First off, I just have to say, even though I knew coming here that they do the whole steering-wheel-on-the-right-side thing, I was just struck with this dumb confusion when we got to the car, and I saw the steering wheel for. My first thought was “What’s that for?” Then I realized oh, the driver sits there…. Right…
Beautiful hotel.
Got to my room and was a little confused, there was a whole panel of switches, none of which seemed to do anything. The lights were off, except a dim spotlight. There was a spot that said key card, so I thought, OK, I’ll swipe my key card. Then I pressed the buttons, still nothing. I started pushing a bunch of the buttons, and then all of a sudden the spot light went off. Hmmm., now I’m in the dark completely. Now I had to open the door to get some light in, so I could see what I was doing. Great, now everyone can watch the dumb American that can’t figure out how to turn on a light. OK, figured it out. You need to LEAVE the card in the slot, and then you can turn on the all the lights.
OK, I’m set. So I go to check out the bathroom…and I can’t find the lightswitch there. Wandered around in the dark in there, looking under the multiple robes….After several minutes, I got the bright idea – check outside the bathroom door. Yep there it is.
So after check in, we met Julie for breakfast. I ate a bunch of stuff, of which I have no idea what it was. I had some green drink that was fruit juice. They had one sitting next to the carafe, which looked like a green pomegranate, but it tasted just like quava. (Anyone know? Please post.)
Walking around outside, I definitely noticed what everyone else who has been here has told me.
It is immaculately clean! They have signs up in pedway tunnels that instead of wet floor say “cleaning in progress”. They have people driving around on sidewalk sweepers, similar to street sweepers.
Kelli and I traveled on the MRT (their subway) to Chinatown. Lots of cool stuff we went through a market that kind of reminded me of Pike Place in Seattle, where you kind of feel like you can’t find your way out.
Beautiful hotel.
Got to my room and was a little confused, there was a whole panel of switches, none of which seemed to do anything. The lights were off, except a dim spotlight. There was a spot that said key card, so I thought, OK, I’ll swipe my key card. Then I pressed the buttons, still nothing. I started pushing a bunch of the buttons, and then all of a sudden the spot light went off. Hmmm., now I’m in the dark completely. Now I had to open the door to get some light in, so I could see what I was doing. Great, now everyone can watch the dumb American that can’t figure out how to turn on a light. OK, figured it out. You need to LEAVE the card in the slot, and then you can turn on the all the lights.
OK, I’m set. So I go to check out the bathroom…and I can’t find the lightswitch there. Wandered around in the dark in there, looking under the multiple robes….After several minutes, I got the bright idea – check outside the bathroom door. Yep there it is.
So after check in, we met Julie for breakfast. I ate a bunch of stuff, of which I have no idea what it was. I had some green drink that was fruit juice. They had one sitting next to the carafe, which looked like a green pomegranate, but it tasted just like quava. (Anyone know? Please post.)
Walking around outside, I definitely noticed what everyone else who has been here has told me.
It is immaculately clean! They have signs up in pedway tunnels that instead of wet floor say “cleaning in progress”. They have people driving around on sidewalk sweepers, similar to street sweepers.Kelli and I traveled on the MRT (their subway) to Chinatown. Lots of cool stuff we went through a market that kind of reminded me of Pike Place in Seattle, where you kind of feel like you can’t find your way out.
After leaving the market, we stumbled into a Buddhist temple called the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. Immediately someone rushed up to
Kelli to cover her with a shawl (as she is wearing a sleeveless shirt.) This place was pretty unbelieveable. A giant gold buddah in front, with hundreds of smaller buddhas, each in a different position around them.After some time in Chinatown, Kelli and I returned to the hotel, had a couple drinks, and she went back to her room for a nap, and I’m going back on the town to do some more sightseeing.
4 comments:
Hi,
I really like this blog thing. It's almost like being there. I find it encouraging to see the English on the umbrellas in the market, and even the "blessing area" in the Buddist temple. Are you finding a large number of people there speaking English?
I like the part about the lights in the hotel. We had a similar problem in Italy with a toilet we couldn't figure out how to flush. Then to my dismay, once we figured that one out I found that it was not representative of all the rest of the European toilets, and had to repeat the process again with others.
I remember getting off the plane in Europe feeling like I entered an "alternate universe", and the feeling didn't go away until I put my feet back on American soil.
So far I like your travels better, less stress, and I get to see the pictures and read all about it. Just stay safe, and healthy!
Sounds like you did good. The trick will be tonight when you are dead tired and can't figure out how to turn off the bedroom lights as happened to me last week at the Hyatt in Manila.
Keeping up with our Blogs will be interesting with almost no internet in India due to the outage.
See you in 23 minutes in lobby
Yep, English is widely spoken here. Mandarin is the national language, but it seems as if everyone speaks English. I was on the train when all the schools were being let out, and I heard the kids speaking both English and Mandarin.
Ryan, Singapore's national language is English. The second language is your mother tongue, so for Chinese is Mandarin, Malay is Malay and Indian is Tamil.
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