Day 4 - Thailand Holiday

Final day of our holiday which basically was spent just resting in the Hotel. Had a late breakfast and then it was just resting, wanted to go to the pool but it finally rained in Bangkok. We were glad that it rained only on our final day, guess it did not mess up the shopping trips ha ha ... Although we missed out on a few malls, it's a question of just too many Malls and too little Time. We checked out of the Hotel at 1pm they took really good care of us, all our bags were brought to the Benz, they call it a Benz transfer, and we were ferried to the airport, where we were again met by another representative of the Hotel who guided us to the check-in area and once our luggage was check-in and we got our boarding pass did he finally bade us good bye. He practically did all the talking to the counter staff we just produce our passports. It was a full flight but we still left on time and arrived slightly ahead of schedule. Finally back in Singapore and back to work .... holiday over. So how was our stay at the Banyan Tree Bangkok. Let's give it a full review here. Just some background, we took a 2+1 free night stay at the Banyan Tree Club Package. Which is accommodation at the Club Level suites which are from the 50th to 58th floor, Hotel Transfer (Benz Transfer as they call it), complimentary Laundry, daily Fruits, daily Breakfast, use of Club Lounge and a few other items. Cost per person was $888 which includes the airfare on SQ (Best Airline in the World I reckon :) you need to add in the other surcharges and taxes which was an additional $144 at that time, almost like taxi surcharges now. Banyan Tree Bangkok I'll rate it out of the following and a little disclaimer, below are our comments/ratings based on our experience at the Hotel and the service we received from the staff,. To make it like a holiday, I'll rate it based on what else Palm Trees, out of 5 :- (a) Arrival / Departure (includes check-ins/out and welcome) - 5 Palm Trees Absolutely wonderful it's not so much door-to-door service but more like plane-to-plane service where from the time you clear customs at arrival to the time you get your departure boarding pass, there is always someone from the Hotel there with you. They do really make full use of their Handphones as they use that frequently to communicate where you are and time of arrival at hotel or departure at airport so that someone will be there at the exact drop off point depending on your airline flight. Check-in was a breeze and in a very very comfortable area, no hassle at the counter to get your keys etc. They don't rush you as well once you have settled down then only do they bring you to your room at your own time. (b) Accommodation (room and amenities)- 4.5 Palm Trees Room and toilet was clean, we had an excellent view from our room (one of the very rare occasions that happens to us) amenities were great. Guess the only thing missing was the durian if they could slip that in on the fruit platter ..... wow that would be cooool. (c) Staff (housekeeping and club lounge) - 5 Palm Trees Very pleasant staff and they are really polite and they are very attentive to detail. They know your name once you get there and from then on they address you as such. (d) Facilities (Club Lounge, Restaurant, Gift Shop and Spa) - 4 Palm Trees We did not use the pool so not sure about that but the Gift Shop sales staff was very polite and helpful. The spa staff was excellent. Club lounge was great, the breakfast was ok but maybe the staff could ask what we wanted instead of us having to call them to say we wanted fried eggs with bacon or waffles or pancakes etc. Our only slight issue was at the Saffron restaurant where I think they were under staffed for the night and the service could be improved. The Moon Bar and Vertigo Restaurant we felt was quite dimly lit but maybe that's the atmosphere they wanted to create, it was crowded as well and the flooring could be improved as there were holes in the planks and that made walking with heels a problem for the missus. Almost got her heel stuck up on the 62nd floor of the open air Bar and Restaurant. (e) Service (Laundry, Room Service) - 5 Palm Trees How can you fault a hotel if at the check-in they give you a selection of pillows, with various degrees of firmness and type to choose from. We tried their laundry service and it was really good. Impressed with the fact that even undergarments (ya we sent those in as well :) were return in what seem pressed and individually wrapped. When you call them to pick up laundry there was no waiting or sometimes at other hotels you have to call 2 or 3 times before someone comes up. Here within 5 to 10 minutes they would be at your door to do the laundry pick up. We also called before we left that our laundry the night before was not delivered yet, the staff checked, called back saying on the way and in 5 minutes it was at our door. The Club Lounge Internet access was excellent as well as fast, although only 3 terminals it seemed sufficient as I never had to wait. Most guest bring their own Laptops. I brought mine as well but if the missus wants to use it I go down to the Club Lounge then. In conclusion the Hotel scored 23.5 Palm Tress out of a total of 25 based on our experience and service there. Will definately return if I am visiting Bangkok again.

