The Mandarin Orchard

I must admit that I have a soft spot for old hotels. In Malaysia, we do not have many of those, and if there were, they were all still relatively new. That was why I was always keen on E&O, Smokehouse and similar colonial-like establishment.

In KL, there were not that many of those. So, I tended to gravitate toward hotels established since the 70s. Shangri-La in KL, Hilton PJ to name a few. The service tended to be more established although I was detecting a decline in the service at the PJ hotel mentioned.

The rather understated main lobby, located on the fifth floorAdorning the ceiling of the lobby was this rather unique detailWhen I was in Singapore recently, I stayed at Mandarin Orchard. Not exactly a new hotel, but certainly they offered modern amenities. The hotel was originally opened in 1971, and since then, they have added new wings. I stayed at one of the newer wing during my overnight stay and the service was excellent. Food was nice as well.

Only before I left that I realised that there was a boutique mall at the ground floor of the hotel, which included outlet from Tumi, Bell and Ross as well as a Leica. I asked for a grip for my Q, but they didn’t have it in stock ….

The hotel was located near a few of the major shopping outlets in Orchard Road, and an Apple outlet was only 5 minutes away. Managed to get a nice case for Anita’s phone during that trip. There was a couple of MRT stations right around the corner and a McDonald’s outlet behind my block. Certainly was a great location.

The Leica store at the hotel lobbyOne of the exit from my hotel. Straight from the lift from my floor.All the guests also had access to a mobile phone for them to take around from the room. It allowed me to make free phone calls to Malaysia in fact to 15 countries. A neat system and it had a free internet SIM at LTE speed. All free, unlimited internet. Shame that you couldn’t use it to tether!

The hotel also has free wifi, which is quite fast and all the things you would expect in a modern hotel ….

The hotel official website is here.

Back to Uncle Truno

Last month’s haircut was a disastrous one. Truno was away, in between job. We went to one of his old place and had a cut by one of the resident stylist.

To cut a long story short, Irfan was in tears after the cut. It was bad!

Truno was back and yesterday he cut our hair. It was completely different story. Idlan even agreed to have a wash, something he rarely agreed to ….

Equilibrium had been restored ….

A New Beginning

Idlan had been to Sri Utama for 9 years, starting with 3 years of kindie and all his Sekolah Rendah years. During the years, a number of his friends had left to other schools. Idlan stayed as it was convenient for us as Anita’s parents lived quite nearby, and Irfan was going to the same school as well.

Early this month, Idlan sat for his UPSR. And with that, we decided it was time to move on. Idlan was not keen to take SPM, preferring GCSE and A-levels instead. He made his mind up early.

That also started our search for a new school.

We visited a few, but at the end was happy with a couple. We let Idlan select between the final two.

And he wanted this one. He had to sit for an interview and can entrance assessment, which should have taken 4 and a half hours. He finished after two, having to write a couple of essays along the way. He was really pumped up to go to this school.

I wonder what was Anita signing ...Waiting for his tutor to take him to his classLast week came the news that there was an opening. The tutor mentioned how impressed they were with Idlan’s communications skills and he was exempted from any extra English classes. And better still, he jumped a year, and was now equivalent to Form Two, since the school terms starts in September.

This morning, I took him for his first day. We were greeted by his tutor, and within 2 minutes was whisked away. Looking forward to hear of his experience later this afternoon. As for us, we decided to have breakfast near school to wait for the morning traffic to dissipate.

Quick breakfast before heading back to work ....Welcome to the new school Idlan. I was sure you were going to love it …..

The Wii U needs Fixing

Our Wii U must have been almost 4 years old. It had held up well, despite also having the PS$, the boys were still keen on them. The latest addition was Starfox, to add to the ever popular Splatoon.

But the charger for the handheld controller had stopped working the day before I left for Singapore and Idlan had been nagging me all day on my return. We finally got the replacement from a shop in Plaza Damas. We were lucky since there were not many places left which carry those items anymore. Wii U was almost at the end of its life cycle and the titles were now slow coming.

Well done Infinity Games at Plaza Damas. A real life saver!

Expressushi No More

Our favourite little sushi joint has moved on. They were no longer at Great Eastern Mall. The branch was now about 5 minutes away at a condominium complex. One of Anita's friend lives at the condo and last month, Anita and Idlan went to have a quick meal there.

Yesterday, while we were at the GE Mall where Irfan had his tooth filling done, we stopped by to see what was going on with the old venue.

It had now been renovated and taken over by a sundae shop called Squeeze Me Baby! Idlan was curious. We should've had a sample but he stood in awe instead and then left. No squeezing there...