The male receptionist from earlier was still there. He looked up as she entered the lobby. "Welcome back! Your room's ready for you to check in.", Roger informed her. The way he spoke reminded Bella of a cheer team trying to hype up the crowd.
Bella smiled. "That's great! I could use a bit of freshening up right about now. Let me get my things downstairs first."
Less than five minutes later, Bella was back in the lobby with a sheepish grin on her face. "Um, I may have forgotten how to work that combination. Do you happen to have a master key?"
Roger grabbed a set of keys and chuckled. "Don't worry. It happens more often than most people care to admit."
Bella looked to her left and right. "Let's keep it a secret then."
Once he had helped her open up the locker, they went back to the front desk and he gave her a keycard. "Your room is on the third floor. The shared bathroom is on the sixth. Feel free to call us if you need help. Enjoy your stay!"
"Thank you so much! Will do!" Bella took the keycard and got onto the elevator. She punched the number for the third floor and got off once she had reached her floor.
There was a glass door with the number three on it and a panel for the keycard. Bella pressed her keycard to the panel and the door slid open. Walking inside onto the rows of rooms, Bella found her own room: 308. Pressing her keycard onto the panel on her own door, it whirred and clicked open.
Bella was greeted with a single bed with white covers, a side table with a built-in mini vault for valuables, a wicker basket that stood as a toiletry holder and a TV on the wall.
She put her backpack down and hung her clothes in the small wardrobe carved into the wall. Arranging all her essentials and things, Bella moved with the skill of someone who had done this unpacking thing a few times. She had gotten used to traveling with only a backpack. By now, she had an inkling of what types of clothes to bring with her. For this trip to Taiwan, she had limited herself to two pairs of jeans and five turtlenecks. She had both a bomber jacket and a shawl to distinguish the looks. Disposable underwear, a power bank, a charger and essential toiletries rounded out her list. Traveling light was indeed all it was cracked up to be.
By the time she was done, Bella checked her watch and saw that it was a few minutes past 6pm. She gathered her toiletries and headed over to the washroom on her own floor. Now sufficiently freshened up, she checked her sling bag for the things she needed and headed out the door. She entered the elevator on her floor and exited at the lobby. Going past the front desk, she saw that it was vacant.
Leaving the hotel, Bella walked in the direction of Taipei Main Station. She entered the doors and tried to find the right train to take her to her destination. She felt like the red line was the right one and so she got on that. She got off at the second stop as she read in her research that she ought to and tried to look for the right exit. This was where things got tricky. She had only paid attention to the stops. She didn't bother to take note of the exit numbers. Heck, she had no idea she needed to check for which exits to take at all. Cebu did not have a subway station of any sort so this was very new to her.
Bella felt tears coming to the surface but she pushed them right back down.
She couldn't allow herself to get lost in a foreign city. She just couldn't and she would not.
Walking around after what seemed like forever, Bella found an exit. She didn't know where it led, she just knew she needed to get to the street level.
To her surprise, she was right back where she started: on the street level of Taipei Main Station. Not wanting to admit defeat, Bella took out her phone and called on Google Maps. She punched in the address and began to follow the route it gave her.
After about twenty minutes and what seemed to be two police stations later, Bella finally found her destination: No 23, Lane 20, Sec 2, Zhongshan W Rd, Zhongshan District, Taipei City otherwise known as Rilakkuma Cha-Ya.
Bella felt like she had found an oasis, like she had been searching all her life for this one spot. All that was missing was a spotlight and a choir of angels singing.
"Finally! I finally found you.", she thought. "Google maps finally did me a solid." Hungry and thirsty from all that walking, Bella approached the counter.