Day 3 - Thailand Holiday

The day started with breakfast and then we went to check out the spa and we decided to book the Rejuvinating Scrub and Massage for the afternoon before heading out to drinks and dinner. With the booking confirmed it was time to 'move out' to the shopping malls again. The cost of these BTS rides were B$20 per person but it's a good people mover, not too crowded. This time we took the hotel transfer to the nearest BTS station which was at Salah Daeng and then we took the BTS to Chit Lom station. We got off and headed for Platinum Mall. It's a spralling 7 story complex with hundreds of shops selling fashion wear at wholesale prices. Only problem is you have to purchase more than 1 to get that discount but still most shops allow you to mix and match. After that we headed for Central Mall where we had lunch at the Food Court which had a 'Marche' type payment system we had to take along a card and record our purchases and pay before we leave the area. More shopping was done and it became apparent the missus was starting to feel the effects of all that walking and insisted that we catch a taxi back to the hotel. Luckily the Mall has a taxi stand and they got us a taxi but they did asked if we wanted a tut-tut as there maybe a jam on the roads. I think it was still safer to get a taxi so we got into one. The guy at the taxi stand was kind enough to explain to the taxi driver where we wanted to go and zoom we were off. I have to say the guy was really fast and aggressive driver. Guess it's typical of all taxi drivers around the world. :) Well it took about 15 mins to get to the Hotel - surprisingly - and the fare for the whole trip !! B$50 which in Singapore Dollars is $2.20 -- Damn that's less than the flag down fare of a cab in Singapore !! We made it back just in time for our Rejuvinating Scrub and Massage. I'm not one who is a massage freak so I was hoping to have a gentle one but the missus suggested I try the Thai Massage while she took the Balinese version. Well hopefully I don't start screaming during the procedure. We had the foot massage then a salt scrub for me while the missus had some mud looking scrub, not sure what it was. After which the massage session began and it's remarkable for a young petit looking Thai lady to have such strong hands. She really got into it poking and pressing using the elbows and legs and feet and palms. It really hurt especially when she did my neck which was where the tightness is. But when she did the arms and head it really felt so relaxing that I think I fell asleep somewhere then. I thought the whole thing was over after that but noooooo..... there was more. It seems my version came with STRETCHING. Ok I'm not the most fexible guy around and what she did was she started pulling and bending and twisting my entire body into various positions.... painful positons... I felt like a pretzel. I probably ended up like a christmas ribbon. The whole agonizing session lasted 2 solid hours but I have to say you really feel refreshed after that. Don't mind going through that again if I can 'tahan' the pain again. I'm told it's something you get used to after a while. Tonight being our final night in Bangkok we decided to treat ourselves to dinner at the Hotel's restaurants and we chose the Saffron which served Thai cuisine. Here's the missus at the Saffron. After dinner we went up to the Moon Bar for some drinks. It's on the 62nd floor and it's also where you have the Vertigo Restaurant. It was really high and not something I'm too keen off but it was really an experience. Ya the pictures not that great since the guy who took it did not manage to hold the camera steady. We are in the highest open air dinner area/bar in Bangkok. We tried to get some seats but the bar was full so we decided to head on down to the club level for our own drinks. Now all that's left is for me to head on back to the room and start packing !! Not sure how I'm going to fit all the shopping stuff in the luggage :)

Day 2 - Thailand Holiday

Had a really refreshing sleep last night, ah what a good night's sleep does to rejuvenate your body. Especially with the comfy pillows they provide. We actually got to choose the type of pillow we wanted. At check-in yesterday Joe brought this wooden box about the size of a carton of cigarettes and in it were miniature pillows!! We got to feel each one the soft, medium soft, hard, allergic free, etc there were 5 or 6 choices and you get to pick which ones you want and they will get room service to bring up the pillow of your choice to your room. We went down to the club lounge for breakfast today and as usual can't really control myself when the fried eggs came and did a little arrangement of it to make a face ha ha... Shopping day today, althougth we left the hotel rather late, we walked to the BTS (Bangkok Transit System - I think that's what it stands for) very similr to our MRT. Now, I've not been to Bangkok for a very very long time, the last time I was here was like 20/25 years ago when my dad drove up from Singapore on one of those AA holidays. It really has changed a lot, with the BTS and their own underground called the MRT as well, it seems getting around Bangkok is a real breeze. We took the BTS to MBK (Mua Boon Kong - spelling is probably wrong) which was 3 stops away. The ride was pleasant and we could see the traffic jam below which was something I still remembered about Bangkok. To cut it short, ya we spent the whole day at MBK, boosting the Thai economy. We had lunch at the Boat House which was recommend by a Thai friend of ours. It was a nice place, food portions were a little small but it was ok, good Thai food. Our order was taken by a very tall, pretty and sexy 'lady' and I use the term loosely. The missus commented wah so sexy one, last time must be very handsome guy. After lunch, more shopping, did not really manage to cover the entire shopping area as it was way way too huge and I think my arms were begining to ache from all the barang barang. We had dinner at MK Restaurant which served steamboat. We were greeted by this pretty 'boy' with eyelashes and makeup. Don't know why but we seem to be getting a lot of "these" today. The steamboat was pretty much like Coca but cheaper. They had these cute tissue holders as well. Got back to the hotel and we met an American in the lift who commented that he had never been so pampered before in a hotel, he was on the Club level as well. It is true given that the people who work there are really friendly, greeting you with the customary Sawadee-ka. Breakfast came with the package and with Club level full day service at the Club lounge which basically means you can actually go there any time of the day and drinks and snacks are always available. Free wireless internet but only at the Club area, which is what I am using to connect and write this up. No laptop no worries as they have free internet service as well at the Club lounge. Each night they put little gifts in your room, last night we got a turtle, tonight it was a bear keychain. We have daily fresh fruits topped up in the room and today they gave my favourite red 'Jambu'. We got the complimentary head and shoulder massage done today as well. Wah it was really painful as the lady was using her elbows at certain stages which was really painful!! But it really felt good after that. Now's it's off to bed to rest up for another day of Mall Walking.

