This story is part of our 'Funniest hotel experiences' series, featuring tales from luxury hotel guests which were sent in for our recent travel writing competition. Photo by Mamamusings
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I wanted our first Valentine’s Day as a married couple to be special. I booked St Martin’s Lane Hotel, London, and because my wife loves everything Japanese I made a reservation at Sumosan, Mayfair. Our hotel was beautiful and our contemporary room gorgeous. Everything in the room was all white - crisp white linen adorned the large Queens size bed, the thick carpet was white and the Italian drapes were white lace.
Having spent a lovely romantic day in the capital we arrived at the restaurant. Wanting to impress my wife and to prove I had taken an interest in her love for Japan I ordered a bowl of Edamame beans for us to both share.
I proudly spouted that they were an amazingly good source of protein, iron and Omega 3 as I began to pop them straight into my mouth. My wife mentioned that she wasn’t convinced that I should be eating them whole and should pop the beans out of the pods but I maintained this was the traditional way of eating them. My wife ignored my advice and peeled each pod carefully before eating.
After our meal we strolled back to the hotel for a nightcap when my stomach began to rumble. Thinking nothing more of it we headed to our room. My wife slowly nodded off to sleep but I was now in too much pain. To say I was experiencing the worst stomach cramps I had ever experienced would not do justice to the pain I was now in! My stomach rumbled on through the night before it began – the first wave of green terror... unable to reach the white porcelain bathroom in time I hurled pea soup all over the bed sheets. Round two began shortly later, this time I made the bathroom but also hit the carpet. This set the tone for the rest of the night where I hurled my guts up and left very little remaining white space in our room.
Our room now resembled a scene from the Exorcist – even the curtains were pebble dashed in green goo! Next morning we had the usual knock at the door from room service but through sheer embarrassment and fear we failed to answer the door whilst we attempted to be most un-rock and roll and actually clean the room. In fairness there was little we could actually do – we didn’t have any Daz, Vanish or carpet cleaner with us and had to make do with soaking the sheets.
We did actually leave a note apologising in our room as we genuinely felt for the poor maid who must have thought Metallica had stayed the night before.
To this day we would love to stay again in the hotel but feel we are probably blacklisted. I now know that the body cannot digest starch from the skins of the beans. It has provided my wife with plenty of chuckles every time she orders a bowl of Edamame beans! For me it is still too early!
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