Hotel in Japan

​Linda Ng, 34, mother of two

I went to Tokyo, Japan, for a holiday with my girlfriends. This was in my late 20s or early 30s. We had two twin sharing rooms; I was bunking in with my childhood friend, Sharon. We knew each other since the Katong Convent (KC) days and this wasn’t our first trip out together.
 
Everything went well. Sharon’s a planner, and I was happy to tag along. My other two friends, Zee and Kat, were equally fun people to have around. They weren’t from KC but were also from an all girls' school, so we could all vibe on the same level. My mum was helping me with caregiving for my kid so I had the week away from packing lunch boxes and dealing with the constant “mommy, mommy, mommy”.
 
We checked into a 4-star, 5-star hotel in Minato City. From the looks of it, you would hardly think it’s haunted, but on the day we checked out, we learned that this hotel has a notorious reputation.
 
First thing I do as a habit when I get to any hotel is to pull aside the curtains to let sunlight in. Though I hadn’t had prior paranormal experiences, I am after all Asian and having listened to enough stories on Supernatural Confessions, I know how to… take the necessary actions, when checking into a hotel room.
 
The strange thing about this room is that for some reason, it “felt” dark even with the sunlight coming in. First instinct was that this room didn’t feel right, but since Sharon didn’t mind, I ignored the feeling and went about the day. The first night we went to bed, I swore I saw shadows moving about the room and not even in a surreptitious way. The first shadow stood at the foot of my bed. I was not yet asleep and on my phone. The thick curtains shut the lights from outside completely, but the toilet light was on, so the room wasn’t in total darkness. When I looked up, I could see a silhouette of a man - it was shaped like a man - standing at the foot of my bed. I was startled, of course. I rubbed my eyes and looked up again, but there it was. Clear as anything, it wasn’t my eyes playing tricks on me. I could make out the shape of the shadow and it was this black blot that blocked out my view to my suitcase that was against the wall. The shadow then turned to its left, and I followed its gaze to see another taller shadow on the wall.
This one was even clearer. Because of how the toilet light seeped out, there was a pale orange glow on the wall, and the shadow was standing in the middle of it.
 
I fucking screamed.
 
Sharon woke up, lights were turned on. Everything went back to normal. The fear somewhat dissipated and I questioned what I saw. It sounded ludicrous even as I was retelling the story. That night we slept with all the lights on. Exhaustion eventually took over my frayed nerves and I think I must have drifted off to sleep an hour-ish later. That was around 3am.

We didn’t tell Zee and Kat, because quite frankly by the time morning came around, the previous night’s experience really felt like a figment of my imagination. The second night we took preemptive measures. We kept all the lights on. Curtains drawn open. Sharon had her sleep mask that she had gotten on the SQ flight. I was the kind that could sleep with lights on so the brightness didn’t bother me much. Seeing the light through my eyelids gave me more of a comfort actually.
 
Sometime in the middle of the night, I heard a couple of loud clicks and got startled awake. The room was in total darkness. I was sleeping on my side facing the wall, with my back towards the window. The curtains were out of sight but I could hear the sound of the curtain rails moving, slowly closing.
 
First of all, waking up in darkness when I was expecting light was jarring enough - but now with the sound? I went into full alert mode. I rolled over and saw a shadow figure closing the curtains, at a slow pace. I scrambled for the light switch but the lights didn’t come on. I grabbed my phone and used the torch function.
 
There were more shadows around the room. Two at the foot of my bed, one by the window, one in the corner, and another was in bed with Sharon. Then they all fucking turned to look at me, at the same fucking time.
 
I knew this time round, I could confirm - and double confirm - I was not conjuring or imagining anything. Like I said, I was alert. This was the second night. After what happened on the first night, my brain was more prepared this time. For some reason, I wasn’t as fearful as the first night.
 
I yelled, “get the fuck out of my room! Get out!” Nothing happened.
Then the one on top of Sharon, got off her and crawled its way towards my bed. Ok, now that freaked the hell out of me.
I leapt out of bed, ran through one of the shadows at the foot of my bed and out of the room! I had a split second to think about whether I was going to run through the shadow or not, but between the shadow crawling towards me and the one just standing there, I took my chances. I ran to Zee and Kat’s room and pounded on the door. It took them quite a while to open.
Honestly I was standing there getting more and more pissed.
 
I think I must have been quite hysterical and was pretty much just yelling, but what I can’t really remember at this point. We went back to my room together. It was on the same floor but a few doors away. Because I had run out without the door keycard, we couldn’t get in. So we rang the doorbell and pounded on the door.

Just as I was ready to run down to the concierge to get another card, Sharon opened the door, sleep mask on her forehead. She looked surprised to see me outside the door. “Babe?”
 
We tried to switch but the lights wouldn’t come on. That’s when we realized the keycard had been removed. Sharon had the spare so she went back into the dark room to find it. I yelled at her not to go in, but she didn’t seem affected at all. When we finally got the lights on, we all piled into one room and nothing looked amiss.
 
The curtains were closed, our beds looked like they were slept in. Other than that, there were no signs of shadow people. Not taking our chances, we went to the front desk to demand a change of room and the lady gave us an upgrade, apologizing profusely for the inconvenience. There was no more sleeping for us that night. I had told the girls what I saw and they were spooked.
 
This time, it was hard to say I imagined it. Sharon and I deliberately left all the lights on and curtains open. Something or someone had removed the keycard and closed the curtain. The only explanation was that one of us sleepwalked and did those things without conscious knowledge but neither of us have a history of that.
 
The next morning at breakfast, as we were talking about the night’s incident, a couple at the next table overheard us. They told us this hotel is known to have such incidents and that we were “lucky” to have encountered it. They booked this hotel hoping for an encounter but didn’t get any. I told them the number of my previous room, and that they are welcome to try. They said according to feedback, it didn’t matter which room as the entire hotel is haunted. That was enough for us to G.T.F.O. from the hotel that very afternoon.
 
I’ve traveled and stayed in other hotels since, but thankfully nothing like that ever happened again.
 
P.S. Sharon later on came clean that while she was sleeping on the second night, she had a sexy dream that she was making out with her crush. I don’t know if that was just a coincidence or if she was making out with the shadow person I saw in her bed.