TripAdvisor’s 2010 Top 10 Dirtiest Hotels in asia

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Singapore

A lousy first day

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Hill Street

I had a lousy first day back in Singapore.

I happily went back to work after a session at the hairdresser. Today is Saturday mind you. Just as I was driving into my office car park, the security came over to tell me I can no longer park at lot 56 come Monday!!!

Someone from my office had bought season parking and was allocated that lot from 1st Feb onwards!!!

For those who are not aware, I have never bought season parking for my office car park all these years, I have been paying on a daily basis since I am not in office all the time!

I am evil, I hope that person who bought my lot get his car boot ramped… FLAT!

I took the lift up to my office, I found the door to my unit unlocked! I couldn’t be bothered to think too much. The door to my room was closed but I was not concerned at all until I tried to turn the knob!

BLOODY HELL!!!! ITS LOCKED!!!!! WHO THE HELL LOCKED THE DOOR TO MY ROOM!!!!!

I went up to the admin floor hoping that someone there can help me get the master key!

I was very relieved to see my admin manager in her room. She opened the key cabinet where ALL the keys to every single door in my office are kept!

!#$%^&*(#$%^&*( My master is not in there!!!!! It has always been hanging on my own bloody door!!!!

We went thru much action thinking of ways and means to open my own door. My admin manager even asked if someone was trying to sabo me or was i working for the infamous partner. In the end it was decided that the lock smith will be called in on Monday…. ARGH!

But the unlucky day did not end there. The piece of plastic connecting my lanyard and my access pass SNAPPED a few hours later!

ARGH… I really do not know enough vulgarities that are readable to describe what has happened today. If not I will be swearing away in every sentence of this post!

Finally home again for now…

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China, Quanzhou

I am lousy, I came back with a sore throat and a running nose. I suspect I have a fever coming too.

The sore throat was caused by the excessive drinking last night. I was trying to drown Manager Yang since it was our last day.

Manager Yang is one crappy man, Ok I am no angel either. My staff complained he was slow. So I lied to him. On Monday, I told him we are leaving for Singapore on Thursday. Which was a real fat lie. Our tickets were for the flight on Friday.

On Wednesday morning, he still owed us stuff. Yet he called to ask for our flight timings so that he could arrange for the driver to send us to the airport. I told him no need, he should concentrate on finishing his task on hand first. Of course he was puzzled (and I think suspicious too). He guessed anyway cause we were really not behaving like it was our last day.

Last night, being our real last night, we had a drinking session at the local Kbox style KTV till 1plus in the morning.

On Friday morning, we waited for the car to come and send us to the airport. We waited for 15mins but there was no sight of the car. So I called Manager Yang.

Me: 杨经理，怎么司机还没来啊？

杨：我知道，我也在等他。

Me: 你在哪里等他？

杨：酒店阿

Me: 怎么没看到你？

杨：我在培阎总睡啊！

Me: HUH?!

He had stayed over in 阎总’s hotel room after the drinking session as we really drank quite a bit and he wasn’t in the state to drive himself home. But he had to make it sound like they are super 暧昧. Crappy right?

Anyway, I learnt 3 valuable lessons from this working trip to my Ah gong’s hometown.

1. I learnt that my mum cooks very authentic hokkien dishes that I have always taken it for granted. The Ko Lei Cai Bern, the Jie Cai Fan, the Lo Mian which my mum cooks every weekend. I totally do not miss home food this trip.

2. I can only understand 75% of the Hokkien spoken by the locals.

3. I cant drink a lot. I only dare to drink. There is a hell of difference.

Enough for now. Thou shall go and nurse my painful throat and hug my bed.

Night!

I am going home!

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China, Quanzhou

Once again, I have approached my last day in China for this trip. I did not blog much for the last week because nothing new has happened. I have grown used to using alcohol as my weapon to get China men to work for me that I cant be bothered to blog about it. I have learnt that I do not need to dirty my own hands to get things done. I just need to abuse my title and make damn sure my presence be felt. I am going home till my next trip in March!

My Lacquered Baskets

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China, Quanzhou

Last Sunday, I took a walk down 涂门街 (the Orchard Road of Quanzhou) on my own in search of my kao na. I am glad to announce that I found them behind a temple, in an antique furniture shop. Now, I am in a dilemma, should I hand carry it back? Should I send it back by DHL (DHL office just next door)? Should I send it back by EMS/China Post to save some money? 9 more minutes to decide.

