Christmas Day 2020
Kennett Staycation ‘Home Not-Alone’
This was a new Christmas experience for us. Off to a staycation in Singapore Hotel-land. Time off for Wifey, no cooking, cleaning and all that BS and hopefully some fun to boot. Clearly, 2020 has caused some major ructions in the ability to see family, enjoy the family and enjoy ‘global’. We have had 11 months of enforced secluded Red Dot, and it is time to ‘escape’ the condo and pretend we are not on Red Dot. Did it work? I reckon we got about 50% of the way there – the hotel, sadly, did not help in many ways and I will explain more below in the blog.
But we did indeed do many things we have not done before or done for an age – some forced, some by choice and some by chance…
So, 24th December we are booked in with a check-in time of 1500, so 1st things 1st we go for lunch over the road to our 2nd home @ Siglap hawker. We see quite a few mates there and extend Xmas wishes and ‘virtual hugs’…
Happy Xmas ladies – see you on 27th.
Happy smiley faces all round as we plan to turn right on the ECP not left to the airport this time. It surely is a very strange feeling and a sad one at that as usually we’d be leaving with cases to see the family somewhere in the world.
The big yellow case is full of Xmas presents. Still, though that’s a lot of baggage for 3 nights haha.
1st moan to the hotel. You know your world is going to turn upside down at 3pm for your designated check-in. And you have limited people at the check-in desk. That’s just crazy and you have now caused a Covid-19 crowding issue. If a restaurant or bar caused this type of crowding they’d be fined or closed. And that is not the entire queue, this is just in front of me, let me turn around…
See what I mean. Badly organised staffing. 2nd moan whilst we are on it. The Pickering has one pool which is now needing to be booked to avoid too many people. I get that and that is fine. It also has one proper bar and one little bar just where that guy is in the pink shirt. On that bar is a sign saying the reception bar is closed please visit Lime Bar (the main one) between 11am and 10pm. We went there at 1600 and it was closed for the duration of our stay – in summary, there is NOWHERE in the hotel to sit and relax and have a drink. a BIG MOAN!!! Back to what I said above – this is like a serviced room with a restaurant that you can’t book. That’s your lot at The Pickering, Park Royal.
We had a lifestyle room and it was really nice, so a big tick in the box to the hotel for that. A very nice room. The kids were a few floors above us in a twin. We have a bigger room with a super King due to three of us sharing. A nice view overlooking the park and Boat Quay too. Very nice.
Jude Jude loving his new living quarters it seems, very busy at his office showing that anyone can work from anywhere these days haha.
I think we all so wish we were not here at all, but overseas in the Philippines or the UK for Xmas. I would seriously consider your $$$ spend in Singapore if you are planning a staycation – maybe choose a hotel with more facilities. This place is a fantastic location though and the breakfast was really nice. So if staying at The Pickering you really need to treat it as a bed and breakfast only with zero facilities and spend the rest of your time outside the facility. This is exactly what we ended up doing – and that was out of necessity and choice. Still, no matter what, family K had fun we really did.
Evening #1 and a walk along the river into Clarke Quay. By chance we stumbled across what used to be exclusively Spanish, but has since become like the best Filipino restaurant in Singapore as well – so said Wifey. Big accolade there. This is Octapas. I had been there once for drinks with work. The food was fantastic it really was, but the drinks, OMG the drinks. They made this bill $$$$ and I am adding 4 on purpose. Dinner with a few beers and a glass or three of red win came to $566 – holy shit. That’s up there with the most expensive and I cannot quite believe it. It equates to about $21 a beer which is just obscene. 1st and last time here then sadly – perhaps we just go for food haha.
It really was just superb food. One slight glimmer of Xmas in the Philippines from the food perhaps…
And because it is Xmas we were wearing the correct attire of course. Scary Xmas Elf Jude Jude…
Angry Santa? I think I just got the bill for dinner…
Mary Christmas?
The toilet was a long way away so Jude improvised with his hat… OK he just hit me and said actually this was supposed to be a tail, Xmas Bumblebee…
Who needs a Xmas tree in the hotel room when you have SUPER BEARD…? More baubles than you could shake a stick at…
It is now Xmas Day – Happy Christmas Everyone!!!
