace Hotel with its green pyramid shaped top.

The outside is only matched by its glorious interior . . .

        I’m not a political person, but this week we celebrated the eleventh anniversary of September 11th, and I remember that horrible day.  And then the American Embassy was overrun in Libya and four people were killed, including our Ambassador in what is now being called a coordinated terrorist attack.  
I thought it only fitting to focus on one place, which at least symbolically  represents by its very name, what we should all be striving towards: peace.
The Peace Hotel.
Yes, that is its real name.

This is the entrance on the Nanking Road side.  

When we were recently traveling in China, one of my obsessions was to see the Peace Hotel again. I’d stayed there eight years before, and I was determined to at least visit this hotel and see it again, for it is one of those very special places that truly takes you back in time.
But let me explain.
Years ago, there was a movie, a very popular cult classic called Somewhere in Time starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.  Reeve, a playwright, an unhappy playwright, takes a break from his writing and decides to stay at the old Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in Michigan.  One day he spots a photograph of a beautiful woman (Seymour) hanging in an anteroom off the lobby and immediately falls in love with her, only to discover later that she’s an actress from the turn of the century.  Undaunted, he tracks down his old college professor who believes time travel is possible.  The critical element, Reeve learns, is to find a place that actually existed in the time period you want to return to and then convince your mind that you are in that new time period by surrounding yourself visually with clues from that place in time.  Reeve is able to travel in time to Seymour and the story goes on from there.

This display case captures a bygone era.  

Walking into the Peace Hotel is like walking back in time.

I love this shot--the beautiful Art Deco style light and wall decorations ...


Located on the Bund, along the Huangpu River on Nanking Road, the busiest road in Shanghai, the Fairmont Peace Hotel was originally called the Sassoon House and housed the Cathay Hotel.
      Construction lasted from 1926 to 1929 and was begun by Sir Victor Sassoon (yes, that famous family) who made his fortune by trading for opium and weapons.  Before 1946, the Cathay Hotel was considered the most prestigious hotel in Shanghai.  After the Communist take-over, the hotel functioned as a government building, and then in 1956 it reopened for the first time as the Peace Hotel.  In 1992 it became listed as one of the famous hotels of the world by the World Hotel Association. It has become particularly known for its jazz band, which has played continuously since the 1930’s.
The Peace Hotel closed in 2007 for a three year renovation so the approximately 300 guest rooms could be modernized.  I stayed in the hotel before the renovation, and, perhaps, that’s why I felt it was so special.   I remember the exact moment I first walked into the hotel.  Jazz music was playing in the background, oddly enough.  The interior of the hotel is Art Deco, and it boasts a white marble floor and yellow walls.  So walking through the halls for the first time, I was dumbstruck by the feeling that I was walking through a time tunnel and that any moment someone would say or do something that would prove to me that somehow we’d been whisked back to the 1930’s.  Maybe that was my secret fantasy--walk down a long hallway and by the time you reach the end of it, you are back in time.  You unlock a  room and stare out the window, and sure enough, what you see in Nanking Road--the street is once again jammed packed with rickshaws and foot traffic and all signs of innovation and modern technology are gone.
Midnight in Paris?  No, early evening in Shanghai.  
           When we first arrive at the Peace Hotel, this time, Bob and I and a reluctant Chuck wander around for a bit and then head to the lounge, the bar and order two Bloody Mary’s.  We are too early for the Jazz Band and our plan is to have a drink and then head upstairs for dinner at the Dragon and the Phoenix, one of the eight restaurants in the hotel. 

This is the bar/lounge area where the jazz music is played and where Bob and I sat with Chuck.

But we savor every moment of our time in the lounge area and realize that the decor probably hasn’t changed much in close to eighty years.  We are the only ones in the lounge so when the friendly bartender scoots out, we’re free to relax and sip our drinks. Chuck is sulking.  He didn’t want to come to the Peace Hotel.  Not a fan.  So break one of my cardinal rules and let him go free to sniff around and explore.  
“Just give the Peace Hotel a chance, okay?”
Yes, there are no cats allowed, but I get the feeling with this place, that even if Chuck were spotted, we’d be given a frown and then time to scoop him up and head for the door.  
Everything is elegant and old world.
        Of course, I’ve filled Chuck in on the history of the place.  And although the kid likes being outside, a place like this with all the different smells will hopefully keep him busy for awhile.  And, frankly, Bob and I get lost in the atmosphere.  
We’re both movie buffs and can easily imagine all the people who sat in this room over the decades--the dresses of the women, the music that played, the dancing, the drinking.  It’s almost as if you could close your eyes and then open them and see another time, another place . . .
“Chuck.  Where the hell is Chuck?”
From out of nowhere, I realize that Chuck is missing.  He has wandered out of the lounge.  Followed his sniffing nose . . . somewhere . . . who the hell knows where.
I easily panic when it comes to the kid.  
And he is like a kid.  
He’ll get totally lost in the moment.  
Bob and I leave our delicious drinks behind, rush to the door.  
“You go that way.  I’ll go this way.”  There’s a hallway.  He could only have gone one way or the other.  “Meet back here.”
We scamper away, and I can feel my heart pounding. I won’t even allow myself to think about the impossibility of trying to find a cat lost in the Peace Hotel.  Lost in Shanghai.  Lost in China. 
I may never see him again.
And what were my last words?  Give the Peace Hotel a chance? 

         Stay tuned for Part 2 of Chuck Gives Peace Hotel a Chance to be posted on Sunday, September 23, 2012.