The Staycation has been stayed.
I was actually quite excited about the Staycation initially, so the night before I leave, I started packing everything I knew I needed to bring and left home the next day in the afternoon. Took a train there and it was relatively fast, about 45 minutes, which compared to when I had to take a bus in the past before the trains were up, that is half the travel time.
I don't go Chinatown often, so the last trip I remember making to that area was when the trains were still not up yet and I had to take a bus to another train station from my house.
Anyways, I reached Chinatown a little early, about 30 minutes before the check-in time, so I headed to Chinatown Point to get a cup of Boost and a few Pastries for lunch, which I was going to eat in the hotel room, I honestly don't have any itinerary for the staycation, the goal was just to stay in the room the entire time I was there and maybe pop by the closest convenient store every few hours to get lunch or a drink or whatever I needed that the room didn't' have.
After I got the stuff for lunch, I went to check-into the hotel and the reception area was really quite small, I go up to the desk, pass the guy my IC, did all the temperature check, declaration form shenanigans and was given the keycard to my room at level 3.
I got myself a Deluxe Queen room and was expecting some sort of deluxe looking space as the name implied, but when I got into the room, I was surprised at how small it was.
Upon entering the room, I am greeted on the left with this little counter which also houses the kitchen/toilet sink, the chair was initially tucked away inside the cabinet so I had thought at the start of my staycation that the only sitting area was the bed.
The fridge on the right that is tucked within the cabinet is "working", but it's not cold, the lights turn on when I open the door, but there is no cold air inside, it is actually warmer inside than it is outside in the aircon room, so the fridge was useless.
This is the bed, tucked against the wall with 3 pillows, so the counter also acts as the bedhead. This is the kind of thing I will design for my clients, but now that I actually am using it, I am not a huge fan.
This is the toilet that is directly beside the bed, it has a rain shower, which is nice.
But when I am laying down in bed, the toilet is essentially just right beside me, which I do not appreciate, I mean it's kinda gross to be looking into the toilet while I am trying to get comfortable in bed. There is also no lock on the sliding door, so maybe not a good room to get with friends and family, better with couples, except when you need to shit because I wouldn't want my significant other to just come into the bathroom while I am squeezing.
This is the state of the TV quality, not good, I only turn it on at night to get some background noise going.
I do like the ambient lighting they have chosen to go with, there is no lights on the ceiling, everything is lit through the ambient light boxes except in the toilet, that also means the room never really feels like it is completely lit at night.
Generally, the room is clean and for the price I paid for, this is the standard I should be expecting, I mean it is a 3 star boutique hotel so can't really complaint too much. In the future though, I would probably choose to staycation at another hotel.
I didn't really explore Chinatown too much, was only sticking to Chinatown Point and that was it, but I did go to Paya Lebar Quarter to meet up with a friend since I was in the area and he ended up selling me his MLM drink, which I stupidly bought. He was very convincing during his pitch and I am as gullible as the old people his company targets, so I ended up getting like 2 months worth of powder for the drink and the price is insane, I still cannot believe I actually agreed to buy it.
He started his pitch by preparing a cup of the drink for me, then told me to wait for 5 minutes and informs me that parts of my body will start to flush, he tells me that he can evaluate the problems I have by the areas that are flushing, and within 5 minutes, I started feeling the tingles on my neck and face and he proceeds to talk about what each area means, I mean when I am physically feeling the flushes and he is breaking down the problems that are causing the flushes, it just sounds and feels very convincing because I am experiencing what he says will happen.
I believe he thinks it works because he also uses the stuff, apparently for the past 11 years or so, his whole family uses it, his friends gets it from him as well and he shows me photos of his friends before and after they started drinking the product, their skin suddenly got better, their eyebags went away and all that miraculous shit. He then tells me that I am no longer young, so I should take care of myself, and then he goes..
"So how many bottles you want?"
