The Smartest Kids in the World by Amanda Ripley

Key takeaways from this parenting book by Amanda Ripley

Maths skills tended to better predict future earnings. Math had a way of predicting kids' futures. Teenagers who mastered higher level math classes were far more likely to graduate from college, even when putting aside other factors like race and income. They also earned more money after college.

Why did math matter so much? Some reasons were practical: More and more jobs required familiarity with probability, statistics, and geometry. The other reason was that math was not just math. Math is a language of logic. It is a disciplined, organized way of thinking. There is a right answer, there are rules that must be followed. More than any other subject,  math is rigor distilled. Mastering the language of logic helps to embed higher order habits in kids' minds: the ability to reason, for example, to detect patterns and make informed guesses. These kinds of skills had rising value in a world in which information was cheap and messy.

In Polish math class, they had learned tricks that had become automatic, so their brains were freed up to do the harder work. It was the difference between being fluent in language and not.

He didn't know that math could be cosmically beautiful and something he could master with hard work, time and persistence, just the way he'd mastered Chekhov.

A student's race and family income mattered but how much such things mattered varied wildly from country to country. Students from private school, did not, statistically speaking, add much value

In essence, PISA revealed what should have been obvious but was not: that spending on education did not make kids smarter. Everything - everything - depended on what teachers, parents, and students did with those investments. As in all other large organizations, from GE to the Marines, excellence depended on execution, the hardest things to get wrong.

Money did not lead to more learning either. In the education superpowers, parents were not necessarily more involved in their children's education, just differently involved. And most encouragingly, the smart kids had not always been so smart. Change, it turned out, could come within a single generation.

PISA demanded fluency in problem solving and the ability to communicate; in other words the basic skills I needed to do my job and take care of my family in a world choked with information and subject to sudden economic change.

Rigor mattered. Koreans understood that mastering difficult academic content was important. They didn't take shortcuts, especially in math. They assumed that performance was mostly a product of hard work - not God given talent. This attitude meant that all kids tried harder and it was more valuable to a country than gold or oil.

Korean schools existed for one and only one purpose: so that children could master complex academic material. US schools by contrast,were about many things, only one of which was learning This lack of focus made it easy to lose sight of what mattered most.

Other parental efforts yielded big returns, the surveys suggested. When children were young, parents who read to them every day or almost every day had kids who performed much better in reading, all around the world. What did reading to your kids mean? Done well, it meant teaching them about the world - sharing stories about faraway places, about smoking volcanoes and little boys who were sent to bed without dinner. It meant asking them questions about the book, questions that encouraged them to think for themselves. It meant sending a signal to kids about the importance of not just reading but of learning about all kinds of new things.

As kids got older, the parental involvement that seemed to matter most was different but related. All over the world, parents who discussed movies, books and current affairs with their kids had teenagers who performed better in reading. Here again, parents who engaged their kids in conversation about things larger than themselves were essentially teaching their kids to become thinking adults. Unlike volunteering in schools, those kinds of parental efforts delivered clear and convincing results, even across different countries and different income levels.

In fact, fifteen year olds whose parents talked about complicated social issues with them not only scored better on PISA but reported enjoying reading more overall. What parents did with children at home mattered more than what parents did to hep out at school.

Korean parenting, by contrast, were coaches. Coach parents cared deeply about their children too. Yet they spent less time attending school events and more time training their children at home: reading to them, quizzing them on their multiplication tables while they were cooking dinner, and pushing them to try harder. They saw education as one of their jobs.

Asian parents taught their children to add before they could read. They did it systematically and directly with a work book, not organically.

Parents who read to their children tended to raise kids who scored higher points on PISA. By Contrast, parents who regularly played with alphabet toys with their young children saw no such benefit. And at least one high impact form of parental involvement did not actually involve kids or schools at all: If parents simply read for pleasure at home on their own, their children were more likely to enjoy reading too. Kids could see what parents valued and it mattered more than what parents said.

A coddled, moon bounce of a childhood could lead to young adults who had never experienced failure or developed self control or endurance - experiences that mattered as much or more than academic schools.