Day 1 - Thailand Holiday

I spent the night packing my stuff for the trip. Looks like everytime we go for a holiday there are a host of electronic stuff to bring along - the digital camera {for picture taking}, computer notebook {to do these blog updates}, handphones {found a new use for them as automatic currency converters, just found that out on this trip after about 6 months with the phone, I finally realised you can set it up for auto conversion}, spare batteries, handphone charger, notebook power cables, foreign power adaptors. Lucky this round I decided not to bring along the video camera. Anyways had a really late night slept about 2am and was up at an ungodly 5.30am that morning. So final last minute stuff to add in and we were off to the airport, since it was only to Bangkok via SQ, we ended up at T2, had my first look at the new T3 in the cab as we approached the airport. Looks rather plain on the outside, probably will visit it one of these days just to see what is on the inside. Anyways just as we got out of the cab and this is like 6.30am in the morning I was greeted by this rather 'chirpy' young lady in an orange T-Shirt who came over even before we could get out of the cab and asked which flight we were taking as she was there to ensure we were at the right terminal. I was still a little sleepy so I mumbled someting and I think it was the correct answer as she said we were at the right terminal. Checked in the luggage and we went for coffee in the transit area. After clearing immigration via the new Passport/Thumbrint auto identification system. While waiting for the flight we walked around and even before we started our holiday we started contributing to the Singapore economy. Unbelievable !! Duty free shopping before the trip !! Flight was not full, departed on time, rather smooth 2 hrs flight to Bangkok where after clearing immigration and collecting our luggage, we met a very nice lady from the Banyan Tree Hotel who took us to the waiting Benz with an equally pleasant driver that was to take us to the Hotel. That's your typical Thai Hospitality, absolutely wonderful. It was about a 30 min trip to the Hotel. At the Hotel we were greeted by Pook, and she brought us up to the Club lounge to do our check in. They gave us these really cute hand garlands and the welcome drink was a very refreshing Lemongrass drink (pic below). We were on these sofa seats and she took our particulars while kneeling there, not sure why they do that, probably a custom I think. After the basics were done, Joe took over and gave us the run down of the Hotel, a very nice guy who kept going on about the Bath Salts that were part of the complimentary package. He showed us our room where our luggage was all neatly brought up.

The room was fantastic, here we are (below pic) in the living area of the room there was a separate bedroom and we were on the 58th floor just below the restaurants on the 59 floor. Great view of the river but Bangkok tends to be hazy.

It was around noon so we did some exploration of the Hotel, checked our the dinning and pool, the gym and of course the spa facilities and then we headed out to one of the local shopping centre where we had Japanese cuisine for lunch as well as 'investing' in the Thai economy. Evening we went to the Suan Lum Night Market which was within walking distance and just enough time to get back to write this in before turning in for the night, lots of stuff to write about but too tired to do it now. Uploaded some pictures to Flickr as well of the shots taken today. I'm just too tired to put a link, just follow the box at the right.

