Rant 899 / Coping

The hotel reservation has been confirmed!

I've also guaranteed my reservation with my debit card, and together with my special request which mentions my late arrival, the likelihood of them giving away my room is pretty low.

Still, it's China, so it's still slightly possible.

The only way to guarantee that I'll have no problem is if I pay in full now, which the system doesn't allow.

If I pay in full and the hotel is filled before my arrival, they will still be obligated to get me a room somewhere. It's not as good but it beats finding a room by myself.

And at midnight. With my luggage.




I've also found a website that charges even less for the exact same reservation at S$228.06 for the three nights, inclusive of all the extra fees and stuff. That's S$76.02 per night.

And yes, I checked the currency and made sure it was in SGD.

Given that hotels.com does not include breakfast in that reservation, I don't think I mind the $9-breakfast. I'm no morning person, so a hotel breakfast with the convenient location is probably worth the price difference ($8.98 to be exact).





Finally, I've re-checked the location of the hotel and the place(s) I'm planning to go to. They're within walking distance of about one kilometre, so it's great!

What other problems will I encounter next?


I'm aware that there is going to be A LOT of walking during my 2 days there. Even if I exclude that 1-km walk to and fro, which would total 2km, I'll still be spending my day doing nothing but walk and shop.

Fortunately it's winter, so it might not be so bad. However I doubt the Shanghainese winter is going to prevent me from sweating.

IMO it's actually a good thing that I'm having reservist training the week before the trip. I may have to do more walking than usual during that week, and that probably will make a good warm-up.











Bought some durian on Sunday. Wasn't cheap. $8 per packet of the XO durian, each containing two strips of the flesh with 2-3 seeds. $12 for two, so I bought 2.

Most likely it's still expensive but it's not like I eat durians all the time.

In fact it's been at least 5 years since I last ate fresh durian. It's been so long I don't even remember how long exactly anymore.

The XO durian indeed tastes alcoholic, although probably not like XO. Since I've only had a single glass in my entire life, I'm not a good judge of the flavour.

Anyway I could only handle one box. The other box shall have to wait till the next day.

My bro's gf was around and she doesn't like durian, so my bro is barred from eating it as long as she is present.











Burnt my soup yesterday morning. I was bringing it to a boil as usual after I got out of bed, but this time I forgot to set an alarm to remind myself to go back and check after 5mins.

My door was close so I couldn't smell anything until it was horrendously burnt, but my bro's door wasn't.

He smelled the burning, turned off the stove and poured water into the pot.

The soup was pitch black like coffee, but later in the afternoon, he discovered that the pot was still salvageable unlike the last 2 pots I burnt in the last two months.

Those were so bad even the metal scrubs couldn't get rid of the burn marks.

This one merely had a few slightly brown scars.

That I consider lucky. I was so pissed at the thought of losing this pot that I was saying that I'm not making soup anymore.

It's a good WMF pot.

It would have been like losing my Tefal wokpan that I've been using (and shown in my previous pictures).

These cookware is one of the benefits of my job. Working with middle-aged mothers mean I get to know about good discounts on branded cookware when they pop up.