St Regis Singapore

I really made an effort to get there. Anita had a good deal booking into one of the suites at the hotel. It would be such a waste of we let it passed. Especially when everything had been paid for.

Arriving at 4 am meant that we wasted a day's stay. But still checking in was straight forward and we declined to be sent up, opting to make our own way there. Straight away we ordered some food - more like a super early breakfast for me.

A quick shower and I was already in fairy land. I was really tired. The bed and the shower were just amazing.

The main lobby. Rather quite in late morning.The next morning, I woke up for some omelette as a second breakfast. The breakfast in the room were part of the package of you opt against going down to the café. Limited selection but in mornings such as this, it was priceless.

I spent the next day walking with my camera while Anita did some exploring in the hotel. The Butler we were assigned to confirmed our booking for the Night Safari later in the day while I had an afternoon nap.

The exterior looked unassuming Time for afternoon teaWe got back from the safari at 11 pm, straight away into the shower while the boys sat in the bath. The next morning, we had a proper breakfast by the pool - again amazing food.

Even though our stay there was short, it was enjoyable. I would definitely recommend it although the pool at Marina Bay Sands was hard to beat. The location being near Orchard Road was a plus if shopping was part of the plan.

Should I have more time, I would've sampled the pool. Maybe next time ...

Airport Adventure

As you would probably knew, we were in Singapore last weekend. The original plan was to fly there. Everything went smoothly until it was time to board the plane. Idlan had a panic attack and started screaming.

We ended up abandoning the plan to fly. But since we had booked our suite and the tickets for the Night Safari, I decided to drive all the way down there.

But first, I had to clear the immigration again to re-enter the airport and then went to claim our checked-in luggage which had to be removed from the belly of the aircraft.

That took almost a couple of hours. We then drove back yo Gombak to exchange the car. My C200 needed servicing and I wouldn't wasn't t take the risk of driving all the way to Singapore in it. That detour to change into our MPV wasted another hour and a half. We finally set off from KL close to 10 pm.

I had to make a couple of nap stops - once in Ayer Keroh and another in Machap. We finally reached out hotel room at 5 am, having a quick supper - or should I say early breakfast - before I took a longer nap. It was before noon when I finally woke up, in time to take Idlan out for lunch.

Then another nap after lunch.

Our transport for the Zoo was due at 6.15. I managed a couple of hours of walking around Orchard Road before we departed - and learn the awesome power of the GoPro.

Then came the trip to the zoo before having a nice KL g breakfast the next morning before we set off again back home to Kuala Lumpur. More tiring than I bargained for but at least we did our traveling.

We still need to sort out Idlan's fear of flying. We thought that he would be OK. We were more worried about Anita. In July, Idlan has a school trip to Chiangmai arranged. Not sure if he would be able to deal with that trip ...

SRVNT

This was something unique I saw at Riuh the other day. A company call SRVNT - a hip spelling for "servant" - was doing their brand of dakwah through awesome design work. They basically came up with contemporary T-shirts and posters, all depicting Islam in the way the young can connect.

In the age where social media is the way to communicate, why not use your talent for dakwah in unconventional ways. I didn't quite catch the name of the person manning the stall but I was impressed on how he went about explaining his concept and products.

Details and contactsIt may be best to see what they had to offer via Instagram. They were still a small company and were still developing their products. They had a great concept and was trying to scale up. It would be challenging but if they did it right, they would own the space. Not many hipster Moslem preachers around the last time I checked. Yes, there were a few pretenders around for sure.

I would suggest you follow their instagram or Facebook, go and visit their stall the next time they open shop to learn a bit more about what they were all about. All the best brader!

Return to Riuh

It looks like the APW at Jalan Riong had taken off as a site to chill at during weekends. And one weekend a month, a party was added to the place where pop up stories were opened as well as shows and exhibits to complement the already swanky cafés they had there.

This monthly event was called Riuh and aptly describe the party atmosphere it generates. Since it was near my place, plus it was a post-call afternoon, I decided to hang there for an hour having coffee and checking out what was going on.

The battle planUnfortunately, I was late and most of the food were gone by then ...Decided to give this one a miss this tripA few stalls caught my eyes as well as some nice food. I decided for a simple coffee this time around and just let the minute pass by. Plenty of folks were there, young families as well as the hipsters. Everybody seemed to be mingling there happily.

Back indoors where the stalls were locatedSome really great work here on displayArea for children to have funEven Doof were aroundI wasn't really in the mood to shopWhile I was there, a group of young capoeira practitioners came to do an exhibition. Quite exhilarating actually. With the weather being nice, I actually quite enjoyed the spectacle. Shame that the parking arrangement remained a pain. I decided to park half a kilometer away to avoid the congestion. Something the organizer needed to look into.

Wanna try durian in public?Saving the dates for the next instalment Back to stall area where I sat to have some coffeeSpace for kids to run aroundTaking a breather with some ice mochaI would definitely be stopping by in the future events there. Even maybe woukd.make a point to just stop there on Sunday afternoons. The coffee was certainly nice enough.

New Look IKANO

When I first returned from the UK, one of the first mall I went to visit was Ikano Power Centre. It was brand new back then. Just opened. The mall opposite, The Curve have yet to be opened. IKEA was only just being planned.

It was a stand alone mall but with Harvey Norman and other anchor tenants, they were doing well. They also had a very good food court on the top floor - which has since been replaced with Toys'r'Us. Since it was by the highway - NKVE and LDP was not that busy back then - getting there and back was convenient. Parking spaces were also aplenty.

Inside the new flagship Harvey-Norman store

Over the years they had many changes but none were as drastic as from the beginning of the year. The mall had been closed for a good part of a year now and was just reopened before Xmas. A major departure from what it used to look like.

Now, Harvey Norman expanded to a couple of floors. The whole of lower ground on one side was occupied by Ben' groceries shop. Cold Storage had moved out. The place also looked cleaner and brighter.

The many eateries on the lower ground floor remained opened, and on the evening that we went to visit, it was packed. Looked like it was a change for the better ...