Blue Day - 25/1

It has finally arrived. My last day of work. The past week has been one farewell lunch after another, I was kept busy. I finally cleared my work, tidy up my desk, good old Mr Potatoe Head was packed and the only thing left was to say my goodbyes to the friends I've made. There was definately some sadness today on my part. Some people may think that since I was there for a short time it does not really matter but you do get attached to your projects and the people you work with. It was fun and enjoyable working there, I will miss it somehow. But I guess you have to move on, first off would be to go for a holiday before I start work with my new company. ++++ ++++ ++++ On another note, I had dinner with the missus today at Azabu Sabo at Marina. The service was really bad, food took quite some time to get to our table. There did not seem to be a shortage of staff but they tend to congregate among themselves. When we asked for more soup to top up the fast dwindling hot pot, it took almos 4 tries to different service staff before someone followed up on our request. Food came with no utensils and they never bother to lay out the utensil before the food arrive. It really pissed off the missus and she was really complaining all the way. Almost went to the extend that she wanted to not pay the service charge but the dessert which this shop is famous for was really good and it was the one saving grace and that really did 'cool' her down. As for me after the rather filling lunch I had today, did not really take much just share a small serving with the missus and had a smooth ice-cream float.

New Specs

I collected my new pair of spectacles yesterday afternoon, a couple of my colleagues said it was nice. Told them they were chosen by my fashion guru aka the missus so it should be nice. Got home and the first thing the missus says when she saw it was 'hey you look like Lydia Sum' !! and she starts laughing till tears roll down her cheeks. But I told her, it was you who chose the design ? At this point she's still laughing, as I can't seem to talk any sense into her at this point, I stomp off to the room, and of course she's still laughing. Well sorry for the time being no pics of the offending item, it will be up once I change my profile pic, probably change in facebook first as it's a little hard to change the pics here on this blog, quite 'leh chay' (ie troublesome) if you ask me.

Social Networking Sites

Facebook has been in the news recently, about the Scrabulous application which is suppose to be similar to Scrabble and some lawsuit against the developers of the game {it's a good game if you ask me, love it}. There are many social networking sites available on the internet for you to join, friendster, myspace and facebook are some of the more popular ones. I too am on a few of these four to be exact (facebook, linkln, myspace, WAYN) I got roped into joining by friends. I figured what the hay, just sign up and see what happens, most times nothing much other times you find old friends and in the case of facebook, something to pass the time. My first foray into these sites was with WAYN (Where Are You Now) which I join because one of my former industrial attachment students linked me up with it. I think he is still linked in there as I hardly ever go in except for once in a really blue moon where there is some message or other happening’s at the site. I think this was about 3 years or so ago maybe longer did not really remember. MySpace was the next account, it was from my cousin who is mainly into movies and music and stuff. I guess he is very active in there from the looks of his profile. As for me again just a sleeper who only just has an account created in there and visits the site once a month or so. When I was a warden at the Church of St. Anthony’s one of the fellow wardens signed me up on Linkln, guess it’s the second most used site by me. Fairly active in there but it’s mainly used by me to approve contacts and such, update my profile etc. It’s a great site to find people as well or to be found. The last site I’m on was Facebook, which due to the amount of games and what not in there, it’s quite an addictive site. It was introduced to me by a gamer friend of mine, I think about 6 months or so ago. It’s so far the only site I logon frequently, to see what stuff is being sent to me and what to play. I have to admit the last 2 sites Linkln and Facebook are sites that have help me catch up with old friends, colleagues and long lost acquaintances. Most people who contact me on Linkln, I get them to move over to Facebook since I am there most often. I think somehow it’s easier for people to find me than for me to find someone especially if they have a relatively common name. My name is fairly unique and I was told it’s quite easy to find my name in the pack, afterall, there aren’t many Aldrin Long’s out there. Try googling your name and you might be surprise to see the facebook or myspace account as being in the top search return. (does not work for mine though) Linkln has help me to link up with my old Primary School friend who I have not seen for close to 20 years, last I saw him was during my army days. He lives in New York currently. Got found out by 3 or 4 old colleagues from when I first started out working. Even found a couple of friends from University. A few former wardens have pop in as well but most have moved to facebook now. Wonder how many more are out there. Facebook hooked me up with more recent colleagues as well as some old Junior College friends one of whom is happily living with his family in the US. Even my insurance agent is on facebook. Former colleagues, more university buddies and friends and a host of wardens have joined facebook, together with gaming friends. The latest addition was a gamer friend from 8 or 10 years back who popped in the other day on facebook, he always had a certain wild streak in him. So it was a real surprise to find him in Melbourne completing his doctorate studies. There were even some people who link up just because we played stuff on facebook, how cool is that. I find that Facebook besides being a place to keep in touch with family and friends has many applications to cater to your fancy, I have to admit, it’s the main reason I’m on it. Yep that’s right just to play the games. Anyways I guess I have spent too long writing this out, off to facebook to pet my fluffy pet, sent my dragon out to fight, get my Batmobile racing, sent my Pirates out to beat up the Ninjas, play tic-tac-toe, make my move on Scabulous and see who has decided to challenge me in Scissor-Paper-Stone. Since writing this I took some time to check my 4 accounts and yes they are all still active. To Note : Current facebook addiction is to get a Gold Cup for my fluff pet, the missus has hers already and I’m still struggling. Also to move my Pirate up to Level 7 and swap out my Batmobile for a Delorean (from Back to the Future) or an F1 car.

