Mossy Bits -- Autumn 1995 -- page 31

Brian's First Trip To Singapore (continued)

(continued from page 9)

Trip Journal

What follows is a day-by-day account of our trip. I took notes nearly every day when I was there so that I would be able to write this journal when I got back. You may notice my wife Charmaine sleeping a lot. She was about nine or ten weeks pregnant with our first child when she left for the trip, so she needed more rest than usual. She also found the heat rather oppressive, despite the fact that she grew up in Singapore.

Wednesday, September 20
It rained for the first time during my stay this morning. I wrote nearly a dozen postcards while Charmaine slept with a cold. Everyone said she got sick because of the air conditioning. They were probably right. Charmaine liked to keep the rooms so cold that we needed blankets. I turned the thermostat up.

We ate lunch at the Courtyard Cafe, the hotel's restaurant. Our waiter was an idiot, and he was obviously the new guy, since he was stuck with all of the work. We started out with the right silverware, but then he came and took some of it away. There were three places set at our table, but he took some of the silverware from in front of me and some (not all) from the empty place. So, I stole what I needed from a neighboring table. When we ordered, he tried to finish my sentences and didn't listen to what I was ordering. Finally, I managed to order two "garden" chef salads and a sandwich. The salads arrived after a significant delay, but they had hardly any vegetables in them, mostly sticks of cheese and lunch meat. The waiter then went back to setting up the buffet tables. There was an awful hair in my salad, but I was very hungry by this time, so I removed it and finished the salad. It didn't appear that my sandwich was going to come any time soon, so I just asked for the check and refused to pay for the sandwich. The waiter tried to give it to me, then tried to send it to my room. The manager came over to try to appease me, but I just wanted to leave at that point. In general, the tourist-oriented businesses like the hotels treated me better than Charmaine or other natives. They try to be very accomodating to western tourists. Anyway, I refused the free coffee. The manager took the sandwich and my salad (because of the hair) off the bill. I gave him cash and we walked out before he returned with the change.

(Brian's observations of Singapore continue on the following page).