Short, sweet and wanting more
at the Ascott Raffles Place but as i had indicated in my Tweets, the “wotever happens” happened and it had nothing to do with the prize which lived up to all I had been expecting.
But I’m getting ahead of my story.
On Oct 30, the check-in was smooth, low-key and friendly. The receptionist and a bell boy showed us up to Suite 1807 assigned as the 3-day 2-night prize-stay I had won in the Twitter re-tweet contest in September 2009.
Apart from the missing long bath, the one-bedroom apartment at the Ascott Raffles Place turned out to be exactly as the video link provided at http://www.the-ascott.com.sg/ASRP/ depicts. Still, that’s no loss as I think long baths are both dangerous and dirty.
Indeed Suite 1807 came with real bonuses. Besides complimentary Internet services (otherwise that would have cost $10 per hour), the suite had a large open deck or balcony opening from the bedroom.
As we were on the 18th floor (just one floor below the gym, swimming pool and guest lounge facilities), we had a bird’s eye view of what’s coming up in Collyer Quay.
Friends and family members who visited excitedly discussed the demise of the Neptune Theatre and what was coming up in its place while one recent alumnus from Societe Generale reminised about her old office at ORQ (One, Raffles Quay) whose twin towers acted like sunshades for my suite.
So why didn’t we spend even one night there? Why didn’t we max out the fully equipped kitchen- despite bringing masses of rice, we didn’t use the rice cooker –altho I’m not sure it was there, as there was no time to inspect the apartment fully; we didn’t even finish all the beer we brought and certainly didn’t try each of the multiple brands of 3-in-1 coffee that we packed. Even the snacks and nibbles were barely touched but the single bottle of Sauvignon Blanc did find takers quickly, because at 750ml, it wasn’t much to go round.
The reason we left boiled down to one simple fact: my mum. At her age, her ability to adjust has been reduced to almost zero. Her attention span is much diminished. Although she was as excited as me and her maid about the prospect staying at the Ascott, she wanted to go home almost as soon as we checked in.
It’s what I call the “I’ve seen it, now let’s go home” syndrome.
Her poor maid Siti, who was lapping up the luxury of the Ascott, tried her best to cajole Popo to stay, at least for one night. She wanted to sleep in a five-star hotel just once, even if others like mum has become immune to luxury and wanted only her own bed.
So she tried to distract mum with sweet talk while I dashed out for some food to create further distraction. Mum is the epitome of the old Chinese saying that when you are old, you care more about your stomach than your looks. Lau Pa Sat thankfully was just a hop, skip and jump away from the Ascott.
The food choices at Lau Pa Sat were mind boggling and gentle on the pocket. I wasn’t adventurous as I simply didn’t have time to browse. So I settled for three packs of dinner from the Mixed Rice stall and two large popiah rolls, all of which set me back for less than $11.
Back at the Ascott, two old friends rolled by after work bearing more food: a whole box of Korean grapes from ST and a large box of petite cakes from Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf from KY n ST.
Because everyone was hungry, dinner, washed down by a spot of plonk, cakes and chatter didn’t take us to much beyond 8pm when mum began the refrain again. “I know this is a home away from home but that’s for people who don’t live in Singapore.”
I can’t fault that logic and in the end decided to throw in the towel on just one condition: be4 we leave, let me try the shower, the great smelling shower gel from L’ Occitane and of cos the feel of the soft thick bath towel against my skin.
Thereafter, it was a whirlwind of cleaning up the apartment (didn’t want to leave a mess in case we didn’t come back the next day), repacking and frantic texting to other guests who were scheduled to drop by for a Friday night chill out after shows, late work or apres dinner. “Dn’t cme. M insists on going hme.”
It may sound like a comedy of errors but believe it or not, we were back at the Ascott by noon the following day after mum was convinced by my sister Daffy and her family to have lunch there — with food bought from nonya eatery, Ivin’s.
It was a good meal and the surroundings made it better but for those intending to use the Ascott apartments for a gathering, then learn from our experience: remember to bring extra crockery, cutlery and glasses as each one-bedroom residence caters strictly to only two occupants.
For us, we simply made do, as though we were on a picnic, with some drinking from glasses, others from cups; some eating with spoons; others with forks; using plates and bowls indiscriminately, so long as there was enough to go round.