Are we lazy ??

I was thinking about something recently, with the advent of camera phones, are we getting lazy nowadays ? I wonder ? At meetings it's becoming common place that instead of writing down what was on the board, it seems it's easier to just use your camera phone, take a shot of it and later use that to do your follow up on. I think I'm becoming one of the lazy ones ha ha ... instead of normally writing something down that I come across, it seems it's just easier to just snap a pic of it with my camera phone. I guess if I was in school now, it would be probably easier to just video record the lecture and play it back at a leisurely pace.

How Time Flies

Wasn't it hot last night ? For some reason I could not get to sleep, was tossing and turning in bed. Finally decided to watch some TV but that did not help. Instead I went to play on my XBox, I know that's bad as it keeps the adrenaline going but just felt restless. In the end took up a book to read and even then I knocked off around 4am. I was up at 6.30am today as usual. In the afternoon was really feeling the effects of the late night. Had to take a quick nap. Just glad that the day is over and the weekend is here. Well it's come to the final week of my stay at the current company, will be moving on in a week's time. I've been treated to a couple of farewell lunches from colleagues and friends this week, it's all so dejavu to me. A couple more are planned next week. Although I have not been there long I still feel sad that I am leaving. I guess I have always been the type that really gets into their work and I do take pride in what I do, be it simple stuff or more difficult stuff. Since it was a Friday today, got some time to pack up a few of my things. Of course my Mr Potato Head figures (see my profile picture) will be the last to be packed. They were the first to arrive and will be the last to go.

Car - ETA - Feb 08

Here it is the first picture of the car which should come in Feb 08. I took it in the showroom on the second visit the first visit did not have this particular colour. It's a 2.0l Honda CR-V in Borrego Beige Metallic colour. It's quite exciting to wait for the arrival of the new car.

Wet Wet Wet

Rain Rain Rain, Wet Wet Wet, Rain Rain Rain Well it's been a couple of really wet afternoons, almost every afternoon it has been raining, luckily the rain stops before it's time to go home. But so cool in the afternoons that all I want to do is cosy up under a blanket and fall asleep but can't do that in the office can we ha ha .... Well I've also finally decided where to go for a vacation made all the bookings and I am really looking forward to the break. Just a short 4 day break. I actually forgot that I took a picture of a car at the showroom which was the exact same colour and model as what I was going to get. So without further delay I'll reveil the car ... but first as what they do on game shows ... let's go for a commercial break :) ha ha ... look for it tomorrow ... akan datang ...

Friday Night Cab/Dinner

Met the wife on friday to get a new pair of specs made up since my current one is already a year old (ya I change a pair about once a year) she's my fashion police as she is the one who gets the design and colour right for me. It should be ready by mid-next week. After which met up with a couple of friends and took a cab to Bishan. We are in the city and travelling to Bishan after work in a cab would incur that 35% surcharge. This is the first time for me in a cab with the new surcharge so I was looking closely at the meter. I observed 3 interesting things on the way. (a) The cabs monitor that tells him of phone bookings and other messages now come with screen savers !! Can you beat that, it was the first time I saw one, but then I hardly ever take a cab. The images shown were of tourist attractions of Singapore. WoW !! I thought. What a cool idea !! (b) There is a 2nd smaller charge meter now on the display where you see the fare. Every time a 20cents is added to the fare, the small charge meter goes up by about 5cents. I figured that's the 35% extra charge to it. WoW !! I thought. It's moving really fast !! (c) It has been a long time since I was on the CTE travelling North. SINCE WHEN did they put up 2 (TWO) ERP GANTRIES !! WoW !! I thought. It's going to cost a bomb travelling back home if you live up North. Anyways we arrived at Bishan and I think the fare came to something like $23+ or so. Well we had dinner at Sakae Sushi. During desert, everyone ordered the Tempura Ice-Cream or something like that and everyone asked if I would take the same, but no yours truly had to have his Lychee with CoCo De Nato and it came in this cute little bottle. Oh what a nice little bottle everyone said -- photo moment everyone said -- photo for the blog everyone said -- put it up on the blog everyone said -- ok so here's to fulfill my promise that I will post the picture up on my blog. Here I am with the bottle and I suppose "trying damn freaking hard" to act cute as well. I would like to add for the record that the photo below was taken under extreme duress and you probably will never see another shot like that again :-) so embarrassing, aiya in public some more! Oh ya somewhere behind me maybe you can spot one of the TCS presenters Michelle something or other having dinner. (but my head is probably blocking her)

