olafman
May 11, 07, 8:08 am
BACKGROUND:
Okay, so I needed to go to South Africa for three days. 28000 miles in seven days. Not exactly a pleasure trip. But I’m a high school math teacher, and school’s still in session so you figure it out. I called my friend Christine and she was game to join me on this wacky adventure.
UA miles could get me there but via SIN, the long way. I’ve flown many times on CX via HKG because they have such lovely first class. So this would be my first time on SQ. Unfortunately they don’t offer a F on either LAX-SIN (the non-stop) or SIN-JNB so I booked in C. I figure that I’d slum it because SQ has such a good reputation. I’ll post a separate trip report about that 17.5 hour flight. Overall, fantastic but I need a horizontal seat to sleep.
The good thing about all this is that I get to visit Singapore for the first time. I’ve visited Hong Kong over 10 times and have always heard that Singapore was its cleaner, anal retentive cousin.
I did my reading up on flyertalk in the Singapore room to get a sense of what to do, where to stay and where to eat. I found lots of good information. We’d have 20 hours in SIN arriving at 6am and leaving at 2am for JNB.
Arriving at 6am and leaving at 2am the next day presents a problem when trying to book a hotel room. In order to guarantee that you can get into a room, you have to book the night before. So you end up booking two days just to get the right 18 hours! It’s a bit crazy. My experience with HKG told me that some hotels offer a day rate but nothing past 6:00pm.
Luckily after searching the web, I found that all the Club floor rates at the Mandarin Oriental offer a guaranteed late checkout at 8pm! PERFECT! We’d go to dinner and then head out to the airport.
THE 20 HOURS IN SIN:
Since it was my first time, I booked a limo taxi via the web for S$40. A bit of a rip off but I like knowing that after an INSANELY long flight, there was a nice gentleman there with my name on a board and a new Merc to take us to town.
We were stunned at how green and lush the roads into town were. Someone had obviously spent some time landscape designing this city. Green bushes, plants and trees can be found everywhere. This remained true even as we later got out of the centre and visited more residential area.
So we arrived around 7am to the hotel. and I hand the receptionist my passport and she says “Welcome to the Mandarin Oriental and I see here that you’ll be checking out… (pause) today?”. Yes, we leave tonight and she did confirm the 8pm checkout which is guaranteed with all Club rooms.
I had booked a Club room for $289 with a harbour view. The room had a stunning view, much nicer than the ocean view option. My favorite part of the room was it had a proper speaker system with large sub-woofer.
We joked that on the SQ 37 flight we seemed to be eating every 3 hours so the receptionist mentioned that the club lounge was open for champagne breakfast. Never wanting to EVER feel hungry we ventured to the lounge.
The Mandarin Oriental Club lounge is simply the BEST hotel lounge that I have ever visited. It was huge and had super high ceilings. It was elegant and the service was impeccable. As we entered they asked if we needed a table for two and were escorted to a beautiful table with a glorious northern view of Singapore from the 19th floor. As we walked to our table we could see the lavish buffet offered for breakfast. But we were surprised when we were offered a menu of breakfast entrees that the chef could make fresh for us. I ordered Eggs Benedict but then managed to also eat some smoked fish, dim sum and some lovely cheeses. YOU WOULD HAVE THOUGHT WE WERE RECENTLY RELEASE FROM A REFUGEE CAMP AND NOT COMING DIRECTLY FROM A SQ FLIGHT IN BUSINESS CLASS. We passed on some Moet & Chandon but that’s all we passed on!
The server could see my Singapore city map spread out on the table and began to inquire about our visit. The concierge also gave us wonderful information about how to spend our day.
We thought it wise to try and quick nap before taking in the whole of Singapore. But because I had gotten eight hours of sleep on SQ 37, I didn’t doze off. So I popped down to the pool for a swim and once again had amazing service by the pool attendant. He arranged my towels on my chaise, brought me water and chatted me up about my stay in Singapore. All the chit-chat never seemed forced with anyone we encountered.
As exited the hotel we found that it wasn’t has hot and humid as we had imagined. Also with a cloud cover, the long walk through downtown to Chinatown was a possibility. Starting with the Esplanade over the river, the views were lovely. We could easily see all the cranes building the future Marina Casino. The amount of construction occurring downtown made our path a bit windy but at last we reached the outskits of Chinatown. At once the buildings changed from the modern architecture of downtown. They were older, painted brightly and lacking in the city’s lush gardens and trees. Early on, we came upon a Buddhist Temple with many locals waving incense at various icon. Built in the mid 1800s, this temple is a landmark in the district.