FYI

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Hill Street

This week, I had the opportunity to be a recipient of an anonymous mass email sent to the entire organisation. This came from someone who claimed to be an ex-employee. Obviously, there were some unhappiness over the behaviour of a certain top management and the low pay that triggered this act. The sender had quoted an on line article on how some global competitors had re-instated the pay cuts. The sender hopes our management would do likewise (I was loss when I read this as we did not suffer any pay cuts, nor did we cut down on promotions/salary adjustments, all due promotions/salary adjustments were promptly given out despite all the reminders from top managements to do otherwise) I will not dispute what was written in the email even though I do not agree that it is 100% factual. Everyone has the right to display their unhappiness in anyway they like although we are constantly being reminded that this shouldn’t be done at the expense of others. When I read the email, I can’t help but feel disturbed. How low will one scoop to ask for an increment? It’s an open market out there isn’t it? OK, I admit my company has some practises like bonding a new-joiner for the first 2 years and the penalty for breaking the bond is pretty harsh. But everyone signed the employment contract on a willingly basis, is it not? And for those who are not bonded, the competitors are recruiting aggressively, aren’t they? The sender mentioned that the semi-seniors in competiting firms are being paid 4k, shouldn’t the writer be spending valuable time writing a nice resume to the HR manager of the competitors instead? Which leads to more questions. If you had been unhappy in an organisation, and now that you got a new job that pays much more, would you waste time sending such an email? You will just be glad to get out, wouldn’t you? The email says a lot about that person, the level of maturity and the mental state. Nobody in the top management of any organisation will allow themselves to be threatened by such an anonymous email. Even if they had been thinking of adjusting the salaries upwards, such an email would have thwart such plans. Giving you an additional $500 today would means you will send another anonymous email to ask for a $1,000 increment six months down the road? I am disgusted, it means you, the sender, had ruined my chance of getting any increment this year! In case you are not aware, my rank had indeed not been given any increment for the last twelve months! How old are you may I ask? If your parents do not give you enough pocket money to buy the next pair of Nike shoes, you can go ahead and leave anonymous notes around the house. They will relent. But your employers are not your parents. They do not owe you a living. If you think you are not earning enough, any mature/capable adults will seek alternate employment. Not sit around and hope the situation will change to his/her favour. If you are really an ex-employee who thinks you can shake up an organisation just by sending an anonymous email on your departure, I pity your new employer. You are definitely childish, thinking you, as ONE individual, will be able to change the world.You do not understand unity is strength. You will not suceed in life! You are most welcome to prove me wrong when you have made your mark, but I am very sure that day will never come because you do not have the brain matter. Which leader has ever led a revolt by writing anonymous letter? You need to stand out, in front of everyone and convince your compatriots that your idea works. If you dare to walk up to a certain door, knock, introduce yourself and state your wishes, I will look up to you. Clearly you are not able to do that. Even more apparentnt from the email, you do not even know which is the right door to knock on. But I cannot deny that your anonymous email had perk us up during this busy season. It was an entertaining week indeed.

My BalmiAn Trench Coat

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Up in the air

I bought a Balmian leather trench coat during my last vacation in Tokyo. [You can read about it here]

I brought it along with me this trip and on the flight to Xiamen got the air stewardess to hang it up for me as usual.

About 15 minutes before landing, an air stewardess handed me my jacket. But I did not take note which stewardess did it thou. Obviously the story does not end here.

A few minutes passed and a stewardess came up to me:

Stewardess (S): Mdm, can I know how you get your jacket?

ME: huh, someone passed to me?

S: Oh I mean where did you buy your jacket from”?

ME: Japan!

S: Its a really nice jacket. A lot of passengers pass us their jackets from brands like Marc Jacobs jackets and told us they got it in Shenzhen.

ME: But you do not know if you are buying the real thing in Shenzhen?

S: Ya (with an embarrassed smile)

So, a lot of Singaporeans are wearing fake goods huh?

Looks like my trench coat will be a good conversation starter with the air stewardesses now =P

From behind the Great Firewall of Cheena – I can finally understand what the locals are saying… for Now.

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China, Quanzhou

I have been to many places in China but this is the only place where I understand their dialect. I am in Fujian and obviously, the locals speak Hokkien =P Irriitating (maybe I should say amusing) client. I am not angry with him, just irritated, or maybe I should say I am amused. On my first day, just like any other client, he brought me and my team out for dinner And like any other client, one of the first few questions he asked was,”Where is your ancestors’ hometown?” I knew perfectly well that this question would come like it always did.. Before my trip, I was actually in a dilemma, should I say the truth or not? Saying the truth may lead to MORE drinking. When this question was posed, I decided I should answer honestly in case the truth was let out of the bag in future. And as usual, the client will go on and ask, Fujian where? Me: Yongchun Client: Which village? Me: Gu Shan What make this client funny was he would test my command of Hokkien when I least expected it. I did not pass on all occassions but there was a most memorable one thou. He was driving us back to the hotel and while I was starring out of the window but my mind was already on its way to dreamland: Lau Keng Li, le di koon hock gui zou kang gui ni? Understand? No? Too bad then… haha

quanzhou2

quanzhoumap

Did Cheena block wordpress.com?

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China, Quanzhou

I have not been able to access my own blog since this morning, this is making me moody. I am praying that its just momentarily down but I can’t help suspecting it is being blocked by the Great Firewall of China. I was accessing it quite smoothly over the last 3 days. I can survive life without facebook but I cannot survive without ranting away! I cant see my stats! I cant post using Windows Life Writer. I cant post from wordpress.com I am tempted to move to a self-hosted blog but the cost is killing me!I need to be rescued!

From Xiamen to Quanzhou

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China, Quanzhou

The driver had picked me up from Xiamen Airport and I am now in the middle of a 2 hours drive to Quanzhou.My mind started to wonder…. Am I tracing back the route taken by my grandparents nearly 80 years ago? My grandparents did visit their hometown in the eighties. How will they feel if they are still alive today? How would they react to when they see how far their home province has advanced? What greeted me since I left the airport was nothing but endless advertising billboards lining both sides of the expressway, countless factories and blocks and blocks of new residential building. I regretted not trying to understand more about my grandparents’ lives in China and their journey to Singapore. I had a vivid memory of my grandpa sitting in front of me on the sofa, telling me about what happened when he was young. But being young then (I was in secondary school), I was unable to appreciate what he was trying to tell me. I dozed off quite quickly. Thinking back, I really feel like slapping myself =( Our grandparents, and some of you, great grand parents were indeed brave. Brave enough to wonder into the unknowns, start a new life in a place with no kin and to eventually take up citizenships and set up families. If this piece of history would to be repeat itself, i guessed many of us would not have the guts to go as far as our grandparents/great grand parents since we have been living in comfort zone all our lives.