Yesterday's "tremor"

We had a tremor or actually more of a vibration yesterday at the office, being 32 floors up the vibrations could be felt at my desk but surprisingly I was the only one in the department who felt it. Anyways after building management made announcements and all that, it was declared safe and the vibrations were not from any earthquake but it seems from some drilling works being carried out nearby. So no need to do another 32 floors evacuation ha ha ... Got a call from my car agent that the COE bid was successful now I'll have to wait till after the Chinese New Year to get the car with the colour we wanted.

Clouds

Wow this afternoon the clouds were really low over the central business district. I could see them floating by my window and we are on the 32nd floor only !! Test drive the car that I am likely to buy as well. It's almost certain I will take it. But will leave everyone guessing what it is first ha ha ....

uPdAtEs

Had a few SMS's today asking about the prices of the cars that I visited yesterday and so I think today I'll do an update on yesterday's items. CaR PrIcEs Toyota RAV 4 - Standard - $101K : Deluxe - $110K Lexus RX 350 - Standard - $150K : Luxury - $166K : Super Luxury : $171K Mitsubishi Outlander - M Model - $93K : G Model - $97K Honda CR-V - 2.0L Model - $93K : 2.4L Model - $100K and I did forget to add yesterday's High Tea at Equinox, their toilets were OUTSTANDING, so impressed with the toilet, felt like resting in there.

New Wheels pt 2 & Really High, High Tea

New Wheels Pt 2 Today decided to take the wife out to visit the showrooms and have a look at the cars available, hopefully would be able to decide on which car model to get. Yesterday was a guys day out and we hit a friend's parallel import business to get a look at the cars on offer. Figured might even get a test drive if time permitted. But the showrooms were really crowded. We went to the Leng Kee/Alexandra area of showrooms. Visited a few the first stop was at the Toyota (Borneo Motors) showrooms. I have to say one thing about the Toyota showroom, once you enter you are greeted by a sales rep who ask if you had an appointment, as I did not she gave me their price list and allowed me to go on my way to look at the cars on display, no pesky hounding sales person following you around which was good. Toyota was the only one who actually upfront gave me a price list once I step in. We had a look around and saw the Fortuner a 2.7 L, 7 seater. A nice car but rather big. Was looking around for a RAV4 but there was none, so I stopped a sales lady and asked if they had RAV4's on display, she said they do but only 1 model which was parked outside (their test drive model I believe) asked if I could have a look at it and she said sure but she will get a sale person to attend to me as they have a rotation policy and it's not her turn it seems. Ok so no queue cutting for their sales rep. Soon a Sales Engineer, Karin came over and brought me out to the RAV4 (see below left) to have a look, they had the 2.4 L Standard model on display, she did a good job I felt of explaining the workings of the car and all my queries. Finally gave me a brochure and a price list as as well. Next stop was the Lexus showroom just beside it, ah this was the only showroom which was pratically empty. We were looking at the RX 400h when Lionel came up and assisted us. Now Lionel was a Sale Consultant and a very pleasant fellow. Well the 400h was a hydrid car so I asked about the RX 350 (see below right) which I was told came in the standard, luxuy and super luxury versions. It's a 4 seater 3.5 L car. I was thinking to myself holy shit man, wonder what the bloody road tax is like, probably switch on the engine and $5 of petrol will be used up !! Anyways made some small talk and got the brochure and contact numbers and we left. So we drove round to the front and next stop was the Mitsubishi showroom. Too little visitor parking, carparking was horrible no clear signs to get to the showroom, bad car park design but still crowded. The vehicle we were looking at was the Outlander (see below left), a 2.4 L 5 seater with the ability to convert to a 7-seater as the rear boot area had 2 hidden seats which can be pulled up to add more sitting room, a rather interesting feature. Alice their Sales Representative came over to assist us as we were looking at the car. She did not really get into too many details of the car, things like how many airbags were there and she had to check for me. The funny thing about this car was that the rear boot area is open and I did not see anything that allowed it to be covered so anyone can peep inside ? Alice did not mention anything about coverings as well. Seems can't put valuables in the back area ? Rather strange.