Actual research on praise suggested the opposite was true. Praise that was vague, insincere or excessive tended to discourage kids from working hard and trying new things. IT had a toxic effect. To work, praise had to be specific, authentic and rare.

Adults didn't have to be stern or aloof to help kids learn. In fact, just asking children about their school days and showing genuine interest in what they were learning could have the same effect on PISA scores as hours of private tutoring. Asking serious questions about a child's book had more value than congratulating the child for finishing it, in other words.

Authoritative is a mash up of authoritarian and permissive. These parents inhabit the sweet spot between the two: they were warm, responsive and close ot their kids but as their children got older, they gave them freedom to explore and to fail and to make their own choices. Throughout their kids' upbringing, authoritative parents also had clear bright limits rules they did not negotiate.

Parents and teachers who manage to be both warm and strict seem to strike a resonance with children, gaining their trust along with their respect. Authoritative parents trained their kids to be resilient and it seemed to work.

In Korea and Finland, despite all their differences, everyone - kids, parents and teachers - saw getting an education as a serious quest, more important than sports or self esteem. Everything was more demanding through and through. Kids had more freedom too. This freedom was important and it wasn't a gift. By definition, rigorous work required failure; you simply could not do it without failing. That meant that teenagers had the freedom to fail when they were still young enough to learn how to recover. When they didn't work hard, they got worse grades. The consequences were clear and reliable.

The fundamental difference was a psychological one. The education superpowers believed in rigor. People in these countries agreed on the purpose of school: School existed to help students master complex academic material. Other things mattered too, but nothing mattered as much. The most important difference Id seen so far was the drive of students and their families. IT was viral and it mattered. Kids feed off each other. This feedback loop started in kindergarden and just grew more powerful each year, for better and for worse.

In the education superpowers, each child knew the importance of an education,

The teachers, everything is based on the teachers. We need good teachers - well prepared and well chosen.

In an automated global economy, kids needed to be driven;; they need to know how to adapt, since they would be doing it all their lives. They needed a culture of rigor.

To give our kids the kinds of education they deserved, we had to first agree that rigor mattered most of all; that school existed to help kids learn to think, to work hard, and yes to fail. All children must learn rigorous higher order thinking to thrive in the modern world. The only way to do that is by creating a serious intellectual culture in schools.

David & Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell

Courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the tough times start. Courage is what you earn when you've been through the tough times and you discover they aren't so tough at all. 

The lesson of the trickster tales is the third desirable difficulty: the unexpected freedom that comes from having nothing to lose. 

Find the means to create a crisis to make...tip his hand. Play Brer Rabbit and try to get xxx to throw them in the briar patch.

We need to remember that our definition of what is right is, as often as not, simply the way that people in positions of privilege close the door on those on the outside. David has nothing to lose, and because he has nothing to lose, he has the freedom to thumb his nose at the rules set by others.

When people in authority wants the rest of us to behave, it matters how they behave. This is called the principle of legitimacy and legitimacy is based on three things. First of all, the people who are asked to obey authority have to feel like they have a voice - that if they speak up, they will be heard. Second, the law has to be predictable. There has to be a reasonable expectation that the rules tomorrow are going to be roughly the same as the rules today. And third, the authority has to be fair. It can't treat one group differently from another.

The old man & his shoe

So, while researching on the web, I came across this story which I thought was well worth remembering:

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One day an old man boarded a bus. As he was going up the steps, one of his shoes slipped off. The door closed and the bus moved off so he was unable to retrieve it. The old man calmly took off his other shoe and threw it out of the window.

A young man on the bus saw what happened, and could not help going up to the old man and asking, "I noticed what you did, sir. Why did you throw out your other shoe?"

The old man promptly replied, "So that whoever finds them will be able to use them."

The old man in the story understood a fundamental philosophy for life - do not hold on to something simply for the sake of possessing it or because you do not wish others to have it.

