I looked at my profile picture as I was logging in and it's official - my man-hair is gone! My hair has grown out and it's back to its normal pre-man-hair length! What a relief. Another thing is that I have already gone TEN weeks since my last hair colour appointment and my roots are just now beginning to show! Every day when I wake up and look in the mirror I say a little thank you to my amazing colourist back home - Rashid who did an incredibly good job matching my natural colour so I don't have to run and have my roots retouched every three weeks. A true master of hair colouring, he is. Laurent also did a good job making sure that I won't have to go and get haircut in Singapore - hence the man-hair style... I will definitely NOT be getting a haircut any time soon :).
Work has gotten a bit slower this week, for the first time since we got here, really. Which is a good thing, I am enjoying a little bit looser schedule and the fact that I can actually leave the apartment and go sit at the swimming pool and read while the maid is cleaning the apartment, rather than dancing around her mop with my hands still glued to the keyboard... I've slept way too late today and I won't even admit here what time I woke up because Bryan may read it and get a heart attack - he was up at 5.45 poor thing to get ready for the first meeting he had at 7 am. I am really glad he got to rest and relax last weekend, because he really is working hard and with the Big Cut-Off / Go-Live (or whatever other weird two-word name it has) Week coming next week his work days are about to get even longer.
Last Friday we left for our second long-weekend trip this summer, to an Indonesian island called Bintan. Bintan is a very popular destination for a weekend trip from Singapore, as it only takes a 40-minute ferry ride to get there. We left on Friday late in the morning and came back to Singapore on Monday evening. To travel there and back we paid a little extra and got Emerald Class tickets for the ferry and we've decided that the additional 50 or so dollars that we spent was the best we've done for ourselves in a long time. Our Emerald Class tickets got us not only nicer, more comfortable seats on the upper deck of the ferry but also, more importantly, priority check-in, priority boarding and then priority immigration and customs clearance in Indonesia. Which is worth any money, really (within reasonable limits, of course ;). The Indonesian government is very clever about earning money off the visiting tourists so every time you enter Indonesia you have to pay 25$ for a one-time visa (multiple-entry visas can only be obtained at the embassy and I don't even have a clue as to how much they are and how hard it is to actually get them). The visa needs to be purchased upon arrival - so first you have to stand in a looong line to buy a visa and then it needs to be placed in your passport, following a Very Thorough examination of the said passport, by the immigration officer. To meet the immigration officer you stand in another long line. And then you wait for your luggage. We avoided all this by getting our Emerald Class tickets - there was a separate booth opened for us and the few other chosen ones and we were on the other side and in Indonesia in no time, with our suitcase already waiting for us. We managed to pack into one medium-size suitcase but after we got back to Singapore we decided that next time - if there is ever a next time in Bintan - we will just take carry-ons with us, that will expedite the process even more... Another thing we needed to make sure before going to Indonesia is that each of us has an actual whole empty page in our passport - the Indonesian visa takes up a whole page and they simply won't let you in if you don't have a free page in your passport. While in our short line, we even considered asking the immigration officer to perhaps put the new visa on top of the old visa that they put in there when we went to Bali - but then we chickened out - all the Indonesian border officers are really serious and scary and so another page of our passports is taken by a big colourful Indonesian visa now. Bryan is running out of pages. But at least he is aware of that - he told me a story of some guys from his work who on the spur of the moment decided to spend a day on the beach away from Singapore. When they got to the ferry terminal one of them realized he forgot his passport. So he went back to the hotel to get it while the other two waited for him at the terminal. When he arrived with his passport the ferry to Bintan, where they were planning to go, was already long gone. They still decided to go somewhere and the only ferry available to them was a ferry to Batam. Batam is really NOT a place you want to go and spend a day in, but they decided to do it anyway. Once they got there, they knew that it's not where they want to be but decided to still go for it and make the most of their Day at the Beach. Two of them went through immigration paid their visas and waited for the third one who was not coming... It turned out that they would not let him in, because he did not have an empty page in his passport so no place to put the giant visa in. On hearing that, the other two guys just turned around and they all got back on the ferry and rode back to Singapore... That must have been fun, right? A funny story to tell, I guess, but I would not want it to happen to me... So anyway - a note to self - before going to Indonesia always check if you have an empty page in the passport and 25 USD per person IN CASH to pay to enter...
