Staying at Studio M Hotel Singapore

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Sha

hotel exterior

So over the weekend, the boyfriend surprised me with a staycation for my birthday! My birthday was actually yesterday, but since he has a leg surgery due on the same day, we celebrated it a few days early – which started with tickets to Avenue Q on Friday night:)

I didn’t even know we were going on a staycation. All I knew was that I was to pack an overnight bag, and that was it, but I should have guessed. We had lunch at the nearby Epicurious and then he told me he needed to use the toilet urgently. Since he was the kind of person who NEVER goes to the toilet outside unless it’s really really urgent, I kind of believe him.

So, he said, “I really cannot tahan (take it) anymore, let’s just go to the toilet in this hotel”. Ok still acceptable. And then he turned a corner into the lift lobby and told me, “the toilet is upstairs”. Well “upstairs” turned out to be on the 6th floor by which time I figured it all out! >.<

Once we entered our room, he told me to close my eyes and I heard rustling and flicking. Opened my eyes and saw this:

froggy fairy cake

Cute cake!! The frog fairy was actually inspired by an Ikea doll he gave me a few years back and the pocky idea came from a photo we came across on the web a few weeks ago and I joked that he should make me a cake like that. Bliss! He did say though that he had specified that the frog fairy be smaller (and thus cuter) but they made it big and fat, lol. It’s ok! I still love it

shacake

I swear I look easily 10 years younger than I actually am :X

I digress. Back to blogging about the hotel and room For starters, I really love the loft concept of the hotel. It makes everything look so cozy!

The Room

cozy corner

The first thing I saw upon entering is this cozy corner. I was like.. where is the bed? Is this it? Silly me. Of course that’s not it. The bed is upstairs!

stairs

loft bedroom

Just like any other lazy weekend away from home, it was movie upon movie in bed. So cozy!!

movies tv

Because of the “cozy” concept, space was a little constrained. You need to watch your head on the side of the bed that was nearer the wall. We both actually knocked our heads hard once each! Ouch, but to be fair, we had been warned

watch your head

While this is perfect for couple staycations, I don’t think I’d bring kids here. It is too accident-prone inducing. Apart from having to watch our heads, we also needed to be careful not to be leaning against the glass partition:

do not lean

Though if you do lean and the glass breaks, this is what you’ll be falling towards lol:

top view

The shower and toilet

Believe me when I say there is a constrain for space in this loft. The shower and the toilet are actually in two separate narrow rooms:

toilet seat

shower room

Amenities

So here are the necessities that you can find in the room:

Hot drinks:

tea coffee

Bottled water

bottles

Toothbrush, vanity kit, shower cap etc:

toiletries

Shower gel (smells like lemongrass) and shampoo:

shower soap

Bathrobes:

Food & Breakfast

Here’s the room service menu:

We didn’t order anything from it, it seems a little odd to order room service when you’re on staycation! So we went to the nearby Great World City and brought back random take-outs!

random food

Next morning, we had breakfast at the open air restaurant at the second level.

restaurant

The buffet spread was sort of limited variety-wise and the food was just okay. These were my selection:

Vegetarian fried rice with baked tomatoes, chicken sausage and hashbrown:

breakfast rice

Omelette with mini side salad + strawberry yogurt:

egg and salad

Outdoor area

Right outside the restaurant was the pool.. with some pretty seats!

outdoor area

seats

We got locked out

After breakfast, we headed up to our room only to find we are locked out. The card-key couldn’t work. FP went downstairs to let them know and returned with a new card. Didn’t work. He went down again, got yet another card which also didn’t work. He went down a THIRD time (like hello, why cant they come up with him instead of him going up and down??). And soon, a maintenance uncle came to try to open the door.

locked out

Couldn’t work. They needed the master key. Another guy got called up. He didnt have the master key but he did try to open the door. Nope, we’re still stuck outside. Girl with master key finally came, let us inside. We were out at the corridor for a good 30 minutes.

