Note: This post may make you very jealous :p
From almost mid-late October 2010, Woon Han Chong and Priscilla Phua started to plan a big celebration, for Patricia Tay...
Lovely Patricia looking to the sky
We didn't want her to know anything about it, so Pris would be in-charged of booking Pat's time, while I got around with the logistics. But stupid me accidentally smsed Pat, mistaking her for Pris and it kinda wrote,
"You think Pat would prefer an Atas life at MBS, or outdoor at Sentosa?"
Luckily, Pat still remained clueless...
This pic speaks of 1 word. "Huh?"
After a few meetings and conference over the phone, we came out with a final solution of something that most Singaporeans (except the already atas Singaporeans and gamblers) want to do at least once in Singapore.
Marina Bay Sands, I choose you!
Thus, the plan came into action. Recognizing the dates whereby we would be free, finding out which day would be appropriate, taking everyone's exams into mind, knowing our overseas trip's schedule, expecting which day she won't be free etc.
We finally came out with the date to hold her Birthday Present, and that's a whopping 1 month before her actual birthday. For that, I'm very sorry as it seems as though we wanted to get it over with and don't seem sincere :/ The date was set on 6th Nov 2010 - 7th Nov 2010.
And then there I was... looking over the website of MBS. There were several rooms as I looked through, with Club Room being the best of the rooms and Suites seemingly too big sized for 3 people. Needless to say, these are mostly above our budget, so I went for the normal one, Horizon Deluxe............
Takahina, "Ok, check in at 3pm... check out at 11am... blah blah..."
MBS personnel over the counter, "blah blah."
I might wanna add though, reserving over the internet is a bit of a confusion. You're "reserving" over the internet, not "booking" or "buying". The actual payment only comes at check in and check out. MBS you didn't make this clear so you may wanna do something about it? (I wrote it in your feedback anyways, if any personnel working there is reading this you may want to take note.)
The day came on the 6th. I was commanded by Pris to check in first before meeting up. Kinda a screw up here, cause I don't have a credit card with a limit high enough for MBS and THEREFORE I CAN'T CHECK IN YET UNTIL PRIS COMES ALONG WITH HER CREDIT CARD!!!
For this I deserve a facepalm.
And soooo... after the walk under the sun and me waiting, listening to the 4 piece chinese orchestra band and exploring the MBS for quite a bit like where the toilet and the breakfast/dinner/pub is etc,
The miniature of the whole MBS which has yet to be fully constructed will greet you at the entrance
Beside the miniature is a mini vehicle which is actually function-able
The whole metallic structure will hail you once you look to the top in the lobby.
The hallway, right side being the main restaurant for your breakfast/lunch/dinner buffet. Left is the way to the casino, shops etc
If I may add, I saw quite a bit of loud mouth ah tiongs in the area. Who says they are poor?!?!
Soon enough, the 2 ladies arrived. Sadly though Pat took more interest in the miniature and went STRAIGHT for it, ignoring me...
Haiz.
Anyways, I got the credit card (tks Pris) and finally checked in while Pat was happily chattering away with her experience at the SIA audition. During the initial check in, this was the news I heard from the staff,
"Due to the shortage of rooms from the influx of tourist, we couldn't managed to get you the room you booked and thus upgraded your room to the club room."
We're freaking lucky. ;) I love the way they said, "we couldn't managed to get you the room you booked". Its as if we don't fancy the club room. Heh Heh Heh...
And so, we got our check in cards, room number and needed stuff. So here we go...
Credits to Pat who took all the photos with her fast snapping Iphone 4 camera, and her story telling through the pictures...
First is the elevator with some guards looking over at us. We proudly flaunted our room cards.
Our room is 4971, which is the highest floor for rooms. The highest floor is 55 for the pool, 50-54 are the suites which uses another elevator.
This is the lift area at the higher floors. You can see out to the Singapore River from the side mirror. We're all getting pretty excited at this point of time.
Corridor to our rooms.
Reached our rooms and Pris had the honors of opening the room.
We entered, and there was quite a sight waiting for us. Right in front of us is the big window facing into the city area. It has 2 sections...
Bed Section
Sofa Section
Desk along with the Sofa.
Toilets were quite grand too.
Toilets were taken on the last day, so you can see some carnage around....