That was a long digression...
Our destination was Angsana Resort & Spa. And we spent a really great weekend there. The room was a bit outdated and in need of a remodel but it's Asia so you never know what you can expect. Otherwise everything was really great. Compared to our Conrad resort in Bali, Angsana was a really quiet and relaxing place, a much smaller resort with less to offer as far as entertainment goes but that's what we needed for our low-key weekend away. A really nice, wide and long stretch of beach to walk on, clear water to swim in and beach beds with umbrellas - that's all we needed. On Friday evening we had our couples massage at the spa - the experience was really amazing. The spa facilities are beautiful, we were in an outdoor room overlooking the sea, the therapists were amazing and the whole thing was just a great start for our weekend of relaxation. After the massage they offered us a hot ginger tea with honey (I realized that I LOVE ginger tea - I don't think I had had it before that Friday night!) and some fruitcake and we were just sitting, half laying down, in big wicker armchairs, wrapped in sarongs, breathing in the fresh air of the evening and looking at the evening outline of the palm trees and the beach and the sea, and it really made me feel like I was in my own little paradise. They had difficulties kicking us out ;). After the treatment we went to the room, changed and went to get some dinner - it was a buffet night. We tried so many things! And all the food was really delicious. One of the dishes was Indonesian red snapper - the fish was marinated in Indonesian spices and then grilled wrapped in a banana leaf - it was soo good I kept on going back for more... There was also entertainment provided - a local band who were performing all throughout dinner. Their choice of songs was so completely out of place that it was almost funny - they welcomed us with some old pop country song from the fifties (Bryan recognized it, I didn't) and then they sang everything starting from George Michael's Careless Whispers (which sounded hilarious in their interpretation, as the lead singer had a very nice voice but at the same time a very melodic way of singing, typical for local music, I suppose, and the way they played the tune was also so Asian and so not like the original - just the lyrics were recognizable) ending on Swing Low Sweet Chariot!!! Their set really got me going and I wanted to have a sing-along but Bryan was not really eager. We spent the rest of the evening on the beach with our whisky drinks in hand (this time we made sure we had alcohol with us and we bought a bottle of Ballantine's at the duty free store at the airport so that we didn't have to pay 15 USD per cocktail at the hotel). I sang some more and really missed my sister or my friend Alicja - they are such good singing companions! Bryan still remembers our trip to Masuria when Alicja and me sang all the way from Warsaw to Mrągowo, with Bobi trying to focus on driving and Bryan wishing he had an mp3 player or at least a pair of earplugs with him... It was so much fun - at least for Alicja and me :).