AND THEN. They spent another 15 minutes to change the batteries of the door lock. Couldn’t this be done after we checked out (which was just 1.5 hours away)? We wanted some privacy after breakfast but there you go – our door half opened and technicians changing the batteries of our door.

The best part is: there was no apology, no acknowledgement that something had gone wrong – even when we were checking out. All we got was “ok sir, that’s all”.

It’s not like I am expecting a huge compensation, but at least a sincere apology would have been nice.

Details:
Studio M Hotel
3 Nanson Road,
Singapore, Singapore 238910

For reservations, do call: +65 6808 8890

With that, I give this hotel…

Tour of Cameron Highlands Part 1: BOH Tea Plantation & Factory

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Sha

Before I start this post proper, I’d just like to advise anyone who is planning to go to Cameron Highlands to book their various tours online – instead of booking it there and then when you’re not in the best frame of mind after a 10 hour bus journey.

We had the sensibility of booking online with Eco Cameron Tours (after reading raving reviews about them on tripadvisor), and to be honest we didn’t regret it. Not only was it cheaper for a full day tour (than the various individual tours our bus mates booked on the spot), our tour was very informative and satisfactory.

So here’s the first stop of our 1-day tour: the breathtaking BOH tea plantation.

The view will leave you speechless for a few minutes as you enjoy it so let me show you a few more photos of it

tea plantation

tea plant macro

Photos are taken by two very different cameras as you might be able to tell, but my (awesome but still inferior) camera still makes the view look nice ok!

So anyway, here is one of our guides for the day: his name is Suresh. And Suresh is the kind of guide you’d want to bring you around. He had anecdotes, he had facts, he had the knowledge and all these elements made each location we went to interesting.

eco cameron tour guide

Oh yah, here’s an instagram worthy photo of a tea leaf:

tea leaf

So this was just a pit stop for a bit of background story on BOH tea and a scenic photo op session. Here’s a photo of the view from the back of our land rover as we were leaving the plantation area:

foggy road

Almost feels like you’re in the middle of Twilight doesn’t it? *cough*

We went to a couple more places after this, which I’ll go through in the next few blog posts – but the most natural place to go after visiting a tea plantation is of course the tea factory.

boh factory

The moment you enter the factory, you’ll be able to smell the tea leaves. It was absolutely fragrant with the capital F and being a tea lover, it was absolute heaven. I took some photos of each of the procedure in processing the tea leaves but shall not post them here because they are blurry (because there was movement and there was also a glass barrier). So no ugly photos on this blog please

What I’ll share with you is this lovely shot of the BOH tea cafe which serves all the different varieties of BOH beverages and also some finger food and desserts.

boh tea cafe

We tried the iced lemon lime tea and teh tarik. Sorry for the slightly blurry shot, but there were people behind me in line so it was kind of a rushed shot:

teh tarik and iced tea

The drinks were delicious though!

It was raining during this time, quite heavily too I must say, but the bad weather still didn’t dampen this pretty scenery – taken from the sheltered outdoor area of the cafe.

teafog

So lastly, here we are at the souvenier tea shop. Because I told myself even before coming to Cameron Highlands that I’ll get decent strawberry tea, I did (well it’s strawberry + raspberry infused tea but that’s the only one they had).

tea shop

There were so many varieties of tea here but we settled with these. We gulped down the ones in cans over dinner during our second evening there.

tea ad

Here are the details of this BOH Tea factory:

Sungei Palas Tea Centre
Jalan Gunung Brinchang, Brinchang, Cameron Highlands.
Phone: +605-4962096

Hope you’ve enjoyed this post, if only for the scenic photographs!

Staying at Strawberry Park Resort Cameron Highlands

Posted on September 16, 2012 by Sha

Last weekend, we made our way up to Cameron Highlands which took us 10 hours by bus (and then yes, 10 hours back 2 days later). Our choice of accommodation for this short trip was none other than Strawberry Park Resort.

