Weekend at the Fairmont Singapore

(Inset: Faith with the camera cover on the plush linens of the Fairmont Singapore)

One of the family's favourite weekend activities actually involves checking into a nice local hotel and really living out the life of a tourist on vacation - we get the best of being pampered with the luxuries of hotel-living while not having to suffer through any jet-lag or exorbitant exchange rates.

This weekend, we went to the Fairmont (previously under Raffles) since mum's Raffles vouchers were expiring soon.

At 2pm, we had checked-in to the hotel. Consistent with the standards of Fairmont in Dubai, the room in Fairmont Singapore had familiar brands of toiletries, was spick-and-span and spacious. Recreation-wise, we had access to the gym, and the pool - the former was available only on paid basis when we were staying in the Swisshotel during National Day.

Fortunately for us, the weather held up and we managed to bring Faith down for a dip in the afternoon, close to 4. It was literally a dip because the waters were a tad bit cold, and we were concerned about Faith catching a cold - one of the things she seems to catch a bit too easily. As usual, after her swim and shower, Faith had her afternoon nap - somehow she slept so well today that her usual half hour nap dragged out to an hour - perhaps a sign that all the crawling and swimming was proving to be a bit more exhausting than expected for her.

In all, the day went passed quite uneventfully - and it was overall nice to have the family spend time together again doing one of our favourite past-times. It's also nice for us, because Eve and I tend to take more pictures of Faith when we go for outings like these.

I think this year, we have scrimped quite a bit by staying only in the Swisshotel during National Day (mum's Raffles card), Sheraton (free), and Intercontinental (mum's Intercontinental card), whereas, we used to stay in the Ritz-carlton and Conrad quite frequently. With hotel room rates going up, it only makes sense that we leverage on the perks that mum signs up for. I think we can certainly look forward to more of these in 2008, as mum shows no signs of giving up on these memberships. Yay! :)

So glad to be home this Xmas

I was driving home a few evenings ago when a thought struck me. I was just so glad that we're home for X'mas this year. I told Eve and she agreed - it's nice to travel but home is still always best. I still remember how last X'mas, we were in London and Paris and how even though we were in the company of very good friends and nice memories of our INSEAD days, we were still in a big way missing home and family during X'mas.

Before writing this, I took a look at our 2006 blog just to re-jog my memories of how we were feeling last X'mas when we were in London, Paris and Fontainebleau. Lots of memories came rushing back to me when I was reading the blog - I remember how we had flown to London from Houston on 23rd of Xmas with Eve expecting Baby 6 1/2 months old. And how we were so happy to meet with Adrian even for a short while and had to da pao food back to our London hotel near Leicester Square. This was something I didn't write in the blog then, but I remember that night sharing with Eve that I was quite sad that in a way, we weren't home for X'mas after spending so long in Houston and away from home, and she shared the same feeling. But still, we wanted to make the best of what we could given that we knew our mobility would change with Baby in tow in 2007. More importantly, if we had gone home, Eve wouldn't have been able to accompany me longer in Houston past the new year. Last X'mas we spent it in London, and we had the most expensive bowl of rice for X'mas lunch in Chinatown (6 pounds). We celebrated my birthday with Manisa and Ajay in their London apartment on X'mas Eve. On Boxing Day, we were busy dodging the crowd on Oxford Street because we were afraid people would bump into Eve. Subsequently, we had taken a train to Paris on 27 December and we went to our favourite La Duree that did not disappoint. We then spent a number of days in Fontainebleau reminising about old days before coming back to London to welcome the New Year with Manisa and Ajay.

When I re-read the blogs, it brought back nice memories of our time last year. At the same time, it reminded me of how I missed home last X'mas being away. And I think it all reinforced my happiness of being home for X'mas. Just today, we spent dinner at Chee Keong's wedding and the we had a chance to sit together as a complete family on my side - it was really nice to see Faith - a new addition to the family with the whole family. What a great way to end 2007 :)

Langkawi (mis)adventures

Our third and final family trip of the year, turned out to be a little bit more than what we had bargained for...:)

After an uneventful flight to Langkawi and treading the tarmac at Langkawi International airport, we were driven to Westin Langkawi in no time. The weather was actually nice and to my surprise, cool and breezy and not rainy as the weather forecast had advised.

When we arrived, we were actually quite happy with the place – it looked quite like a Banyan Tree-type resort and the front desk guys were nice enough to seat us down and serve us a much-appreciated drink after a long journey. Even when we checked in to the room, we had a good first impression – the plasma TV was as big as the one we had at home and the baby cot was all nice and ready in the room.

Somehow, however, it kind of went downhill from there. That night, we had ordered room service in after tucking Faith to sleep and the food quality I must say was not what we had expected from a Westin hotel. While the salad was of fair standard, the Won Ton Noodles that came was not hot and the fishball (in the Won ton noodle??) was actually not fresh and you could tell, pre-packed frozen. That night, I actually felt a bit chilly and tad bit nauseous.

When I woke, I immediately popped two panadols (thank goodness for our faithful travel medical kit) and that helped alleviate the nausea a little. Unfortunately, I was in no mood to indulge in the buffet breakfast and had only a small bowl of plain porridge.