The cubicles for shower and "business".
Finally the bath tub that the 2 girls have been so excited about.
At this point of time, Pat can't stop taking photos as she scattered around the room, I was mainly messing around with the TV while Pris succumbed to the bed's temptation.
Guilty as caught...
View from our window.
Another view from the SAME window.
And finally a trio photo at the mirror for camwhoring sake. ;)
The one thing that makes MBS so magical, will have to be the sky garden. The weird looking surfboard on top of 3 curved structure makes for a very unique view. Plus the location is prime for overseeing the whole city area.
Thus so, the 3 of us, unwilling to waste any of the little time we have left, headed for the Sky Garden on the 55th Floor. One thing to note though, by right you need a door card to get through to the 55th Floor, as I booked the hotel under 2 person (adding 1 more person will need an additional $100 O_O), we only had 2 cards, but still we kinda went through. With just a few smiles, hello and thank you from the 2 girls, they easily made their way through while I just followed behind...
Smiles from these 2 ladies can make any Unker/Bouncer/Guards/Men stop work and let them through any form of gates/barriers/doors.
If it's like this guy...
I'm hungry (sorry Benji.. I just gotta put this pic in hahaha...)
or the guy featured in this IC...
A photo like that could make you constantly in trouble with the law, Mr Chong.
There is NO freaking way we can smuggle in smoothly.
Eventually, we made our way to the Sky Garden...
The first sight was breathtaking. Even though it's not the first time I saw the city area of Singapore from the top, but it's the first time I had such a vast and unblocked view. The magnificence can't be absorbed or contained entirely with 1 view. It requires a less focused, less concentrated view, but an open mentality and vision to take in all the awesomeness. Which is kinda the reason we went there for, to relax, to be less stressed, to be relieved of it and acceptance of future that we will face and see in our lives.
Of course, we need to camwhore a bit. ;)
Then, it's the time to swim. (By right... there are TONS of photos taken... but due to the Singapore Decency Act, it'll not be featured in this blog despite this blog posting worse stuff before.)
So, in the end, Takahina will just show himself. In his... FULL OPEN GLORY!
Drool Girls... DROOLLLLL.....
It's quite crowded actually. To find a place to lie down isn't simple. You gotta come early and kinda "chope" the pool beds. While I was reserving the beds, tons of people were asking me whether it was available or not. For those thinking of going to the pool, go there early. Take it from Takahina ;)
A very Singaporean example, "choping" with HP, high class places requires high class "choping" equipments. Tissues won't work here.
We swam among the clouds, frolicked among the clouds , and looked more of the view from the hanging pool. It was freaking cold actually. The wind was damn strong and the water aren't exactly heated. A pity though is that if the haze was still present. You can literally see clouds and smoke/smog below, now that would be surreal.
We stayed till the sun started to set...
As the sun set, so did our day. However the night was just beginning...
Takahina doesn't look as atas, cause he doesn't have the robes... :(
Night View from our room.
The girls went on to have a longgggggggg bath while Takahina just slacked 1 korner and looked through the available dining places. Apparently they did show restaurants available, but didn't put up any prices whatsoever. Directions to those places was not very clear either. Therefore lesson learned, you better hear of the restaurants in the area first rather than rely on the hotel.
Undeniably, after our swim and bath, we were all damn hungry. Pris became freaking serious and we were afraid. So we ran out in search of food....
By some chance or rather, there were very little restaurants open in the shopping area. We saw Coffee Bean which was packed filled (something you would seldom see in other parts of Singapore), passed by a few signature restaurants that warrant 1/3 of the hotel room in price and even entered the casino by chance!
....
Sorry no photos. Casino doesn't allow phototaking. Pat was happily snapping away though until someone told her she can't. :/
This was all she managed to savage in pics of the Casino. The roof :x
The casinos, as compared to Genting's was huge and very empty. Tons of tables were not opened and only a few had players in. The rest only had traces of the dealer sitting there lonely. Jackpots machines around seemed very popular though. The design though were much much classier and exquisite. Sounds of gamblers shouting "picture! picture! Ah pek! Ah pek!" was missing too, so it's a total different feeling from that of Genting.