Let me tell you a little story about this resort. Remember when we were all still kids, and there used to be this daily game show called “Pyramid Game”? Well I watched it everyday. And everyday, the main prize would be “a stay at Strawberry Park Resort in Cameron Highlands” and they would show a pretty photo. As an impressionable young child, I really wanted to go to this resort without even knowing how to get there.

More than 20 years later, I finally achieved my little childhood dream – and it was beautiful.

Hotel Exterior
This was one portion of the resort exterior. It just has an idyllic village feeling to it doesnt it? So pleasing to the eye against a back drop of blue skies and whiffs of cold air. Perfection.

resort exterior

The Lobby
One thing to note about the decor is that it has an old-fashion feel to it, which makes you feel like you’re in another era.

resort lobby

This was the waiting area where they made us wait while our rooms were being prepared. The actual check-in time was 3 pm and we arrived at 10+ am. Thankfully, we only had to wait 20 minutes before getting our room! Not sure if we could have lasted without dozing off on the couches if we had to wait till 3pm – after the long bus journey.

waiting area

Point of interest on the wall of the waiting area were these framed items. It basically showcases zodiac signs (exactly like the chinese zodiac signs) but with an Indian interpretation of characteristics and fate of each sign. I shall not post up mine, let’s keep that personal. You guys can check the wall out if you ever visit this resort

Brahma Jati

It was surprisingly true (for mine). So that was how I spent my time while waiting for our room.

The Room
Speaking of rooms, here is ours (you’re just waiting for this haven’t you? )

Interesting to note that while the lobby is very old-fashion to the point of antique, the room has a fusion between the new and the old.

room at strawberry park resort

One thing that I love about the room was just how spacious it is! I really need my space, so the more the better!

spacious room

Point of interest: the wardrobe. Do remember to open the wardrobe as it holds the all important thick blankets that is VITAL to a comfortable nights’ sleep. There is no air-conditioning in the room, so it relies on the cool outdoor air which seeps through the walls. After checking in, we took a nap just with the normal bedding and I almost froze to death. Was so happy when I chanced upon the thick blankets (and bedroom slippers) in the wardrobe later in the day, lol!

wardrobe and dresser

I also really love the bathroom, if only for the decor. To the right is the shower, to the left is the toilet. In the middle, is one tired Sha.

resort bathroom

Love the toiletries they provided. I actually use the shower gel because for the first time, I forgot to pack my own. Nice smelling really!

green tea toiletries

The View
Our favourite spot in the whole room was this balcony. Not only did it provide a nice view, it also provided us a pretty place to have all the street food we bought for dinner on both nights (more on this in the next post).

balcony with a view

The lovely skies that I truly love:

blue skies

pretty sky

Our first sunset there:

cameron highlands sunset

And my favourite view was of the night sky where a million stars are everywhere! We actually stargazed and had hot drinks outside – it was really so nice!! Photo taken by FP because there’s no way my humble olympus pen could have taken that

Food Stuff
Take note that there is no such thing as “room service” at this resort. In fact, it is called “take away” services which means the food will be sent to your room take-out / tapao style.

takeaway menu

But the thing is, the prices are not “take-out” prices.

take out menu prices

On our first night, despite an early dinner of street food, we got hungry (probably due to exhaustion) so we tried to order the Nasi Goreng Istimewa. It came as advertised in a take-out style. While it was yummy there were two problems – 1) the portion was too little so much so that RM20 was a little too steep for it and 2) they forgot to provide us with utensils. So we had to eat with the teaspoon that was in the room.

You’d come to realize while the hotel itself + its staff were nice, the service standards still have a long way to go. But because they are all so nice, you’ll overlook the fact.

