Wind In My Head: Living the High Life
Wind In My Head
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Living the High Life
We resume regular programming now that we're back from a weekend soujourn to the extremely hot and humid Asian capital of Bangkok where we led almost doppel-lives. Here in Singapore, we live on the tenth floor of public housing and drive a second hand car because we cannot afford anything more.But for the last 5 days, we lived like kings in Bangkok. Ok, one must discount the fact that we flew budget. But then again, no one ever flies full fare to these destinations anymore, it's just not done. Anyhow, once we got in, we were met by my Uncle's driver. I half expected him to be holding a sign that announced that he was waiting for Mr and Mrs D Tan.
And that was just the beginning. My uncle who lives there made sure we ate like kings. The drink of choice at dinner was either 12 year old Scotch or Johnnie Walker Green Label which I just found out is 15 year old Scotch. Of course, the moment that made everyone gasp in horror was when the waiter thought the whiskey glass was a glass half full of chinese tea and was ready to top it up. With Chinese tea.
And the food! Every night, we ate like there was no tomorrow. There was much much beef, enough to put together a cow. There was tongue of duck, web of goose, leg of frog and trotter of pig.
That was just the food. The accomodation as well. We opted not to stay in the middle of the shopping district. We chose embassy row instead, slightly outside the shopping areas, but the best hotel we've stayed in, bar none. We were swept off by a guest officer right up to our room where she proceeded to check us in, in the suite itself that had a bed sprinkled with rose petals and a rose bouquet for me and a table of fingerfoods complete with a bottle of wine.
Service was just wonderful. I claimed that it was this way because the hotel chain was Singapore owned, but much of it had to do with the ambience that it created as well. At breakfast, we sat by a waterfall with ducks that either chased one another up and down or stared quite longingly through the glass at us, hoping we would feed them. For drinks there was Vertigo, the open air bar on the 62nd floor of the hotel.
Problem is, we were only kept in by glass panelling.
That made our toes curl and kept us from going near the edge since we were on the 62nd floor and it was a tad windy and neither of us had a death wish of sorts. It was a beautfiul view and I must say, pollution does give the photographs a nice rough feel to it.
And since we were 62 floors up higher than we usually are, the moon looked a whole lot closer. The only thing was, there was a lot of cloud movement and this was the best photograph I could take.
It was extremely fun just shooting at the sky. It wasn't like the moon was going to move or anything. The clouds did a lot of that, but the moon was a good solid object to shoot.
Throw in a spa experience in a private suite complete with shower facilities, a couch and a view and it sure makes one idyllic holiday. Add to that, a driver at our disposal, sitting in the back seat of a Mercedes with someone opening the door for you everytime it stops, it's easy to understand why people are seduced by this life.
I was.
But now, I'm back in reality, doing the laundry from the last four days and picking up after my dear Packrat since I don't have a housekeeping crew that comes in every morning to do it for me.
Technorati Tags: Bangkok, Banyan Tree
Ondine tossed this thought in at 23:05