We lose things all the time. The loss may seem to us grievous and unjust initially, but loss only happens so that positive changes can occur in our lives. We should not always assume that losing something is bad, because if things do not shift, we'll never become better people or experience better things. That's not to say of course that we only lose "bad" things; it simply means that in order for us to mature emotionally and spiritually, and for us to contribute to the world, the interchange between loss and gain is necessary.

Like the old man in the story, we have to learn to let go. The world had decided that it was time for the old man to lose his shoe. Maybe this happened to add momentum to a series of events leading to a better pair of shoes for the old man. Maybe the search for another pair of shoes would lead the old man to a great benefactor. Maybe the world decided that someone else needed the shoes more.

Whatever the reason, we can't avoid losing things. The old man understood this. One of his shoes had gone out of his reach. The remaining shoe would not have been much help to him, but it would be a cherished gift to a homeless person desperately in need of protection from the ground.

Hoarding possessions does nothing to make us or the world better. We all have to decide constantly if some things or people have run their course in our lives or would be better off with others. We then have to muster the courage to give them away.

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Feast @ East - A pretty decent Nyonya Buffet

We have been to the Sunday lunch time Nyonya buffet at Feast @ East (Grand Mercure Hotel) twice in the past month, primarily because of our Accor card which affords us a 50% discount on the buffet (about SGD45 for 2 of us with tax included).

The spread of food is nothing to shout about - in fact, I'll say that you would be sorely disappointed if you were looking for quality. In fact, the Japanese sashimi section is limited to just salmon.

The focus is on Nyonya food and on some days, they have Ngoh Hiang which is very good according to my Teochew in-laws and my CEB. However on other days they have lamp chop instead or poh piah. I've loved poh piah since young and could not wait to help myself to unlimited rolls of the good stuff when I spied the item at the food counter. However, the experience was disappointing because despite the superior quality of the skin used, the skin was hard and tasteless.

The buffet also serves Or Lah - Fried oysters in flour. I don't eat this dish at all but my mother and CEB both thought that the restaurant did a bad job on this one too.

So why the return trips? The Laksa. It's been a long time since all of us have had really good laksa and the thick flavorful gravy of the laksa had us coming back for more - round after round. I had 3 bowls one visit, and 4 the next! It was that good. The laksa does not come with prawns - just fishcakes, 1/2 a egg and clams but one can always add prawns from the cold spread (prawns, mussels, scallops).

It also helps that the restaurant does a pretty decent durian puree and serves slices of cheese cakes, chocolate brownies and durian cakes for desserts.

There is also a chendol and ice kachang machine in addition to tubs of ice-cream, and trays full of kuehs - the rainbow colored ones, the rice based ones (See pic above) and all sorts of sweets from the 80s. I had some of the Rabbit ones which I loved when I was a kid! The sago and corn dessert were also very good!

The Slog Reviews: 7/10. The spread of food is limited and the quality of the cooked food very average. Having a buffet here only makes sense if one wants to have Nyonya / 80s food to gorge on, or if one gets a one for one buffet.

Herbal black chicken soup and Aerogaz slow cooker

I read on the net that cooking Chinese herbs in a metal pot is not advisable because (somehow) the metal causes the herbs to lose their efficacy. So after looking around a bit, I decided to buy the 3litre Aerogaz slow cooker from Giant last Sat to cook the black chicken I had bought.

I also bought the 2 herbs I needed - Yu Zhu (Solomon's Seal) and Huai Shan from Giant since I saw the herbs there. The rest of the other herbs that I used were dang gui, dang shen, wolfberries and red longans. Now, my good ole mama told me that I needed to pour hot water into the crockpot so I boiled water separately and poured that into the pot over the herbs. Then I added the chicken from another pot that I used for blanching it. After that I set the slow cooker on auto-cook and left the house.

When I got home about 5 hours later, the entire kitchen and rooms were filled with an earthy herbal aroma. I found the chicken bubbling away in a delicious herbal concoction. Even after I switched off the electricity to the slow cooker, the pot kept the soup warm for a period of time. Just before we dug into the dish, I set the cooker to fast stew (which didn't seem to do much in 5-10mins) and the meat was by then so tender that it fell off the bones of the black chicken.