Thankfully the buffet breakfast wasnt so bad, They had an array of cuisines and dishes to start the day off. And these was what I had on the second day (also our check-out day):

A mix of fried rice and fried bee hoon with eggs and ikan bilis sambal and my own salad concoction:

breakfast

And we finally got to try roti prata (roti canai) in Malaysia! These were made fresh upon request and it was surprisingly so soft and fluffy!

roti canai

Oh yes, before I forget, the restaurant name is Jim Thompson Terrace and there’s a very interesting story about this man so much so that he has become a legend / folklore in Cameron Highlands. He has been missing for 45 years, after saying that he has gone off for a walk. Despite extensive searches for him, he still cant be found. While this restaurant has nothing to do with him, there is actually a tour starting from where he was last seen (Moonlight Cottage) and re-tracing his steps to where he might have gone. Creepy, but interesting.

jim thompson terrace

Conclusion

Overall, we were very pleased with our stay at Strawberry Park Resort. It has made the 10 hour bus journey so worth it and for me it was a dream come true. Despite the flaws in the service staff, it is still a very ideal holiday location if only for the cool weather and lovely view. I was really sorry to say goodbye, and hope to come back here one day.

last view

I give it..

Staying at Turi Beach Resort Batam

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Sha

It’s been awhile since FP and I went on a getaway together so last weekend we headed off for a night at Turi Beach Resort on Batam Island.

We took a ferry from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal, and arrived at our destination 35 minutes later. After which we took a 10 minute bus ride to our cozy spot for the weekend: Turi Beach Resort.

What struck us during the bus ride was that there was absolutely nothing within the vicinity. No street food, no mini marts, no restaurants – nothing. It was just us and the resort for the weekend. And we didn’t have a problem with that at all.

We arrived too early, and our room wouldnt be ready for at least 2 more hours. So we wandered around the resort area. It was a bright, sunny day in Batam that morning with clear blue skies above!

Around the Resort

There were two pools and a private beach

We then went over to the beach area where I found this pretty little hut (there were others but this one was the prettiest!)

It has flowers and frills! So pretty!

And then there were hammocks like these. You feel relaxed just by looking at it:

Came across this winding bridge..

which led to a secret garden-ish kind of entrance. This was taken at almost mid day. I love how the sunrays look in this photo.

Disappointingly, when we came back here later that afternoon, there was no more sun!

So anyway, this entrance led to the jetty area.

This was the jetty, but sadly we couldnt walk all the way down because it was closed (for renovation I think)

There are plenty of rocks in the waters surrounding the resort – big and small. The problem is, it makes walking in the water to creep up to random sea creatures difficult as it was a real pain. But then again, it looks so pretty

Just a caution: the rocks that are in the water are very, very slippery. I almost fell several times.

Ok let’s move on to:

The Room

I love how every room has it’s own private corridor and it’s own gate:

The first thing you see upon stepping through the gates is this balcony area.

We were staying on the third floor and this was our view from the balcony:

We got a Tirta Premier room, with two super twin beds. The bed was really comfy and the pillows are fluffy

There was also a seating area:

We watched countless movies that day. There was not much we can do except watching tv, walking by the beach and eating (will get to food later). This photo was taken while watching The Back-up Plan starring Jennifer Lopez. Chick flick in bed during vacations are the best!

The Bathroom

A nice bathroom in a hotel room earns plus points with me. And I really love this one – mainly because it has the open concept that I have dreamed for my future home. It looks all bright and airy

Food/Room Service

Like I mentioned earlier, our resort was stark in the middle of nowhere. So unless you’ve equipped yourself with snacks from mainland Singapore, you’d probably end up like us – eating at the resort restaurants and ordering multiple room service.

Seriously, there was not even a mini-mart within the resort itself.

But luckily for us, the food was awesome. Do note that the prices are in Singapore dollars (both at the restaurant and the room servie menu), but they accept rupiah as well. These were what we had for lunch while waiting for our food to be ready.

This was my ayam penyet..

And this was FP’s nasi kuning.

We also ordered dessert, mine being the classic es teler (FP ordered es kolak – but didnt take a photo of it)

Don’t be fulled by it’s boring exterior. It was yummy with plenty of fillings inside!!

After spending some time by the beach, we headed back to our room, hungry again. So we ordered finger food:

Fries, spring roll and gado gado to satiate us for the time being. The gado gado was spicy and therefore delicious.