We spent the whole Saturday doing literally nothing. The night before we asked the nice hotel staff to reserve two chairs for us on the beach, which they happily did for us and so on Saturday morning we rolled ourselves out to the beach after a nice big breakfast (buffet again) and stayed on our beach beds pretty much all day, taking breaks to walk on the beach or go swimming. The two chairs next to ours were occupied by an older British couple, two very sun-tanned people who seemed like they lived in the region, completely oblivious to the harmful effects of sun, just sitting there all day out in the sun, reading books. Every hour or so they would get up and take off walking quite briskly to the farthest accessible end of the beach, spend some time there and walk back. After they made a few such walks we realized that she would always carry a little pouch in her hand, and it dawned on us that there was a reason for their little beach trips, other than just getting a little bit of exercise... Aw, who would not want to retire like that?... Mr & Mrs Doper (as we started calling them) of Angsana Resort quickly became our retirement role models ;)
It rained all day on Sunday and it rained hard, too, so everybody stayed indoors, except for a few hard-core Japanese tourists who stayed in the pool in that pouring rain - funny thing about the Japanese, if they are on holiday they apparently MUST do the holiday thing, sun OR rain... As for us, luckily we had more massage treatments scheduled at the spa so we did not complain. Bryan read and napped and relaxed and I... I was sick. I will draw a curtain of silence on the details of my tropical sickness, suffice to say it was some kind of an Indonesian variety of the Montezuma's or Pharaoh's revenge... I was a very miserable bunny for most of the day but it all went away by Monday morning so just a lesson for me to be more careful about eating spicy food? Or using ice cubes in my drinks? Who knows what might have caused that... It did ruin my Sunday relaxation just a little bit, if you can imagine, but overall it was such a nice and relaxing weekend that I will just try and remember the good things about it and erase the unpleasantries from my memory. Monday turned out to be a bright sunny day (isn't it ALWAYS the case? That when you go away somewhere for a weekend it RAINS most of the weekend and then it clears up on the day when you are supposed to go home?...), and we managed to get a bit more sun and beach time before we had to go. Angsana is really a nice resort to go to, the staff is so welcoming and friendly. They all make an effort to greet you by your name, it's really hard to believe! A nice guy at their gift store told us that a major remodeling is planned for September, which is really great news. If we come back to Singapore again we will definitely visit Bintan island for another weekend. The weather there is unpredictable and one can never be sure that it is going to be nice and sunny - it's so close to Singapore that I guess the weather forecasts are the same for Bintan as they are here - 60% chance of rain. every day.. But at the same time even if it is cloudy it's still nice to stay at the beach and at least you don't feel like a shrimp on a skewer frying in the sun... And when it rains - there is THE SPA. And the spa in itself is a good reason to go back there. With the two massages I had last weekend I am now ready to face another month of working hard at this tiny desk, with my wrists hanging off the edge. I will be fine :). And as for Bryan - he already started looking at resorts for our August trip last night. The guys has to have a purpose. And something to look forward to :). I THINK we have given up on the Paradise Beach quest... We are still considering places in Thailand and some Malaysian islands, including Borneo. We will see what he will find - and I am sure he will find something good. And in the meantime - it's Singapore again, babe :). Let's see what else this city has to offer...
Work has gotten a bit slower this week, for the first time since we got here, really. Which is a good thing, I am enjoying a little bit looser schedule and the fact that I can actually leave the apartment and go sit at the swimming pool and read while the maid is cleaning the apartment, rather than dancing around her mop with my hands still glued to the keyboard... I've slept way too late today and I won't even admit here what time I woke up because Bryan may read it and get a heart attack - he was up at 5.45 poor thing to get ready for the first meeting he had at 7 am. I am really glad he got to rest and relax last weekend, because he really is working hard and with the Big Cut-Off / Go-Live (or whatever other weird two-word name it has) Week coming next week his work days are about to get even longer.