I honestly thought at the start, he was going to give me like a few days worth of sample, just to try it first before I commit to paying for it, but there he was, asking me how many bottles I wanted, he was initially pushing for me to get 6 months, but I told him it was too much, that I didn't want to commit, so he said 3 months, I said still too much, and he finally tells me to get at least 2 months because I can enjoy a slight discount if I get more than 1.
He did a breakdown of the price for me and told me because I will need to drink it 3 times a day, each cup would end up to be at about $7, and I said...
"Oh, like how much I would pay for a cup of bubble tea."
... he laughs, I laugh because my dumbass made it easier for him to sell the product to me, I had self rationalize the price point in my head. It is some expensive shit, it is almost the same price as me going to the dentist to fix my cavities multiple times.
He passes me 2 months worth, ask me to Paylah him the amount and it just felt really surreal then and there, I was a little skeptical about the product , so a part of me felt like I was watching myself get scam.
When I finally went back to the hotel later that evening, I started to Google the company and that was when I realize I had just paid for some overpriced, over-exaggerated nutrient powder supplement drink. There are websites that are debunking the product, but those websites look dubious as shit and I believe are the brands competitor just trying to do some damage to the brand because it's written in broken English, but there also aren't any proper reviews written about the drink as well, which is a bit disconcerting. I do think that the drink is "healthy", but it definitely does not do the things that it claims to, because if it did, there would already be articles written about it, articles I couldn't find.
I honestly do not know if I should call this a scam because my friend clearly believes it works, that is why he sold the product to me and he himself drinks it religiously,
Sigh, I was so disappointed in myself. But what to do? Since I already got the product might as well give it a shot and see if it has any benefits, if only I had been an old person, maybe the drink would have had a placebo effect on me. but I am not, and I am coming into it as a skeptic, so if this shit actually shows even the slightest of improvements, I am going to be impressed, but I ain't buying this shit from him anymore. Upside is I got a nice 1 liter water bottle, so there is that.
So getting scammed aside, the other interesting thing that happened happen this morning. I woke up at like 7am, ate some bread I had gotten the day before and drank 1 liter of green tea, was planning to stay in the room until check out time, but then got really bored, so I decided to go to Chinatown Point to get a cup of Boost for 2nd breakfast, like a proper cup of fruit juice, actual healthy stuff and not the dubious health powder I had gotten the evening before. So as I was making my way to the basement, I see 3 security guards trying to squeeze their way into a store that wasn't open yet, one was holding a fire extinguisher and another that was already inside was shouting for said extinguisher, I assume a small fire had happen, but there was no smoke, so I thought maybe someone had broke in and they were trying to use the extinguisher as some sort of blunt weapon to scare the guy out.
I make my way to the escalator and when I reach the basement, I started to smell a slight burning smell, I didn't think it was a big deal though because the shop didn't look like there was a huge fire happening, it didn't cross my mind that a fire could spread because I am a dumbass, so I continue on towards Boost and then the fire alarm starts going off.
No one cared, everyone just stayed where they were, I looked backed and notice there was now a lot of smoking coming for the direction of the escalator I had just came from, the the announcement was made to evacuate the mall. I headed to the nearest exit and see a bunch of people busy taking photos of the smoke before they left and wondered if maybe I should as well, just for fun, didn't end up taking any though and just left the place empty handed.
I settled for 7-11 instead, got a cup of iced latte from their coffee machine and some instant oats, and then just waited in the room until check out, which was suppose to be at 12, but I figured I should leave half an hour earlier so I can avoid the lunch crowd in the train.
My bag was so full because of the stupid supplement powder and it was also bloody heavy, that weight really was like a painful reminder. Thankfully, the train was quite empty, so I didn't have to stand during the ride home.
Now that I am home though, I am actually drinking the supplement, will see what effects it will have on me after 2 months.
Will also be reporting back to camp tomorrow morning at 5.30am, so gotta wake up at an ungodly hour once again later, which is good because I hardly got any sleep in the hotel last night.
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