In the end, tired and hungry we dragged ourselves all the way to Esplanade, which is the closest and around a 15mins walk + run. It started to rain on the way and we got rather drenched.
Had dinner at the Thai Express there which serves relatively good Thai food actually.
Among the thai food we had, in terms of ratings...
Starting from no.3 best,
Prawn Pancake
A favorite among the both of them, I think it's nice, but not superbly awesome though. Still it's a good appetizer.
Green Curry
Pat absolutely hated it. Pris was ok-ok with it while I loved it. Spicy foods are a favorite of mine and this one is spicy, too spicy for Pat though. :p Great with rice but NOT TO DRINK LIKE A SOUP.
Pineapple Rice
It's surprisingly good actually. At first I thought it seemed normal, but the flavor is rich and portion just nice for the average people. (Not Takahina, he eats like a Sumo :X) Even though I had tasted better Pineapple Rice elsewhere, this one was quite awesome.
Drinks wise, the Watermelon-Lime drink... I can't really remember actually, was pretty good. Quite cooling too.
Now as we were eating, we were thinking how to spend the night through. Going out would be a waste of the hotel, so we figured to stay in instead. That kinda means booze and snacks are a must.
But in consideration for my cotton wool stomach, instead of the usual hard liquor we got...
Sake, White Wine and Red Wine (1 extra bottle was brought from my brother as he wanted to visit the room and I asked him to pass me some clothes and charger...
Potato Chips. This one actually taste good!
Everyone's enemy of the night, the super spicy ちょうううう～～辛い (Chooooooo~~ Karai) Wasebi Nuts. It was a mystery as to why Pat bought this. :x
So with things prepped, we headed back to the hotel.
Overall verdict for dinner if you're staying at MBS... Order Pizzahut/KFC/Mcdonalds delivery. It's seriously better than the walk all the way to Esplanade >.<>_>
Had fun at night, playing card games, drinking here and there, talking and chatting, watching cartoon network... (yes cartoon network),
I did some push ups too...
Seriously no kick. ;)
And you may think that Pris's foot was on the ground, that doesn't change the weight she has on me... REALLY...
Wasabi Beans actually became a dare as well since NO ONE wanted to eat them.
Takahina remains the brave soul to eat it. ;)
I might add though, I still have some at home and brought them to work. They work AWESOME as a wake-up call. If you have friends drunk like this...
Sam, your sister made us do it... serious!!!!
You can just pop in a whole packet of the Wasebi beans, they will freaking wake up. Serious.
Lastly, Pat had a bua duku as she "wiiiiiiii" and "THUD" her head against the chair when she thought it was a sofa... long story...
Nevertheless, the night passed by quickly and soon it was morning.
When you go to a hotel to stay, there are several objectives you HAVE TO meet.
1. Waste the night away.
2. Have a soak in the bathtub full of bubbles.
3. See what channels they have, you never know...
4. Morning Buffet Breakfast
Frankly, the buffet breakfast CANNOT be ignored. I make it a point to eat it. However I was still feeling baffled as to whether we get free complimentary breakfast or not. The thing about MBS is that they lacked details which makes it irritating for people like me who would DEFINITELY eat hotel breakfast.
So, as usual the Takahina is ALWAYS the first to wake up somehow or another. He wakes up, forces the other 2 up through the temptation of a morning breakfast buffet. It worked wonders for Pat, but not so for Pris who very much preferred to sleep it through. Shows you their behavior. :/
Morning View 1
Morning View 2... taken from Pat's brilliant IP4. She can seriously endorse it I swear.
After a bit of scuffling and dressing up, we went over to the Rise Restaurant.
The Coffee Place/Bar/Lounge section.
Our Seat
Takahina being Takahina, went STRAIGHT for the food. When it comes to buffets, Takahina has only 1 rule:
You eat everything, at least a bite, for EVERYTHING. Unless you don't like the look of it.
Sadly, buffets never look bad.
The concept was the usual; Western, Asian, Breads etc. And as any high class hotels/buffets would have, it will feature an omelet counter. Pat told Takahina to go for it immediately and so he did.
Pat's first kill
Pat's style is more of a eat whatever I think I want to eat. She has a different philosophy from that of Takahina's. Therefore her's was quite a mixture of various looking food which ended up making her food looking neo-asianic western.