Last Friday we left for our second long-weekend trip this summer, to an Indonesian island called Bintan. Bintan is a very popular destination for a weekend trip from Singapore, as it only takes a 40-minute ferry ride to get there. We left on Friday late in the morning and came back to Singapore on Monday evening. To travel there and back we paid a little extra and got Emerald Class tickets for the ferry and we've decided that the additional 50 or so dollars that we spent was the best we've done for ourselves in a long time. Our Emerald Class tickets got us not only nicer, more comfortable seats on the upper deck of the ferry but also, more importantly, priority check-in, priority boarding and then priority immigration and customs clearance in Indonesia. Which is worth any money, really (within reasonable limits, of course ;). The Indonesian government is very clever about earning money off the visiting tourists so every time you enter Indonesia you have to pay 25$ for a one-time visa (multiple-entry visas can only be obtained at the embassy and I don't even have a clue as to how much they are and how hard it is to actually get them). The visa needs to be purchased upon arrival - so first you have to stand in a looong line to buy a visa and then it needs to be placed in your passport, following a Very Thorough examination of the said passport, by the immigration officer. To meet the immigration officer you stand in another long line. And then you wait for your luggage. We avoided all this by getting our Emerald Class tickets - there was a separate booth opened for us and the few other chosen ones and we were on the other side and in Indonesia in no time, with our suitcase already waiting for us. We managed to pack into one medium-size suitcase but after we got back to Singapore we decided that next time - if there is ever a next time in Bintan - we will just take carry-ons with us, that will expedite the process even more... Another thing we needed to make sure before going to Indonesia is that each of us has an actual whole empty page in our passport - the Indonesian visa takes up a whole page and they simply won't let you in if you don't have a free page in your passport. While in our short line, we even considered asking the immigration officer to perhaps put the new visa on top of the old visa that they put in there when we went to Bali - but then we chickened out - all the Indonesian border officers are really serious and scary and so another page of our passports is taken by a big colourful Indonesian visa now. Bryan is running out of pages. But at least he is aware of that - he told me a story of some guys from his work who on the spur of the moment decided to spend a day on the beach away from Singapore. When they got to the ferry terminal one of them realized he forgot his passport. So he went back to the hotel to get it while the other two waited for him at the terminal. When he arrived with his passport the ferry to Bintan, where they were planning to go, was already long gone. They still decided to go somewhere and the only ferry available to them was a ferry to Batam. Batam is really NOT a place you want to go and spend a day in, but they decided to do it anyway. Once they got there, they knew that it's not where they want to be but decided to still go for it and make the most of their Day at the Beach. Two of them went through immigration paid their visas and waited for the third one who was not coming... It turned out that they would not let him in, because he did not have an empty page in his passport so no place to put the giant visa in. On hearing that, the other two guys just turned around and they all got back on the ferry and rode back to Singapore... That must have been fun, right? A funny story to tell, I guess, but I would not want it to happen to me... So anyway - a note to self - before going to Indonesia always check if you have an empty page in the passport and 25 USD per person IN CASH to pay to enter...
That was a long digression...
Our destination was Angsana Resort & Spa. And we spent a really great weekend there. The room was a bit outdated and in need of a remodel but it's Asia so you never know what you can expect. Otherwise everything was really great. Compared to our Conrad resort in Bali, Angsana was a really quiet and relaxing place, a much smaller resort with less to offer as far as entertainment goes but that's what we needed for our low-key weekend away. A really nice, wide and long stretch of beach to walk on, clear water to swim in and beach beds with umbrellas - that's all we needed. On Friday evening we had our couples massage at the spa - the experience was really amazing. The spa facilities are beautiful, we were in an outdoor room overlooking the sea, the therapists were amazing and the whole thing was just a great start for our weekend of relaxation. After the massage they offered us a hot ginger tea with honey (I realized that I LOVE ginger tea - I don't think I had had it before that Friday night!) and some fruitcake and we were just sitting, half laying down, in big wicker armchairs, wrapped in sarongs, breathing in the fresh air of the evening and looking at the evening outline of the palm trees and the beach and the sea, and it really made me feel like I was in my own little paradise. They had difficulties kicking us out ;). After the treatment we went to the room, changed and went to get some dinner - it was a buffet night. We tried so many things! And all the food was really delicious. One of the dishes was Indonesian red snapper - the fish was marinated in Indonesian spices and then grilled wrapped in a banana leaf - it was soo good I kept on going back for more... There was also entertainment provided - a local band who were performing all throughout dinner. Their choice of songs was so completely out of place that it was almost funny - they welcomed us with some old pop country song from the fifties (Bryan recognized it, I didn't) and then they sang everything starting from George Michael's Careless Whispers (which sounded hilarious in their interpretation, as the lead singer had a very nice voice but at the same time a very melodic way of singing, typical for local music, I suppose, and the way they played the tune was also so Asian and so not like the original - just the lyrics were recognizable) ending on Swing Low Sweet Chariot!!! Their set really got me going and I wanted to have a sing-along but Bryan was not really eager. We spent the rest of the evening on the beach with our whisky drinks in hand (this time we made sure we had alcohol with us and we bought a bottle of Ballantine's at the duty free store at the airport so that we didn't have to pay 15 USD per cocktail at the hotel). I sang some more and really missed my sister or my friend Alicja - they are such good singing companions! Bryan still remembers our trip to Masuria when Alicja and me sang all the way from Warsaw to Mrągowo, with Bobi trying to focus on driving and Bryan wishing he had an mp3 player or at least a pair of earplugs with him... It was so much fun - at least for Alicja and me :).