The concierge has directed us to some fun shopping streets which we easily found. It was a scene right out of an American Express Traveler’s Check commercial. Small stalls with a tiny path in between inhabited the street where once cars could pass. Add bus loads of tourists and locals and then cue the burning incense machine to give it that authentic look. Zoom in on Carl and Christine who have made it half way down the gauntlet. Voice/Over “These Americans far from home in an unfamiliar land….” Luckily nothing was taken but the voice over became annoying after a while.
The heat and humidity began to take their toll on us and we needed some cool air and a frosty drink. Unfortunately the only place that could offer that after searching a bit was Mc Donald’s. Ugh. Breaking my “never go to Mc Donalds” rule, we sought refuge in its chilly environs.
I figured out that from there we could easily jump on the MRT subway system and make it up to Little India quite easily. Purchasing our S$2.10 tickets could not have been easier and soon we had boarded an immaculate train. Not a piece of trash, sign or graffiti could be seen anywhere in the car or even the train station.
The subway dropped us out in front of Tekka Market and we strolled through seeing fragrant and colourful hawker food stalls with adjacent vegetable and meat markets. About the time we arrived at the raw beef and chicken department, we felt done! The stores along the main street were full of Indian textiles and things for the home. The highlight of Little India was a visit to a Hindu temple. Since it looked like they were in the middle of a service we didn’t’ take pictures but could hear the festive music celebrating their religion.
At last we make our way to an information shop and asked about getting to the Holland Village Market where we had ready some delicious food could be found at low prices! Unfortunately as we approached the stall mentioned in Saveur magazine, they were just closing up shop! Luckily it looked like many of his neighbors still had plenty of fine fare to offer us. We both decided on a crispy noodle seafood soup. It was yummy.
The whole Holland Village Market seemed to be a mix of hawker stalls and nicer restaurants. More than half the patrons of all these places seemed to be locals which is always a good sign.
Christine had the idea to next taxi back to the Raffle’s hotel for one the highlights of our day’s adventures: a Singapore Sling. The hotel is a majestic call back to a colonial time gone by. The lush gardens just made you wan to pull up a comfortable chair and wait out the heat. Of course having a plan and a goal, we journey on to find the birthplace of the most famous drink of Singapore, the Long Bar.
Tucked away in the top left corner we entered and were met by an OLD bar: the cigar and cigarette smoke still lingered in the wood from days gone by, peanut shells decorated the floor obviously from the stale peanuts on the cocktail tables. The worst was that it was ENTIRELY foreigners. Soon our drinks came, we took a photo and both grimaced upon our first sip. It was sickling sweet with very little taste of rum. I had read several places online that the Singapore Sling experience at the Long Bar has been disappointing for many but our experience even fell short of my already low expections. We paid our S$50 bill ($37 for two undrinkable drinks), chalked it up to “you win some, you lose some” and walked back to our hotel at 3:00pm.
We popped over to the Club lounge where we had some water and afternoon fruit and sweets. Since the morning’s nap didn’t happen for me, I was hoping that sleep would find me easily. Once again, the lounge staff were incredible, very friendly and warm.
We both managed to sleep for almost four hours! What a treat! We quickly dressed a headed back up to the Club lounge for cocktails and pupus that would be ending soon at 7:30pm. We were seated and immediately brought our glasses of wine. The appetizer buffet was extensive and included sushi, tempura, raw veggies, soup, satay, cheeses… We had booked a nice dinner for 9pm so we didn’t’ want to eat too much.
The lounge has free wifi so we shot off some emails and pics of the day. Both of us were extremely happy with our visit to Singapore and beyond happy with the Mandarin Oriental.
At 8pm we were still in the lounge drinking wine and I remembered I could check out at the Club desk. Once again, the attendant was super friendly and efficient closed my account even though our bags were still in our room.
As we finished packing we said goodbye to our fantastic view and dropped the bags with the porter for a couple of hours.
Using recommendations from the Singapore flyertalk room, we walked conveniently across the street to the Esplanade and found the restaurant “My Humble House”. Its modern decorations foreshadowed the neo-Chinese culinary experience we soon would be having. I would call the design “The W Hotel meets Dr. Seuss”. Out table had a beautiful view of the Harbour. We decided on the S$60 tasting menu which included plate of excellent crispy prawns, a fantastic hot and sour soup, nice coconut flaked bass and some melt in your mouth pork ribs. All were top notch! The meal did end strangely with a large bowl of friend rice with crap meat and green tea ice cream with cream of avocado sauce. Both were ill placed and bizarre. After the ribs, we were full and just should have stopped there.