Later on that night, we ordered room service again for dinner. Nasi goreng kampung, mee goreng and a dozen satays. It’s really no wonder we gained a bit of weight after this short trip! >.<

And this was my selection from the breakfast buffet the next morning. There was quite a wide variety of dishes at the buffet but I only went for two rounds.

The first being my miniscule serving of nasi lemak:

And my second round was my concoction of mini pancakes with fresh fruits. Pretty, no?

More Scenic Views

Before we checked out of the resort, we went exploring again and found another private beach in the area! This beach doubles up as a dock for the yacht club. It was really a peaceful sight.

Water Sports

Before I forget, those of you who are active in sports and such (so obvious that I’m not) can also have some fun during your stay here. It’s just that it’s a tad pricy as you can see below. There’s another page of prices I took, but I’ll just leave you with this one.

In conclusion

We really enjoyed our short stay here, mainly because we were so relaxed the entire weekend. Truth be told, we did absolutely nothing but relax and rested. The art of doing nothing was not that hard to achieve. We will definitely be coming back here (this time prepared with snacks!!)

Terminal 21 Bangkok

Posted on July 14, 2012 by Sha

terminal 21 signage

A couple of days before Rara and I were set to leave for our Girly Bangkok Weekend, I chanced upon an article on Terminal 21 – Bangkok’s latest awesome mall. It is actually an Airport themed mall, where every floor leads you to a different destination! We were really looking forward to visit this mall and so we went around the world in 3 hours.

destinations

I could spot at least 4 cities which I’d like to visit in real life, so to have a “preview” of them was really something awesome

And when I say the entire floor = one city, I meant the ENTIRE FLOOR. It really puts the themed toilets at Great World City to shame. Hmm, let’s start with..

San Francisco

welcome to san francisco

I’ve been to San Francisco once many years ago and have always dreamed of going back to the beautiful city. Never did I expect that I’d come back to another version of it!

The golden gate bridge!

Took this while going down the escalator, doesn’t it look like all the cars are moving?

cars zooming

We went to 2 restrooms while in San Fracisco (not too sure just how many restrooms there are in each city), and these 2 really blew me away. You’ll observe that with every restroom we visit, I was more and more blown away.

Ok. San Francisco Restroom 1: Crab Restaurant Theme

crab restroom

Along the walkway to the actual restroom entrance:

ropes

crabs sold here

crabs in net

And upon entering, we found..

Crabs above our heads!

This next photo gives me a Spongebob vibe. Isn’t there? It’s like Mr Krabbs will come out at any moment!

crab barrel

A close-up on the tap. Love how nautical it looks!

nautical tap

And more nautical nonsense!

nautical themed toilets

What a beautiful toilet you say? Wait till we get to the next one. In the mean time, here are some sights of San Francisco:

Clockwise: a lot of beautiful, quaint cafes like this one, a San Francisco trolley (which is also the exterior of the cafe in the first photo, Chinatown!, a heart figure – probably an icon for “I left my heart in San Francisco”

Ok let’s cover the second San Francisco toilet: The Old Bakery! I really loved this one as it feels so homey and cheery

bakery restroom

Look how cute the restroom icons are, wearing chef hats!

chef restroom icons

bread

Still at the walkway to the toilet entrance, lol. This is actually one of my favourite photos from our trip!

old bakery

The first thing you’d see when you enter is this really happy sight:

colourful toilet

And this was a kid size sink! I had to stoop low to get this shot. It was really cute!

kiddy sink

The cubicle doors:

san francisco toilet doors

Here are more photos around San Francisco, before we move on to the next stop: Istanbul!

Istanbul

istanbul city

I really love the streets of Istanbul, it just gives a very mystical vibe doesn’t it?

arabian lamps

One thing we noticed about Istanbul was that it was filled with really pretty lamps and lights!

turkish lights

Even in the restroom, there were nice lamps. We only visited one restroom in Istanbul, so let’s just call it Istanbul Restroom: Turkish themed.

turkish toilet icon

Check out the sinks and mirrors. They are all so quaint and pretty!

turkish sinks

More pretty lamps overhead (yes, we’re still in the restroom!!)

istanbul lights

Ok that’s all for Istanbul.