To cut a long story short, because I was sick, we ended up eating in the hotel for lunch and dinner and unfortunately, that meant more food that was really quite not up to par and even a little unfresh. Unfortunately, by the second night, Eve had caught on a bit of the food poisoning and Faith in turn caught the bug – resulting in bouts of diarrhoea throughout the day. The last straw came, when on the second night, I heard Faith having diarrhoea again at 6am in the morning – I picked up my mobile, dialled Singapore Airlines and arranged for an earlier flight home.

If you ask if we’d ever go back to Langkawi or the Westin Langkawi again, I think it will very much depend on our spirit of adventure. Certainly, I think we’d be much more careful with drinking the water unboiled or even eating too much at the restaurant. I wouldn’t say we’d never go back, because the place had its redeeming points. For example, I must say the pool there was by far the best pool I’ve ever swam in – it was literally next to the islands, and the sea and it was an Olympic sized pool - quite different from the unusual shaped pools in most resorts. And because the pool picks up the warmth of the sun very quickly, I was literally swimming in a heated pool that was not over-chlorinated and yet glistening clear. And at the end, when we met with the manager of the hotel to give our feedback, we could tell the manager was genuine in making as much amends he could to make the rest of our stay more pleasant.

For now, however, we are all glad to be home safe and sound in our humble home in Ang Mo Kio in Singapore. Faith has now travelled to Indonesia, Dubai and Malaysia this year and Eve and I silently hope that whatever bug she has caught will make her more resilient for our trips in 2008.

Remaining pictures of time in Dubai

I've been bumming around and not blogging much since the return from Dubai. There's no excuse. I'm not busy unpacking nor with the frenzy of doing any Christmas shopping. Speaking of the latter, I ought to get my butt moving to start buying Christmas presents. Somehow, there's less of an impetus to wanna get into the Christmas pressie shopping mood cos I'm at home and not influenced by the loads of shopping bags hauled in by colleagues during this period. Still, what's gotta be done, gotta be done.

There were still some pictures that we took in Dubai that I didn't have the chance to post. Since I'm still in a somewhat lazy mood, instead of blogging, I'm just going to attach the remaining pictures with a few explanations here and there :)

On the 2nd last day in Dubai, Faith came down with running nose. My mood was dampened when Faith falls sick again. Decided not to go out that day, but to get out from the confines of the 4 walls in our hotel room, I brought her out for a walk just outside our hotel. As we were located in the financial district, there really isn't much sight to behold except for more buildings, the highway and of course, more ongoing construction works.

After we returned to our room, we whiled away some time, trying to take a picture of Faith, looking out at the cityline, but unfortunately, with the reflection off the windows, it was hard to take a nice shot of Faith, yet capturing the view outside. Either that or I'm limited by the lack of photography skills.

On Saturday, the day of our departure, we headed out to this place called Medinat Jumeirah after lunch. Its supposed to encompass a hotel, shopping and lots of restaurants and pubs. For lack of time, we only went to past the hotel lobby to get to the Chinese restaurant, Zheng He (supposed to be THE best Chinese restaurant recommended by TimeOut Dubai) and I did a quick shop around the Souk. The whole place resembles a themed hotel in Las Vegas. The draw was that the Burj Al Arab was very very near. From our alfresco table, we could very clearly see the iconic hotel and being touristy, we succumbed to lots of picture snapping.

And finally, more than 2 years after my return from our Morocco trip, I finally got to buy a set of Moroccan tea set and minature tagine. Yay!

Dubai

After a hectic week for both Eve and I, we finally had a chance to have a relaxed family breakfast on this Saturday morning. While we had already lowered our expectations of how leisurely this trip was going to be, we never expected the past few days to be so hectic for Eve in coping with Faith alone. I think we're all the more thankful for all the help we get back home now!
This morning, though we didn't exactly get to sleep in, it was nice nonetheless that we could for once in Dubai, take turns to look after Faith. Given that I didn't have to rush off for work unlike previous days, we took turns to feed Faith and carried her around a little so that she wouldn't get too fidgety in her pram. It seems Faith somehow decided that she no longer liked bananas as much as she did a few days ago. Where she finished a bowl of squashed banana (half a banana) a few days ago, she now turned away when Eve tried to give her bananas again. The good thing was she still seemed keen to eat her hard boiled egg yolks that the wait staff cooked for her.

After breakfast, we went to the Sunrise pool for a walk. There are two pools here in the hotel - the Sunrise pool allows one to see the Sunrise, while the Sunset pool allows you to see the Sunset. On previous days, I've woken up at 6:30am without fail to swim in the Sunrise pool and as you can imagine, the pool has always been very cold. Today, the sun was shining brightly and it was nice and warm. Hmm, maybe I'd try to go for a swim later before the flight home :)

After our morning walk, we went back to bathe Faith. We are planning to go out after lunch so we thought it best that Faith catches a nap before we go out. For the first time, thus, we were able to capture Faith in her bathtub - she seemed quite happy with this much bigger version of bathing facility (compared to what she has at home).

let's keep our fingers crossed for the rest of the day :)