The highlight of the evening was our waiter. He was VERY concerned about taking care of us. His foppish mannerisms provided colourful flourishes and flowery language. This climaxed when I returned from using the restroom and he asked me “How was your session?” I didn’t understand at first, thinking maybe he was asking if I had a nice meal. But no, he continued. “Do you feel better after your peeing?”
WOW! I know some things don’t translate well but I was very surprised that he was talking about my recent urination. Now when either Christine or I goes to the restroom, we always asks how the session went. Who knows, maybe it will catch on!
We walked across the street, got the bags and had a S$11 cab ride to the airport. Customs was a breeze and soon we were shopping. Changi is famous for its shopping mall style airport and it was a bit overwhelming for us. (Not so overwhelming that I couldn’t find a lovely new pair of Prada sunglasses)
Our 20 hour “day” in Singapore ended with a visit to the Silver Kris Lounge. As many have written before, it’s dated, crowded and doesn’t compete with other airlines of its caliber. The food selection was small but leaps and bounds past US carriers in their C lounges. I had three main points of concern. First the shower room was tiny and there wasn’t even a toilet in the room. I could barely maneuver around in there! We first sat in the corner next to the slumber loungers figuring it might be quieter. Almost immediately a pounding of pipes could be heard. So we found some seats equidistance from the pounding pipes and the blaring TV near the concierge’s desk. Unfortunately she was seldom there but her phone kept ringing off the hook. Two gin and tonics later I was saying “Wha-consantly wringing telephone?” By 1:30 am were some of the only people in the lounge so we made the long trek to F59.
I like the fact that you go through security at your gate. This seems much safer but employing 8 TSA workers for each gate could get expensive. Of course, they weren’t even boarding the flight even though the boards all said “Gate Closing”.
Soon enough we were on board, champagne and Ambien in hand looking forward to another quiet SQ flight.
As a CX devotee, it was nice finally to try the other big Asian carrier. Singapore is a great city, perfect for a day or two of transit. The people are warm and friendly, the city is immaculate and beautiful landscaped and their offerings of food, wine and hotels are top notch!
I look forward to having 36 hours here on my return next Friday and Saturday. I’ll be on a gracious friends and family employee rate at the Sheraton. And I’m sure will have many more stories!
Okay, so I needed to go to South Africa for three days. 28000 miles in seven days. Not exactly a pleasure trip. But I’m a high school math teacher, and school’s still in session so you figure it out. I called my friend Christine and she was game to join me on this wacky adventure.
UA miles could get me there but via SIN, the long way. I’ve flown many times on CX via HKG because they have such lovely first class. So this would be my first time on SQ. Unfortunately they don’t offer a F on either LAX-SIN (the non-stop) or SIN-JNB so I booked in C. I figure that I’d slum it because SQ has such a good reputation. I’ll post a separate trip report about that 17.5 hour flight. Overall, fantastic but I need a horizontal seat to sleep.
The good thing about all this is that I get to visit Singapore for the first time. I’ve visited Hong Kong over 10 times and have always heard that Singapore was its cleaner, anal retentive cousin.
I did my reading up on flyertalk in the Singapore room to get a sense of what to do, where to stay and where to eat. I found lots of good information. We’d have 20 hours in SIN arriving at 6am and leaving at 2am for JNB.
Arriving at 6am and leaving at 2am the next day presents a problem when trying to book a hotel room. In order to guarantee that you can get into a room, you have to book the night before. So you end up booking two days just to get the right 18 hours! It’s a bit crazy. My experience with HKG told me that some hotels offer a day rate but nothing past 6:00pm.
Luckily after searching the web, I found that all the Club floor rates at the Mandarin Oriental offer a guaranteed late checkout at 8pm! PERFECT! We’d go to dinner and then head out to the airport.
THE 20 HOURS IN SIN:
Since it was my first time, I booked a limo taxi via the web for S$40. A bit of a rip off but I like knowing that after an INSANELY long flight, there was a nice gentleman there with my name on a board and a new Merc to take us to town.
We were stunned at how green and lush the roads into town were. Someone had obviously spent some time landscape designing this city. Green bushes, plants and trees can be found everywhere. This remained true even as we later got out of the centre and visited more residential area.
So we arrived around 7am to the hotel. and I hand the receptionist my passport and she says “Welcome to the Mandarin Oriental and I see here that you’ll be checking out… (pause) today?”. Yes, we leave tonight and she did confirm the 8pm checkout which is guaranteed with all Club rooms.