Next stop: PARIS!!!!

We practically RAN to Paris (and also London) because it is one of THE cities to be in

arrival at paris

Paris was so beautiful and classy, as we expected. Here is one lovely little lass who was also starting to look very tired (it was a really long day), sitting on a pretty bench in pretty Paris.

paris bench

And here’s another young lady with her bike, smiling away in the (imagined) warm sunshine:

bike in paris

If that was a “girl” bike, we also found a cute “guy” bike! Where is the mysterious French guy who owns this bike!

hipster bike

Ok toilet time!

This was the classy entrance to the Parisian toilet!

And when you go inside, you see these hanging beautiful lamps..

And then you turn to your right to these montage of wall mirrors. I think our jaws just dropped when we saw this:

Isn’t just so beautiful? Of course this serves as a photo op, lol

Okay enough about Paris. Moving on to Tokyo!

Tokyo

tokyo arrival

streets of tokyo

Japanese lamps. Some sights we saw in Tokyo (we breezed through Tokyo very quickly):

fat cat

A gigantic prosperity cat which was actually quite freaky upclose.

japanese arches

And a trip to Japan will not be complete without Sumo wrestlers!

sumo wrestlers

Ok some quick photos to show the restroom:

japanese restroom icons

The inside of the restroom had trees and leaves! I like the simple decor of this toilet:

japanese themed restroom

Next stop..

London

london arrival

We really, really loved London. I think we spent quite a bit of time there, camwhoring the night away.

crossroads

This was us, Rara with a “real” British soldier (he was the security guard), and me with the fake one:

Some of the other photos we took:

Cute cafe we saw:

london cafe

Onwards to the London restrooms (I swear at times we were just looking forward to see the restrooms!

The restroom theme in London is the London Underground. A train station is always a fun place eh?

Here’s Rara boarding the train, haha :

And I loved how the cubicles had the map of the London Underground on them:

Next destination: ROME

Rome has always been on my list of cities to go to for the longest time, so it was really so surreal when we were in well.. “Rome”.

It was beautiful, with classy columns and lovely paintings. It was like being in a dream.

Of course there were plenty of roman statues <3

of course there was a fountain:

There was even a vespa, ahem.

And now, presenting to you, my favourite restroom of them all – the Roman restroom. It almost brought me to tears (of awe). I shall just let the photos do the talking.

I rest my case.

Now let’s drop by Hollywood for a bit before heading off to our final destination!

There was nothing much in Hollywood to be honest, we didn’t even visit the restroom. It was just a cinema there and some shops. Bleah, boring.

Enough about “Hollywood” – better of going to the real thing.

And now, (finally) – our last destination: The Caribbean!

It was almost closing time by the time we arrived in The Caribbeans and we were really tired by this time. Among all the cities (with the exception of boring Hollywood), Carribean seems a little too sparse and laid back – it’s as if the idea-churners ran out of wonderful ideas by the time they came to it.

At least the restrooms are cheery!

OK THAT’S IT.

In conclusion
It is interesting how both Rara and myself didn’t not even use any of the restrooms in Terminal 21 (despite almost running to each one in excitement). The 3 hours we spent in the mall was so magical that we didn’t even notice what shops were there, lol! But if I recall, Paris has the high end stuff, and the Caribbean has all the food stalls. In between, I have no idea!

Here’s the address:

2,88 Sukhumvit Soi 19(Wattana) Sukhumvit Rd. North Klongtoei, Wattana, Bangkok 10110

The nearest train station is the Sukhumvit station.

Hope you have enjoyed this post (it’s officially my longest ever blog post), thanks for reading till the end!

.: asylum for the sane :.

where rainbows end.

Category Archives: Jet Setter

Staying at Studio M Hotel Singapore

Tour of Cameron Highlands Part 1: BOH Tea Plantation & Factory

Staying at Strawberry Park Resort Cameron Highlands

Staying at Turi Beach Resort Batam

Terminal 21 Bangkok