Another bottle in the window (or Housekeeping and Babylon in action)

On my way back from the Post Office I could not resist a bottle of white Bordeaux that I saw in a supermarket for HK$79.  Having returned to my room I was reminded why I prefer wine bottles with twist caps. There is no corkscrew in the room.  So I pressed 0 for the Operator, who put me through to housekeeping.   My "Could I please have a corkscrew brought up to room 2302" (you can't pick stuff up in this hotel; I tried before) was answered by "You want a bathrobe?".  My quick "No No, a CORKSCREW to open a bottle of wine" was quickly followed by hearty laughter on both sides.

However, that was 5 minutes and I'm thinking of dressing my virginal bottle of Bordeaux in the newly acquired bathrobe and putting the combo in front of the door.  But the person taking his time is probably not the same person that answered the phone, so not much point. The corkscrew arrived after 10 minutes, which gave me enough time to dress up the bottle and take a picture of it in front of the view, which seems to have become a tradition (Last May it was a bottle of dark Chinese beer that got the leading role ;)

Bottle showing chest hair in front of ICC

Babylonian confusion apparently had reached new levels while I was gone for the day (more on that in other posts). I don't like the idea of maids having to enter my room and having to clean it up beyond the normal scope. So if it is 'messy' and I'm too lazy to clean up my mess today, I instead opt for NO cleaning service. That's just me.
Today was such a day.  So this morning I put the Don't-Disturb sign out. Then a phone call from housekeeping inquired whether I would like my room cleaned today and I said NO.  I thought that had settled the issue and didn't even leave the sign at the door when I left for my second trip at 2pm.  Apparently NO does NOT mean NO, because when I came back at 7:30 pm, everything was nice and tidy, but that also meant that none of my things were where I had put them.

So when I called housekeeping to find a way to avoid misunderstandings like this in the future and I explained the issue, the very lovely Asian lady at the phone said: "Your room no cleaned. You want your room cleaned!"  It took a lot of self-control but I explained the issue slower and in simpler words again, only to be rewarded with "Your room get cleaned right now!"
Still I managed to maintain some tact when I asked for someone "who speaks better English", because I followed up with "I am sorry that my Chinese is so bad".

It's not really a reason to complain: after all someone went through a lot of trouble and work to clean up my mess!  But anyone with snoopy parents might understand my point very well! 
Poor cleaning person! I wonder what s/he thought when s/he saw the bottle in the bathrobe sitting on the window ledge ;-)