I had booked a Club room for $289 with a harbour view. The room had a stunning view, much nicer than the ocean view option. My favorite part of the room was it had a proper speaker system with large sub-woofer.
We joked that on the SQ 37 flight we seemed to be eating every 3 hours so the receptionist mentioned that the club lounge was open for champagne breakfast. Never wanting to EVER feel hungry we ventured to the lounge.
The Mandarin Oriental Club lounge is simply the BEST hotel lounge that I have ever visited. It was huge and had super high ceilings. It was elegant and the service was impeccable. As we entered they asked if we needed a table for two and were escorted to a beautiful table with a glorious northern view of Singapore from the 19th floor. As we walked to our table we could see the lavish buffet offered for breakfast. But we were surprised when we were offered a menu of breakfast entrees that the chef could make fresh for us. I ordered Eggs Benedict but then managed to also eat some smoked fish, dim sum and some lovely cheeses. YOU WOULD HAVE THOUGHT WE WERE RECENTLY RELEASE FROM A REFUGEE CAMP AND NOT COMING DIRECTLY FROM A SQ FLIGHT IN BUSINESS CLASS. We passed on some Moet & Chandon but that’s all we passed on!
The server could see my Singapore city map spread out on the table and began to inquire about our visit. The concierge also gave us wonderful information about how to spend our day.
We thought it wise to try and quick nap before taking in the whole of Singapore. But because I had gotten eight hours of sleep on SQ 37, I didn’t doze off. So I popped down to the pool for a swim and once again had amazing service by the pool attendant. He arranged my towels on my chaise, brought me water and chatted me up about my stay in Singapore. All the chit-chat never seemed forced with anyone we encountered.
As exited the hotel we found that it wasn’t has hot and humid as we had imagined. Also with a cloud cover, the long walk through downtown to Chinatown was a possibility. Starting with the Esplanade over the river, the views were lovely. We could easily see all the cranes building the future Marina Casino. The amount of construction occurring downtown made our path a bit windy but at last we reached the outskits of Chinatown. At once the buildings changed from the modern architecture of downtown. They were older, painted brightly and lacking in the city’s lush gardens and trees. Early on, we came upon a Buddhist Temple with many locals waving incense at various icon. Built in the mid 1800s, this temple is a landmark in the district.
The concierge has directed us to some fun shopping streets which we easily found. It was a scene right out of an American Express Traveler’s Check commercial. Small stalls with a tiny path in between inhabited the street where once cars could pass. Add bus loads of tourists and locals and then cue the burning incense machine to give it that authentic look. Zoom in on Carl and Christine who have made it half way down the gauntlet. Voice/Over “These Americans far from home in an unfamiliar land….” Luckily nothing was taken but the voice over became annoying after a while.
The heat and humidity began to take their toll on us and we needed some cool air and a frosty drink. Unfortunately the only place that could offer that after searching a bit was Mc Donald’s. Ugh. Breaking my “never go to Mc Donalds” rule, we sought refuge in its chilly environs.
I figured out that from there we could easily jump on the MRT subway system and make it up to Little India quite easily. Purchasing our S$2.10 tickets could not have been easier and soon we had boarded an immaculate train. Not a piece of trash, sign or graffiti could be seen anywhere in the car or even the train station.
The subway dropped us out in front of Tekka Market and we strolled through seeing fragrant and colourful hawker food stalls with adjacent vegetable and meat markets. About the time we arrived at the raw beef and chicken department, we felt done! The stores along the main street were full of Indian textiles and things for the home. The highlight of Little India was a visit to a Hindu temple. Since it looked like they were in the middle of a service we didn’t’ take pictures but could hear the festive music celebrating their religion.
At last we make our way to an information shop and asked about getting to the Holland Village Market where we had ready some delicious food could be found at low prices! Unfortunately as we approached the stall mentioned in Saveur magazine, they were just closing up shop! Luckily it looked like many of his neighbors still had plenty of fine fare to offer us. We both decided on a crispy noodle seafood soup. It was yummy.
The whole Holland Village Market seemed to be a mix of hawker stalls and nicer restaurants. More than half the patrons of all these places seemed to be locals which is always a good sign.
Christine had the idea to next taxi back to the Raffle’s hotel for one the highlights of our day’s adventures: a Singapore Sling. The hotel is a majestic call back to a colonial time gone by. The lush gardens just made you wan to pull up a comfortable chair and wait out the heat. Of course having a plan and a goal, we journey on to find the birthplace of the most famous drink of Singapore, the Long Bar.