Jude Jude holding his new present, I wonder what it is? He said something about it being private? Pressies all stacked up in our make-shift ‘tree’ as he finishes his bath off super-early and we await the other two to come down from their room and join us before brekkie.
The Xmas Elf is on guard duty, like Darth Vadar he felt some presents…
And they’re all here – time to get busy and open some wrappings. Whoop whoop. Some oolovely gifts all round from all over the world too. So very lucky. The bigger ones were opened yesterday – just a logistics thing of not being able to get them to the hotel – hence that yellow suit case earlier. Happy Xmas kiddos and Wifey xxx
Then we’re off to our 1st breakfast in the hotel. WTF. Why did they seat me at this table number – surely it should have been something like 33 or 35??? The breakfast is awesome here. Sadly no buffet of course so all al la carte but it was super-good. I had the same thing three days running it was so nice.
Just like Mary & Joseph at Xmas, there was no room at the Inn for us to eat at the hotel. So we went exploring. And explore we did in Chinatown. Brilliant fun. Just like a normal day of course as it surely ain’t Buddha’s birthday today. Markets open, old uncles playing Chinese chess. Even the VERY stinky and fishy wet-market was bustling. A very normal day. We had to go to the market from necessity too as we needed to buy Jude Jude a new pair of shorts and a t-shirt as he was playing with a squishy ball in a market stall and it burst all over him. Classic!!!
We even had time to explore street art. Looks like Jude Jude is sat on a barber’s chair right? It’s one of those artistic optical illusions. It is actually about 3 times the length it looks, really stretched out, but when you take a picture from the vantage point it looks like a 3D seat. Genius!!!
The ‘normal’ Chinatown day became a fantastic day for us as we wandered through the markets shopping & exploring, and found an incredible and quite unique Chinese BBQ & Hotpot restaurant on Sago Street next to the Buddhist Temple. We sat there for about 3-4 hours and it was brilliant. A brilliant, quirky Xmas lunch – but we can adapt to anything and it was ACE!!! Read Islifearecipe.net for more on the restaurant which has now become a ‘must return to location’… And the whole 3-4 hours was the same price as one person cost for brunch at the hotel – incredible!!!
Sous Chef Jude Jude and I sporting one of our new acquisitions from Chinatown markets – our new Chef headgear. How cool does he look? Can’t wait to do some cooking little man!!!
Back to the hotel and a quick refresh, splash, hydrate, change of clothes and ZOOM with global family before dinner. Lovely to have family on in their varying degrees of bubbles from Singapore, Japan and the UK. Everyone either finishing or just starting the day.
And then we head to dinner at our mate Chef Edward’s My Little Spanish Place at Boat Quay. Sadly he was off working at the other branch up at Upper Bukit Timah Road. We did enjoy ourselves though. Beautiful food overlooking the river at Boat Quay and all walking distance from the hotel. Happy families for the fast-approaching end to Xmas 2020. Check out Islifearecipe.net again for a review of the meal tonight – suffice to say it was delicious.
A slow walk home and we’re there. Penultimate night at the hotel and a great chance for a Xmassy snap next to the twinkly lights – no snow this year sadly just 30 degrees and humid.
Not quite the end of the year but a major milestone to that end. 2020 has been a shitty and weird year. I started a new job at the start of Covid country lockdown when I think we were all thinking it would be over in a month. Work has been the toughest ever with no ability to meet anyone as most of the client contacts are overseas in EMEA, USA or Japan. We then got locked down in the Philippines when visiting family there in March and just escaped on a special ferry, coaches and flight to serve our 2 weeks SAH quarantine and get the kids back to school which then became home-learning anyway. Sadly we could not have Jimboy & Jhea with us for the whole of June and of course, we’re not there for Xmas this year as was all planned. #1 started National Service which has been a little farcical with Covid-19 again forcing no events and distancing at the camps. Amy passed her PSLE’s with Express rating so joins Broadrick in the new year. Wifey got a job, but as BeBe is stuck in the Philippines she can’t accept it. Normal, no, new-normal, yes. So I think we deserved this and we had a lovely Xmas in the new-normal and hope you did to everyone – HAPPY CHRISTMAS – ENJOY!!!
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