Consolation: we ate from real china and drank from decent glasses, even if not using the correct stuff for the food and beverages; no plastic for us.
Once the meal was over, distraction time ended and mum wanted to go home again, much to the disappointment of her maid who really enjoys luxury!
This time, I stayed back. As my sister n family cld take them home and also, as other friends and relatives I had asked to come over for a “look see” were on their way and it would be too ridiculous if I were to text them with the same message: ”Dn’t cme. M insists on going hme.”
Four more sets of visitors dropped by, bearing food and good company. In particular, I must mention Juliana who — despite the rain, the thunder and that there was no parking facilities at the Ascott which meant she had to brave the elements in a nearby carpark –still managed to bring enough nasi lemak and otak from the Mackeral Otak people to last us not only for dinner that night but also for dinner at home the following nite.
And of course the inclement weather starting on Oct 30 evening was what put a pall on what would otherwise have been an A+ week-end stay, even with mum’s vacillating desire to go home to her own bed. (She did try the gi-normous bed in the Ascott bedroom but it was too high and hard from what she’s used to, which isn’t a criticism of what the serviced residence provided. Au contraire!)
Hence after the last set of visitors on my 2nd nite, with the sky still weeping intermittantly, I decided to call it quits and went home with my brother, his wife and an aunt. And not forgetting some freebies that I didn’t get to use, such as two tooth brushes and two small bottles of L’Occitane shampoo.
In retrospect, it might have been better if I had opted for an Ascott apartment in Kuala Lumpur. Being so far away might have deterred mum from being at her unreasonable — yet logical — best about wanting to go home.
Ascott Raffles Place here we come!
This time last week, I was all pumped up about “consuming” the prize I won in a Twitter contest by re-tweeting contest announcements by Ascott International.
To recap, I won a 3-day 2 nite stay at any of the Ascott Group’s residences in the Asia Pacific.
There were many to choose from, as the prize covered not only those under the Ascott brand but also those under its Somerset and Citadine brands.
For me, I first looked for the country: China was my preference in particular Ascott Raffles City in Beijing which had newly opened.
I’ve a thing about new places. I love them to bits.
But practicality kicked in as I wanted to share the price with my mother and her maid. Given my mother’s rather fragile health, it had to be something near home.
I toyed with the idea of Ascott Kuala Lumpur or Somerset in Bukit Ceylon, as I’ve a friend with a comfy car who makes fortnightly visits to KL. We could hitch a ride from her and then in KL we would be well taken care of by other old friends who all have four wheels, plenty of time and a great inclination to be generous hosts.
In the end, however, sensibility decided that it’s best to stay put in Singapore and sample Ascott Singapore Raffles Place, for the convenience of my mum and to share my win with more people, such as other family members and friends.
And of course there were bragging brownies in the fact that the owners of Ascott Raffles Place had just been conferred the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Architectural Heritage Award for carefully preserving the unique features of Asia Insurance Building – once, gasp, Singapore’s tallest building and a 1950s heritage icon — while transforming it into its flagship premier serviced residence!
I like basking in others’ reflected glory! I’m that shallow! 
So there we were last Thursday night, madly packing all sorts of stuff to take with us to Ascott the next day, to make the temporary residence more like home.
So much so that my mother’s maid said tartly: “Ma’am, we are taking so many things with us, we might as well stay home..”
Beware what comes out of the mouths of maids, as I’ll reveal in the next post.
Over-charged 39X @ Fairprice
I had a bit of a shock when I heard the cashier announce my total bill at Fairprice @ HDB Hub today, Nov 3.
Yes, my trolley was full to the brim but I had bought no expensive meat or wine; mainly veggies, instant noodles, a few low priced cans of fish and peanuts, four packets of biscuits, and some bags of 3-in-1 beverages, with the two bags of Ovaltine being the most costly at $4.80 a bag. My fortnightly gifts to some oldies at Bendemeer Road.
Nothing that could justify a $93.05 bill!
Still I paid up and then parked my trolley to check.
My eyes almost popped out when i saw that I had been charged $30.47 for a packet of 3 carrots. For heavens sake, they were plain carrots; not organic or carats!
