Thursday, October 18, 2007
Blessing in return from above ?
I thank God that we had ample resources to go. It has been a long-time wish of mine to bring my parents to Hong Kong for holidays. They have never gone beyond Indonesia. Mother had been busy with babysitting my niece. Younger bro had wanted to sponsor mother for a trip as well, esp upon seeing the 'hard' and 'heart' work mother had been providing for my elder sister and her daughter... Recently learnt that the confirmed 'window period' mother is available for a break i.e. no babies to take care yet, until my 2nd niece 'arrive at her doorstep'. Thus, proceeded to check out packages. It was rather late for any package tour. After some ding-dong-ing, it was decided that me and hubby would go. I never quite thought that I might go, as earlier, I have given my promise to cover a colleague's work for 8 days during the rest of this mth. Anyway, am glad that there is no compromise in my work and other family members were able to make adjustment to faciliate parents to go on this trip.
Mother is already having 'withdrawal symptoms' for not taking care of babies. *sigh* Anyway, 1 thing for sure is that she does look forward to visiting HK. Am glad that hubby, who had visited 3x, is able to play tour guide. :)
Am taking the 6.45am flight! Will be back on Sunday late night. Hope to return work on Monday morning, without being zombified !
Glad to 'conquer' Hong Kong ahead of projected time! Here we come! :)
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
"Popped-up" tiles
It was a Sunday evening some months ago when we returned home. While awaiting the light to come on, I found myself almost tripping over! When the light came on, I realised, Wala! the tiles had poped up in a row...
We spoke to neighbours and found out that some form of compensation was given for alternate accommodation plus HDB rectification is of poor quality. Of course, my contractor husband took over from then onwards.
We managed to book Aloha chalet for 4 straight days. Unfortunately, after that 4 days, the flat was still not in any condition to stay in. Thus, we decided to spoil ourselves to stay at a local hotel. After all, we have never done that. Earlier, I was very much looking forward to try out The Scarlet. However, the room I wanted to experience was way too sky rocket high to even dream about... Thus, we settled at Holiday Inn Atrium, which was booked online.
The services we had there was disappointing. One wonders why staff treat you differently when you did not produce any passports and informed that you are locals. What was most unbearable was that hubby was denied entry when he returned the 2nd day afternoon for a shower and short rest! The staff only record my name and not his! Days later, I found out that the hotel had not cancel the security deposit tied to the credit card used for booking the rooms, when all accounts were cleared during check out time. Unthinkable! I wrote a complaint letter weeks after checking out. I thought they have 'wakened up their ideas' since they took the trouble to check out my mailing address and sent me a nicely-worded apology letter and offered some promises of enrolling into their international membership - if I contact them via email or phone. Sad to say, this time round, after sending a less angry and more appreciative worded email, there was no news.
Holiday Inn Atrium hotel - blacklisted for good.
I guess you can sense the fury in me as you read about the unpleasant 2-day stay hubby and I had there. Talking about it jus seemed to stir my blood to boil! However, I am glad that God has blessed us, in that despite of the 6-day 'holiday' we had, we had ample finances to 'along the way', changed our kitchen tiles, which had no 'popping signs' but were easily dirtied. And at the end of it all, we still had leftovers from the compensation! Am glad that hubby agreed with me that we should bless the Lord accordingly from the onset when we received the compensation.
God is good.