Final Stop was at the Honda showroom, to see the CR-V which comes in the 2.0 L and 2.4 L versions. The bigger one with souped up accessories like sun roof, side and curtain airbags, power seats etc. One of their Sale Executives, Cheryl, came over to assist us as we were looking at the car. She did the typical sales pitch but basically let us look at the car by ourselves.

Well overall it seems to me that the design of the CR-V is very much like the RX350, it even had individual arm rest for driver and passenger. While the Outlander and RAV4 seem similar. Probably will decide on 1 or 2 and go get a test drive before the final decision is made. So as we were leaving the showrooms for our high tea appointment, the wife says to me, wah how come all the pretty sales girls come to you ah ! And my reply to that was - well Lionel the Lexus Man was a hunky dory guy too wasn't he ? :-) Really High, High Tea

After all that walking around viewing cars has made us hungry and we had a Buffet High Tea appointment at the Equinox. Having high tea on the 70th floor of the Stamford Hotel is really something. An excellent view of the city and also the upcoming IR, we were higher than the Singapore Eye. We got a relatively good table at least it was a window seat.

The food was good, the spread was ok, service I guess resonable but some things could be improved. I took some porridge and as there was no pepper on the table I asked one of the waiters if I could get some pepper and off he goes and returns with this huge pepper shaker. I think I had stood up to take some pictures while waiting for him to return and I was not sure if he was suppose to do it for me or not, in the end as no one seems to be around I self-service myself with the pepper.

Porridge and the Pepper Shaker :-)

The 2 of my favourite dishes are the Prawn Mee soup, they let you make it yourself and since I was not a big fan of those yellow noodles, I could add as little as I like ha ha ... but the soup was really good, enjoyed the soup very much.

Prawn Mee

The other notable dish was this Peking Duck roll and they used the duck flesh not the skin. What is remarkable about this is that I am NOT a duck person I really hate duck, I'm a chicken lover, KFC is great KFD is someting I can do without. But I tried it (thinking there was duck skin inside) and it was actually lovely. Very well done. So I had 4 more below.

Peking Duck Roll

Finally it was dessert and as you can see below they had a really creative dessert menu, besides the normal fresh fruits, ice cream and fondu.

Ok now comes my grip with the whole restaurant. Look at the dessert in the above picture, what's missing ...... can you tell ..... NO DESSERT SPOON !! I asked the staff and they said they will get it, it came later. I really expected better from a restaurant of the Equinox caliber. There was absolutely no dessert spoon at the dessert area, some shortage of plates as well when I was there, probably the lift takes too long to get from the 1st level to the 70th floor to bring up the cutlery. Not only that, there was Chawamushi (that Japanese steam egg thingy) and again there was no spoon beside the cups !! So how was anyone suppose to eat it ? Suck it out of the cup ? I looked around no spoons and as there was no spoon on the table as well I just used my coffee spoon as I did not bother to ask from a waiter. At the Sushi bar (and I really like Sushi) the Wasabi and Ginger again did not have a spoon/spreader for the wasabi and no thongs for the ginger, people were using the thongs that were used to pick up the Sushi to get the wasabi and ginger. So I get ginger smell on my Sushi which I really dislike very much. The waiters were a little slow in clearing the plates as well and considering that there was not much crowd I expected a faster turn around time. Well just a reasonable turn around time which is when I leave my table to get something I should come back to a table which has cleared my plate and laid my napkin out properly usually on the table or handle of the chair. But I will have to admit the view was great and the food was good, service can definately be improved. But for $41 a person after all the plus plus plus extra's it was on a steep side.

New Wheels ??

Will this be my new set of wheels, had a look at the Toyota RAV 4 today. It's a nice car, but still undecided on what to get. So many options out there. The rain made it really hard to get around today and there was a 10 car pile up on the expressway as we were making our way back.

Here's a little car trivia for everyone. There will be a new Indiana Jones movie coming out, I'm sure you may have heard of it. Did you know that in the first Indiana Jones movie where Dr. Jones was running away with that huge boulder rolling after him. The sound of that boulder is taken from a 1980 Honda Civic that belong to Lucasfilm at that time and the sound the wheels made over a gravel road was the sound they used for the rolling boulder. They did tweak it a bit but essentially the boulder sound came from the Civic.

12th day of Christmas

It's time to take down the Christmas decorations, dismantle the tree, pack up the lights and clean up the snow stencils on the windows and doors. Normally I would procastinate and leave the decorations up till the missus starts harping on it and that's like close to Chinese New Year but I decided to do it early this year as the weekend will be rather busy, going to check out the range of cars on Saturday and doing Chinese New Year shopping for clothes and high tea at Equinox on Sunday. Weekends is basically packed with activities.