Went back immediately to the cashier to protest the incorrect charge. She was nonchalant and said that the scanner must have made a mistake.
I don’t know about scanner but this is what the price code on the packet of carrots showed and the item and amount boxed in pink were what was captured in the bill (below).
I got my refund but had I been less vigilant I could in one fell swoop have lost all my rebates and dividends from shopping one year at Fairprice.
I shudder to imagine if I were just a little illiterate old lady living on the margins having my public assistance wiped out by one scanner mistake and I won’t have been any wiser.
My experience should be an alert to all who shop at Fairprice to double-check their bills. If it happened to me, it could happen to you or your maids whom you send to shop on your behalf.
Popularity of St Teresa post a divine mystery?
There’s something of a divine mystery about the popularity of the post I wrote on last New Year’s eve.
A loss in the extended family led me to reflect on the power of prayers and more particularly the fact that some, perhaps many, of us regret it when our prayers are answered.
Or in the case of what happened in my family, the fact that when seriously sick people prayed to stay alive or get well — or their loved ones prayed on their behalf – and had their prayers answered, it also meant that some total stranger had to die to fulfil those desperate prayers.
That’s the other side of the ledger that few pay attention to, when praying for something to benefit themselves.
In that post, I cited the quote attributed to St Teresa of Avila that sometimes more tears are caused by answered prayers, with the tears flowing not only from those who got what they prayed for, but also for those chosen as the conduit to fulfil those prayers!
The tags I used for that post included St Teresa of Avila, Hota and Singapore Human Organ Transplant Act.
If anything, I had expected the search engines to direct visitors to my post via the tags “Singapore Human Organ Transplant Act” or Hota. After all, isn’t this the hot topic in Singapore this year?
But no, what search engines kept sending to my site were via the tags Saint Teresa of Avila, St. Teresa of Avila, St Teresa, etc. At least that’s what my blog statistics showed.
At first I didn’t pay much attention. Occasionally, some posts find 3rd party appeal for whatever reason; then, the interest would wane. I’ve written about such sleepers here.
But the way the St Teresa of Avila post continued to pop up in recent weeks, especially in recent days, as the most frequently read post, prompted me to do some investigations.
I tried Google, the most popular search engine. But when I typed in St Teresa Avila, I found that my post wasn’t in the first 10 pages with the St T link. And I doubt anyone looking for info on St T would have gone beyond that to find me!
So, I’m none the wiser as to whom or what’s clicking on that particular post. The fact is that something in the St Teresa of Avila post is making it the most active for the past day, the last 7 days, the last month, the last quarter and for the whole year.
At this rate, the St Teresa post may overtake my all-time top visited post of “Over-reaction to melamine in milk in China” before this year’s end!
Geocities gone with the wind
All right! It’s well and truly gone! After many a summer dies the swan! The last of the last from the last Internet boom! Just as well I had taken down all my files!
So did Geocities die on Oct 26?
So did Geocities die on Oct 26 or not and with it the end of my 9-year old website www.geocities.com/lucy1808?
Oct 26 has come and gone but www.geocities.com/lucy1808 is still very much alive. And despite dire warnings about not being able to access the site and all my precious files with their many hours of painful hard coding, they remain to my surprise very much intact!
I just signed on and they are all there.
To think that I fell for Yahoo and Geocities’ hard sell back in August and post haste signed up for a Yahoo small business webhosting account, believing in Yahoo’s promise that somehow lucy1808 would magically be transferred to the new domain.
No, such luck, as I discovered — and despite many emails for help, got absolutely zilch in help! Yahoo’s Help pages suck too because the answers merely led me on a merry go round.
I can say, hand on my heart, that WordPress which hosts this blog for free has been much more proactive and helpful whenever I encountered problems.
But having paid USD71.76 for my Yahoo small business webhosting account, I shall stick with it for one year and meanwhile shop for a new host who hopefully can move my new site www.xingrencha.biz lock, stock and barrel when my contract with Yahoo ends.
Which brings me to another point. I had signed up fully expecting to pay just USD59.88 (because of the promise of a first-year special promo price of USD4.99) 
when, before I could complete the registration, I was offered the option of “private domain registration” for an additional USD11.88 provided by Melbourne IT — whoever it may be.
