s'pore tour

Our second day began with us realising that our thin blankets just weren't enough in the air-con. The other realisation was that unless there was some timer to turn the air-con on/off every 5 mins, we couldn't live without that either. Hence began the great battle for hotel comfort...

The offense:  We rang up the (incompetent) hotel receptionist and asked for some extra blankets. "No problem!" was the reply. "They'll be up sometime today!"

It seemed like an honest response, so we left and had a look around S'pore. It was a pretty city. And pretty small. But it did offer a lot; In this compact country that rivalled the size and population of Melbourne city, you pretty much had everything. Lots of tourist spots, shopping business tall buildings, even a beach with sand imported right from St Kilda (it smells just as bad! - kidding!)

We had some cheap food (as there really isn't any expensive food - it;s just the cheap stuff in nicer looking plates and surroundings...) and soaked in the atmosphere... or at least the humidity. This place was only marginally better than primordial soup that was Darwin. Mr shade and I always knew each other, but I was never keen to get to know him. In the last 2 days, we had become inseperable - I ducked into any shady place I could find: dark alleys, under trees, even the shade from lamp posts! Though I like S'pore, it might just be too humid to sustain life for yours truly.

After our wanderings, we returned to our rooms, not to find any blankets, but a rather angry note.

The retort: Hi, this is housekeeping - we came to give you blankets and saw that the bed mattress was taken off the bed. This can damage the bed and we'll have to charge you if this occurs. Please fix this imediately.

The story was - when we first came, we also encountered this ineptness. We had booked a room for 3 seperate beds. What we got was a double and a single and they were not willing to accommodate. So we decided to take the mattress layer off the double so we could effectively have 2 beds, but obviously this was a big no no. Remember - we asked for another bed and were vehemently denied, despite our booking terms.

Anyway, we fixed the bed up (so that if housekeeping came back, it'd look normal) and demanded more blankets just before we left for dinner. We were told they' be up ASAP and we should find it after we return from dinner etc.

We come back and find.... nothing! They had done shit and all. So all of us angrily stomp down to reception to ask the lady there to see what is going on. She refers us to the porter (yep - for some reason the porter was meant to know!) who quickly refers us back to the lady, since... well it's her job!

The battle: against stupidity

The receptionist blatantly says "Look, I'm really busy. We will ring housekeeping tomorrow!" After explaining that we are basically leaving tomorrow and need blankets now, she says "look, they don't keep blankets here! Take a look at the cupboards under here, I've got nothing to give you! This is such a hassle!"

For fucks sake woman! You're sitting behind the reception desk; of course there isn't going to be any fucking sheets under there! Dim witted retard, we meant get us some from where-ever they are kept! Luckily, before we got really pissed, a nice manager-esque dude came and explained that he'd take us up to the housekeeping locked cupboard to try and see if we could get it open.  I've never seen such security for a blanket before! Now, at this point, I'd like to point out that these sheets/blankets were nothing special, just warm. They were behind 3 sets of locked doors, the last of which we couldn't open. I suppose if you're house keeping, that's about all you can do - change sheets.

The victory: theirs - what the fuck do you do when you deal with retards? At least the last guys honestly did try/was helpful and friendly. Hotel Grand Orchrd - you officially suck!