Real Run Certificate

I finally received my New Balance Real Run 2007 (the Ultimate X-Terrain Challenge) certificate on 31st December. I waited almost 2 months for the organiser's to mail this to me and I thought for a moment that I woud not get it or it was lost in the mail but it finally arrived. What a surprise it was too. Normally certificates just have the event and your name (if you are lucky or most times they just shove you an empty certificate and you write your name in yourself) on it as a finisher but this was really different. First time I ever saw this format but then considering that the last running event I participated in was something like 5 years ago maybe this is the standard, I heard that the Stand Chart run had a similar thing as well. Look at this I am soooooooo impressed with the stuff they put on the certificte. Actually the certificate is a calender on the other side and you can make it stand on your table, it's triangle shape. They even printed my serial number on the base so I don't forget and also good number to buy 4-D. Isn't it just so cool. So what does it have let me list the items down.

1. Event Name
2. My Name
3. Category of the run
4. Signature from Associate Professor Ho Peng Kee

All these normal stuff and now the bottom half is the fun stuff.

1. That orange 'running man' actually tells me where I am when the winner of my category crossed the line. Well it's rather embarrassing considering I did not even make it to the first water point before the guy cross the finishing line.
2. The Speedometer thingy is actually my average speed which was 7.56 km/h
3. Below that is my completion time 1 hr 19 mins 23 secs
4. Nice map of the route.
5. That 2 boxes with grey men running and 1 black man figure shows my position. The top one says I finished with 33% of all 10km runners behind.
6. The bottom one says I finished with 28% of my category behind.

All I can say is it's a really nice certificate.

2008 - New Year Resolution's

Hellooooo 2008 !! It's the first day of the new year, it's the time to remember to tear your parking coupons with the correct year as '08', write your cheques out with the correct year, change your pocket calenders if you have one and throw away all the useless 2007 calenders. It's also a time for Resolutions. Actually I'm not really into these resoutions and stuff as in the end I never keep them anyways BUT this year will be different. I decided to come up with some resolutions and I hope to complete them by the end of the year. Gone are the to be a better person or to excercise more or eat less and what not, I think resolutions would need to be measured and after having some thought to it I decided to come up with 5 resolutions. So here goes nothing.

Aldrin's 2008 New Year Resolutions

1) Complete 4 Xbox 360 Games in the year Considering that previously I only completed 2 games in something like 3 or 4 years this will be definately a step up. But now that I got my new HD TV to go with the HD XBox 360 Games, there should not be an excuse to complete them. I figured 1 game in 3 months should be manageble. Just need to get those cheat codes (hey I never said anything about not cheating to complete them :) and walk-throughs. 2) Run a 10KM within 1 hr Yep that's right 10km in 60 minutes or 1KM in 6 minutes or 100m in 36 secs or 10m in 3.6 secs, well that does not look too bad when you put it that way. The trick is to maintain that speed for an hour. Anyways I feel that I should be able to get back into shape and hopefully do a good run sometime in the year where there is an official timing of how fast/slow I went. Back in the day this was something that I would do in my sleep. In my school days used to run cross-country and some track, 10km was nothing. In the army used to do 8min 2.4km runs, I think I was the only guy who ran faster in the 2.4km IPPT test than for my Standard Obstacle Course (SOC). 3) Complete Cataloging my entire Comic Collection I started this sometime in August of 2007. I got up to about 1000 comics by the end of the year and I figured that's about 10% of my collection so it's going to be an uphill task but I think I can complete the lot by 31st Dec 2008. That's a lot of cataloging to be done, any helpers out there ? 4) Complete my Ralph McQuarrie Star Wars Collection This will be a tough one. I think there are 12 different pieces of action figures done from the Star Wars concept art of Ralph McQuarrie, the problem is that some of these figures are only available at Comic/Toy Conventions so I would probably have to get them from the secondary market which may cost a bit more. I have 7 in the set currently so looking out for the other 5. I think some of the figures have yet to be released. So anyone going to the US or Europe (on the A380) do be a sweety and drop by a convention to pick up a figure for me. 5) To loose at least 5 kilos. The toughest resolution of all. But with some luck and hopefully the excercising, I can reach this goal of mine which I have been trying to obtain for the longest time. By year's end I have set my mind to get to this goal. Well there goes all the Nasi Brani and KFC meals. Time to cut down on the alcohol intake as well. So that's it my 5 resolutions for the new year. I think they are pretty simple and all acheivable, just whether I can set my mind to get the job done. Maybe I'll put up some tracking of these resolutions and tick them off once they are completed. Hopefully there is at least 1 tick by the end of the year otherwise won't it be embarrassing. ha ha