For this extra sum, “all contact information other than registrant name will be privately registered”.
I was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. I didn’t know what was meant by “all contact information” but erring on the side of caution, I decided I might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. And pay more than I expected or wanted to. After all, I certainly didn’t want my address and mobile number to become public property, as a result of opting for a public domain registration.
I wish Yahoo had indicated this in its headline packages rather than spring the surprise near the end of the sign on!
If this post serves to put just one person on alert when looking for a web host, I would be more than satisfied.
Father sitting
On this day, Oct 23, my father died – in 2001. Eight years have passed, really like the twinkling of an eye.
Yes, he is missed. More than I imagined possible. Perhaps his last three years of ill-health hi-jinks made all his children closer to him than we intended to be.
Or perhaps we are linked by genes. Dad continues to live through us, his children. After all, how can we forget someone whose genes make up 50 per cent of the system that keeps us on the go?
No wonder they say: The King is Dead! Long live the King! Well, my Dad is dead. Yet, it is still: Long Live Dad, as long as one of his descendents remains around.
Reflecting thus, I remember how I somehow connected the measurement of my own happiness with my weekly stint of looking after Dad, or what one of my brothers called “Father sitting”. Nine of us worked out a weekly roster, always with two to spare in case of emergency or medical appointments.
I had posted it in one of my old websites, set up in 2000 when Dad was still alive and while frail seemed destined to live forever.
Little did I know he would be gone in under two years.
Here is what I wrote in that old website which Geocities would be closing on Oct 26, 2009.
“I want to share with you my thoughts on being happy, staying happy and achieving happiness.
I always think it is a shame that we realise how happy or fortunate we are only when we have someone worse placed than ourselves to compare with.
For example, I often hear people use this cliche or a version of it: I used to complain about my ill-fitting shoes until I met a man with no feet.
Why should it be like this? Why can’t we just realise how fortunate we are without having someone truly unfortunate to compare with.
Thus with this in mind, I went to baby-sit my father today, Jan 9, 2000, a Sunday, so that his Indonesian maid could have her monthly break.
Well, I could have sulked about it because if truth be told none of us children cared a lot about father.
We feel a duty towards him, perhaps some guilt, because we don’t feel naturally close to him. It doesn’t make the guilt less bad even when we realise that he did sweet nothing to cultivate closeness with his kids when we were young. But that’s another story.
The current story is that I made my father-sitting pass pleasantly enough by reflecting on how fortunate I am — especially me and those of us from my father’s second and third wives. We are over, or knocking on, 50 and yet all of us have both parents still with us.
The first wife’s children are without their mother and have done without her since her death in March 1989.
Hence, I’m more blessed than my four half-brothers in this respect, because just as my sister and I treasure our mum, I’m sure the four boys treasured theirs.
As for the other three half-brothers –the children of dad’s third wife — they are equally blessed in having both parents alive. But then, their mum is young, exactly 12 years older than me and they are all under 50.
When they turn 50 and more, will they have both parents around them like my sister and me now?
Perhaps not. Dad is already into his 80s and well, not in the best of health, at least mentally. It may be all too soon when some of my siblings will be orphans and the rest of us will join the middle-aged who can at best boast of just one living parent.
Still, compared to other families, me and my siblings are really fortunate. All except me have married and all those who married are still with their original partners, not an easy feat, given today’s high divorce rates.
Ruminating thus, the time with father went by pleasantly enough. It was helped definitely by the fact that my sister joined me in the “chore”.
And I made it pass even faster when I persuaded Dad, after lunch, to go for a ride to the nursing home where my mum’s elderly sister, whom we call Pi-pi, is staying.
Perhaps he was persuaded because he knew my mother, with whom he has been somewhat estranged for over 40 years now, will also be there. Mum had elected to visit her sister rather than join us in father-sitting.
POSTSCRIPT
Since this was written, Pi-pi has gone to heaven. She died on Oct 16, 2000, half-way through her 85th year. There was no weeping or gnashing of teeth. Just a dignified service with two Methodist pastors, masses of flowers and 29 friends and relatives to bid her a last farewell.Why a Christian funeral? Because sometime during her stay at the nursing home, she was converted.