Tucked away in the top left corner we entered and were met by an OLD bar: the cigar and cigarette smoke still lingered in the wood from days gone by, peanut shells decorated the floor obviously from the stale peanuts on the cocktail tables. The worst was that it was ENTIRELY foreigners. Soon our drinks came, we took a photo and both grimaced upon our first sip. It was sickling sweet with very little taste of rum. I had read several places online that the Singapore Sling experience at the Long Bar has been disappointing for many but our experience even fell short of my already low expections. We paid our S$50 bill ($37 for two undrinkable drinks), chalked it up to “you win some, you lose some” and walked back to our hotel at 3:00pm.
We popped over to the Club lounge where we had some water and afternoon fruit and sweets. Since the morning’s nap didn’t happen for me, I was hoping that sleep would find me easily. Once again, the lounge staff were incredible, very friendly and warm.
We both managed to sleep for almost four hours! What a treat! We quickly dressed a headed back up to the Club lounge for cocktails and pupus that would be ending soon at 7:30pm. We were seated and immediately brought our glasses of wine. The appetizer buffet was extensive and included sushi, tempura, raw veggies, soup, satay, cheeses… We had booked a nice dinner for 9pm so we didn’t’ want to eat too much.
The lounge has free wifi so we shot off some emails and pics of the day. Both of us were extremely happy with our visit to Singapore and beyond happy with the Mandarin Oriental.
At 8pm we were still in the lounge drinking wine and I remembered I could check out at the Club desk. Once again, the attendant was super friendly and efficient closed my account even though our bags were still in our room.
As we finished packing we said goodbye to our fantastic view and dropped the bags with the porter for a couple of hours.
Using recommendations from the Singapore flyertalk room, we walked conveniently across the street to the Esplanade and found the restaurant “My Humble House”. Its modern decorations foreshadowed the neo-Chinese culinary experience we soon would be having. I would call the design “The W Hotel meets Dr. Seuss”. Out table had a beautiful view of the Harbour. We decided on the S$60 tasting menu which included plate of excellent crispy prawns, a fantastic hot and sour soup, nice coconut flaked bass and some melt in your mouth pork ribs. All were top notch! The meal did end strangely with a large bowl of friend rice with crap meat and green tea ice cream with cream of avocado sauce. Both were ill placed and bizarre. After the ribs, we were full and just should have stopped there.
The highlight of the evening was our waiter. He was VERY concerned about taking care of us. His foppish mannerisms provided colourful flourishes and flowery language. This climaxed when I returned from using the restroom and he asked me “How was your session?” I didn’t understand at first, thinking maybe he was asking if I had a nice meal. But no, he continued. “Do you feel better after your peeing?”
WOW! I know some things don’t translate well but I was very surprised that he was talking about my recent urination. Now when either Christine or I goes to the restroom, we always asks how the session went. Who knows, maybe it will catch on!
We walked across the street, got the bags and had a S$11 cab ride to the airport. Customs was a breeze and soon we were shopping. Changi is famous for its shopping mall style airport and it was a bit overwhelming for us. (Not so overwhelming that I couldn’t find a lovely new pair of Prada sunglasses)
Our 20 hour “day” in Singapore ended with a visit to the Silver Kris Lounge. As many have written before, it’s dated, crowded and doesn’t compete with other airlines of its caliber. The food selection was small but leaps and bounds past US carriers in their C lounges. I had three main points of concern. First the shower room was tiny and there wasn’t even a toilet in the room. I could barely maneuver around in there! We first sat in the corner next to the slumber loungers figuring it might be quieter. Almost immediately a pounding of pipes could be heard. So we found some seats equidistance from the pounding pipes and the blaring TV near the concierge’s desk. Unfortunately she was seldom there but her phone kept ringing off the hook. Two gin and tonics later I was saying “Wha-consantly wringing telephone?” By 1:30 am were some of the only people in the lounge so we made the long trek to F59.
I like the fact that you go through security at your gate. This seems much safer but employing 8 TSA workers for each gate could get expensive. Of course, they weren’t even boarding the flight even though the boards all said “Gate Closing”.
Soon enough we were on board, champagne and Ambien in hand looking forward to another quiet SQ flight.
As a CX devotee, it was nice finally to try the other big Asian carrier. Singapore is a great city, perfect for a day or two of transit. The people are warm and friendly, the city is immaculate and beautiful landscaped and their offerings of food, wine and hotels are top notch!
I look forward to having 36 hours here on my return next Friday and Saturday. I’ll be on a gracious friends and family employee rate at the Sheraton. And I’m sure will have many more stories!