"Spa Indulgence"
I bought a great deal on Groupon, it was a 3 hour 'spa indulgence' package consisting of an hour massage, an hour facial and an hour made up of some other stuff that I am not entirely sure they did. It only cost £20 so I went for it.
I turned up and was made to take off my shoes and wear these gross sandals instead. I was then ushered inside, told to strip off and sit in the steam room for 15 mins. I really don't like saunas, I find it hard to breathe in them, but no doubt they do you good. After 15 mins, I was then told to shower before they took me to the massage room.
Unfortunately (as has been my experience with reflexology), parts of the massage were really quite painful. The voucher didn't express what sort of massage it would be, but I did tick the 'I like my massage light' box on the health and safety form I filled in on my way in. Maybe they didn't read that part. As I was pummelled for an hour, I was finding myself wishing it would be over because it wasn't overly relaxing.
Then came the facial. Without a doubt the most thorough facial I have ever had. I couldn't keep count of the number of lotions and potions they rubbed onto my face, including something going on my eyelashes and eyebrows. They thoroughly decongested my skin (I'll leave that up to you to figure out what I mean by that) and my skin felt tighter and cleaner than it ever has.
Unfortunately they then tried to flog me some goods after, initially wanting £150 for two lotions. There was a bit of a language barrier - only one of them spoke passable English (I can't remember if I wrote about it but when I called to book the appointment, they were all laughing down the phone at me saying I didn't speak English very well, which I found highly amusing - the most amusing part being I could understand everything they were saying, but they didn't know what I was saying!). I eventually told them I only had $50 to spend and they gave me a sample pack of everything they had tried to sell me. I was annoyed I felt pressured into buying something, but at the same time I had just paid £20 for a 3 hour facial and massage, so I guess it's swings and roundabouts.
Last night I got off the MRT at Orchard Road to see the Christmas lights. They were pretty impressive, and the whole place was lit up in a million colours and decorations (some tasteful, some not so). I went a bit mad with instagram and having remembered I can take videos on there, posted a few up here.
Work has been very busy of late. I am into my last week, and have been training up the lady we have finally managed to employ. (We went for the 'firecracker' if you're interested). She's really great and I have high hopes for her. She's been really curious about my culture (I laugh at the fact that other see what we have as 'culture') and we have been swapping stories. We were discussing languages and I found it interesting that in Chinese they have no tenses. So if they did something yesterday, they say 'I go to the shops yesterday', or for the future, 'I go to the shops tomorrow'. Seems so much simpler to me! In Singlish (literally a made up language which is sort of a Mandarin/Malay/English mix), they add random words on at the end of sentences to denote if it's a question, exclamation etc, so a 'ma' at the end of a sentence means it's a question. I find this one a bit weird and unnecessary, because they also use inflection to do this.
One of the guys told me a funny story today (this might be one of those 'you had to be there' stories so apologies if it is). It made me laugh out loud though.. He was working in the UK about 10 years ago, fresh off the boat from Singapore. He was living on a shoe string budget and had gone to a pub with a friend for lunch. He ordered 2 mince pies at 60p each - you can tell where the story is going. He ends up with christmas mince pies but was expecting big pies filled with mince meat.
I turned up and was made to take off my shoes and wear these gross sandals instead. I was then ushered inside, told to strip off and sit in the steam room for 15 mins. I really don't like saunas, I find it hard to breathe in them, but no doubt they do you good. After 15 mins, I was then told to shower before they took me to the massage room.
Unfortunately (as has been my experience with reflexology), parts of the massage were really quite painful. The voucher didn't express what sort of massage it would be, but I did tick the 'I like my massage light' box on the health and safety form I filled in on my way in. Maybe they didn't read that part. As I was pummelled for an hour, I was finding myself wishing it would be over because it wasn't overly relaxing.
Then came the facial. Without a doubt the most thorough facial I have ever had. I couldn't keep count of the number of lotions and potions they rubbed onto my face, including something going on my eyelashes and eyebrows. They thoroughly decongested my skin (I'll leave that up to you to figure out what I mean by that) and my skin felt tighter and cleaner than it ever has.
Unfortunately they then tried to flog me some goods after, initially wanting £150 for two lotions. There was a bit of a language barrier - only one of them spoke passable English (I can't remember if I wrote about it but when I called to book the appointment, they were all laughing down the phone at me saying I didn't speak English very well, which I found highly amusing - the most amusing part being I could understand everything they were saying, but they didn't know what I was saying!). I eventually told them I only had $50 to spend and they gave me a sample pack of everything they had tried to sell me. I was annoyed I felt pressured into buying something, but at the same time I had just paid £20 for a 3 hour facial and massage, so I guess it's swings and roundabouts.
Last night I got off the MRT at Orchard Road to see the Christmas lights. They were pretty impressive, and the whole place was lit up in a million colours and decorations (some tasteful, some not so). I went a bit mad with instagram and having remembered I can take videos on there, posted a few up here.
Work has been very busy of late. I am into my last week, and have been training up the lady we have finally managed to employ. (We went for the 'firecracker' if you're interested). She's really great and I have high hopes for her. She's been really curious about my culture (I laugh at the fact that other see what we have as 'culture') and we have been swapping stories. We were discussing languages and I found it interesting that in Chinese they have no tenses. So if they did something yesterday, they say 'I go to the shops yesterday', or for the future, 'I go to the shops tomorrow'. Seems so much simpler to me! In Singlish (literally a made up language which is sort of a Mandarin/Malay/English mix), they add random words on at the end of sentences to denote if it's a question, exclamation etc, so a 'ma' at the end of a sentence means it's a question. I find this one a bit weird and unnecessary, because they also use inflection to do this.
One of the guys told me a funny story today (this might be one of those 'you had to be there' stories so apologies if it is). It made me laugh out loud though.. He was working in the UK about 10 years ago, fresh off the boat from Singapore. He was living on a shoe string budget and had gone to a pub with a friend for lunch. He ordered 2 mince pies at 60p each - you can tell where the story is going. He ends up with christmas mince pies but was expecting big pies filled with mince meat.
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