We spent the whole Saturday doing literally nothing. The night before we asked the nice hotel staff to reserve two chairs for us on the beach, which they happily did for us and so on Saturday morning we rolled ourselves out to the beach after a nice big breakfast (buffet again) and stayed on our beach beds pretty much all day, taking breaks to walk on the beach or go swimming. The two chairs next to ours were occupied by an older British couple, two very sun-tanned people who seemed like they lived in the region, completely oblivious to the harmful effects of sun, just sitting there all day out in the sun, reading books. Every hour or so they would get up and take off walking quite briskly to the farthest accessible end of the beach, spend some time there and walk back. After they made a few such walks we realized that she would always carry a little pouch in her hand, and it dawned on us that there was a reason for their little beach trips, other than just getting a little bit of exercise... Aw, who would not want to retire like that?... Mr & Mrs Doper (as we started calling them) of Angsana Resort quickly became our retirement role models ;)
It rained all day on Sunday and it rained hard, too, so everybody stayed indoors, except for a few hard-core Japanese tourists who stayed in the pool in that pouring rain - funny thing about the Japanese, if they are on holiday they apparently MUST do the holiday thing, sun OR rain... As for us, luckily we had more massage treatments scheduled at the spa so we did not complain. Bryan read and napped and relaxed and I... I was sick. I will draw a curtain of silence on the details of my tropical sickness, suffice to say it was some kind of an Indonesian variety of the Montezuma's or Pharaoh's revenge... I was a very miserable bunny for most of the day but it all went away by Monday morning so just a lesson for me to be more careful about eating spicy food? Or using ice cubes in my drinks? Who knows what might have caused that... It did ruin my Sunday relaxation just a little bit, if you can imagine, but overall it was such a nice and relaxing weekend that I will just try and remember the good things about it and erase the unpleasantries from my memory. Monday turned out to be a bright sunny day (isn't it ALWAYS the case? That when you go away somewhere for a weekend it RAINS most of the weekend and then it clears up on the day when you are supposed to go home?...), and we managed to get a bit more sun and beach time before we had to go. Angsana is really a nice resort to go to, the staff is so welcoming and friendly. They all make an effort to greet you by your name, it's really hard to believe! A nice guy at their gift store told us that a major remodeling is planned for September, which is really great news. If we come back to Singapore again we will definitely visit Bintan island for another weekend. The weather there is unpredictable and one can never be sure that it is going to be nice and sunny - it's so close to Singapore that I guess the weather forecasts are the same for Bintan as they are here - 60% chance of rain. every day.. But at the same time even if it is cloudy it's still nice to stay at the beach and at least you don't feel like a shrimp on a skewer frying in the sun... And when it rains - there is THE SPA. And the spa in itself is a good reason to go back there. With the two massages I had last weekend I am now ready to face another month of working hard at this tiny desk, with my wrists hanging off the edge. I will be fine :). And as for Bryan - he already started looking at resorts for our August trip last night. The guys has to have a purpose. And something to look forward to :). I THINK we have given up on the Paradise Beach quest... We are still considering places in Thailand and some Malaysian islands, including Borneo. We will see what he will find - and I am sure he will find something good. And in the meantime - it's Singapore again, babe :). Let's see what else this city has to offer...
FABULOUS! (minus the revenge) I hope you'll keep that holiday buzz alive this week as you return to your alternate, alternate (Polish Texan in Singapore) reality. LOVE YOU
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