Just visiting

If you could stay permanently in a 5-star hotel with a partner of your choice, would you? A centrally-located, highly-esteemed hotel with all the amenities you could ever want catering to your well-being. There'll be impeachable service at your fingertips, exquisite food to nourish you and a bevy of high-flying guests to rub shoulders with.

Compare it to an old house. Constant repairs needed, imperfections and limitations exposed, inconveniences and nuisances to face on a daily basis. You always see the same set of people, it's mundane and insular, seemingly trapped in the past. They say that routine kills the desire to grow and innovate.

Some people say that hotel rooms are soulless experiences. Maybe it's because they've stayed in many hotel rooms for short periods of time. You don't get to break the place in that way. I think that if you live in one long enough, you forget what your old life was like. You have the time to put personal belongings on display, establish routines and preferences. You'll get to know the receptionists, the porters, the cleaning ladies. People whose lives revolve around the hotel.

Or maybe it's not like that. Maybe a hotel room can never ever become a home, and you'll just end up being a permanent visitor there.

Zhang Zhiyi in her hotel room, 2046