Takahina was more to the point... but because it's kinda gross, Pat didn't want to take a picture of it. :/
Anyways, of food ranking...
No. 3!
Omelets just cooked straight from the pan never disappoints.
In a buffet, anything which is hot will definitely stand out and the long line of queue waiting for the eggs to be done says a lot. Omelets are good here. I won't say it's exceptionally memorable, but you just can't reject them.
No.2!!
Western meat, a.k.a HONEY BAKED HAM
Call me a glutton whatsoever, but salty pieces of meat in your mouth in the morning never goes wrong. The bacon isn't that good imo, too tough. But the sausage and the honey baked ham... THE HONEY BAKED HAM!! That was awesome. Additionally you don't really get to eat the chunks of ham like this, normally they'll give it to you in slices which doesn't look appetizing and oily. This one wasn't, it's nicely lit, bright, doesn't look oily and it's just sitting right there, waiting for you to snatch a piece of it away.
You will want to ta pao it home. Trust me.
No. 1 !!!!!!
I'm the best thing that this whole hotel has gotta offer and I look unappetizing to be frank.
No, this is not a pile of mess. It's FAR from it.
It's the best thing in the buffet. It's not the drink, it's not the fried rice, it's not the tim sum, it's not the bread. It's this. The Bread Pudding.
I have to admit, I'm not that much of a pastry fan. The main pastry I eat is at Red Bean Bread at night and Cinnamon Melts of McDonalds, so this was totally new to me. Pat had me tried it, saying how incredibly nice it is. And so it was.
I don't know how other Bread Pudding tasted like, but for me this is the best... or seems the best. The texture and taste of it was delicate and not too awfully sweet; simply put it was addictive. Would crave to have more of it if possible.... Sadly though, by the time I had the first bite of the bread pudding, I was close to being full (yeah like that was ever gonna happen.. >_>), so I didn't went for my 3rd, 4th, 5th servings etc...
At the same time, there were some disappointments.
Bacon for example, was too tough and dry for my liking. Kinda felt like it was left there overnight, re-roasted and re-served again.
Epik Phail Counter
The Porridge they have were so bad, Pris can't even finish a small bowl of it. It was too watery and lacked the substance and coagulation of the normal congee that we can find in our kopitiam. Choices of assortments wasn't fantastic as well. The porridge that I had on cruises were much much better.
They had cold Soba as well, I guess to attend to the Japanese tourist staying. But it lacked colour, didn't have light, felt like it was left there for such a long period of time cold Soba can become lukewarm Soba. Needless to say, I didn't even touch it at all.
The rest were kinda just of satisfactory standard, but somehow for a hotel like MBS, you would expect more from the buffet.
Hence, we finished our meals and off we went back to our room.
The check out time was at 11am. We still had some time left so off we went around taking last minute photos.
Skypark was a favourite, thus we can't let it off...
Pat with her "V"
The Woon overdoing the V, and ended up looking like Ah Tiongs...
See the similarity?
We followed on, did our packing and took some more pics. The room was kinda devastated by us but we didn't really care. :/ The roomkeepers need to earn their keep.
Proof that we had been here.
After checking out at the lift lobby.
The day was sunday, time around 11.30am. We all had our own things to do later that day, such as Pat needing to return back a calculator, Pris with her own stuff and me going for my auditions. It was once again back to the hectic life we have in Singapore.
Overall, it was kinda dreamy. MBS itself is situated at quite a weird place, it's not very accessible to be frank and other amenities requires quite a bit of walking. But at the same time, it's this very essence that makes it dreamy. I remember walking along the road beside the hotel and looking up into the sky and the MBS structure. You don't really see reminiscence of any other thing Singapore except for the taxi. The sky was slightly damp due to the ending rain and a little misty perhaps due to it being near the coastlines. For a minute, I thought that I wasn't in Singapore.
The night brought me some memories from the past as well as determination for future routes to go. Striving hard so I can stay here again is now part of my objective. ;)
And thanks to our luck, we got one of the best rooms. Should be from the birthday girl I suppose. :)
I had fun there. Hope you had fun as well. :D
Photos are taken by Patricia and she has full credit for the photos featured in this post. But it's arguable whether it's her hp that's good, or her photography skills are good. :/
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