I think my CEB rather liked the soup as I did although he doesn't eat black chicken for no better reason that that the color is unappealing. That's alright - more for me! I had half the chicken for dinner while he ate the spinach dish and the tom kar gai with prawns dish which I had cooked for him in the tanyu pot I bought from Groupon. That pot is really easy to clean and seems to keep the food warm a pretty long time.

I tell you, I never thought I would end up so "domesticated" when just 2 years ago, I could not cook anything more than instant noodles. I'm just happy now that I have the time to indulge a little in the homely side of things

My last offshore fishing trip of 2012 (18-19 July)

Yes, for the same reason that travelling via plane will not be something that I will be doing for the next few months, I have just hung up my fishing gear for the rest of the year. It is very hard to put aside something that one loves so much (and I've just acquired an ice box from Carrefour the last weekend!) but time and circumstances dictate otherwise. I'm going to miss the sparkling blue of the sea, the wait with the rod in hand, the lapping of the waves....

And of course, the thrill of a great hook-up Anyway I wanted to blog about this trip not only because it is the last fishing trip for me this year but also because of a very unusual hook-up I had this trip.

Now you might be thinking - a greasy grouper! What's the big deal? But let me tell ya, I caught this table-sized grouper on sabiki size 8 hooks! Here's the evidence below, you can see the sabiki rig and my friend's Size 12 sandal next to the grouper (to give an indication of its size). The grouper was chasing the smaller fishes that usually takes the sabiki bait and in biting its prey, it got hooked too! From the two other hooks stuck in its body, it might have tried to escape but well, with 3 sabiki hooks in it, its day of reckoning has come.

Now, this trip was a far cry from the previous trip on this boatman's boat where we had a massive haul. I guess I should have known when he said that it was sotong season but I didn't expect that the bottom fishing would be so bad with the abundance of sotong eating the prawns. The school of tenggiri which we had hunted 2 months back had dispersed according to the boatman and so back to bottom fishing we went.

Now, I have to confess that although a squid has absolutely no fight when it is caught, I still enjoy that tug on the my jig when I am casting and retrieving, casting and retrieving. The pull by the sotong on the jig never fails to take me my surprise as I am retrieving line and then it's come to Mama time as I reel in the sorry greedy squid.

We caught a sackload of squids this trip - I think I caught about 11 pieces altogether on the first day and another 10 pieces on the second day. It would have been great if I ate sotong but that's the one seafood that I absolutely detest!

Thankfully, the other anglers on board managed to catch other fishes such as a large chermin. We saw lots of leather jackets at the surface nibbling away at our baits on the sabiki but no matter which size sabiki hooks we used, we failed to hook up the leather jackets. It was frustrating to watch them take the bait and even follow it all the way up close to the surface. The boatman said it was because their mouths were too hard for us to set hook.

We had dinner at a different restaurant this fishing trip instead of our usual Restaurant Rompin Bahru. The reason is of course the proximity of this new restaurant to the jetty and our chalet. The boatman and 1 other angler caught a red grouper which we cooked with the chermin. And of course lots of deep fried squid.

This was our haul to be split from the two days of fishing after us having eaten most of the good fishes over 2 dinners. The very red fish on the right was what I had caught on sabiki too. It's in my freezer now waiting to be cooked by yours truly! And yeah, we pretty much wiped out the ang kor li clan (left of picture).

I am proud to say I caught the most of the ang kor li on board the boat - not so much by luck but by pure diligence. When we hit the ang kor li spot, I changed to a sabiki rig (large size hooks) and put prawn heads/tails on the hooks before lowering the same to the bottom and just waiting. Always the pull, the ugly bend of the rod, and then me reeling it to bring up at least 2 ang kor li at a time. Then the reaching for the pliers to shake off the fishes into a pail, and then setting my rig again before lowering it to catch more.

My friend used some of my ang kor li to go after Tenggiri/Sail Fish or I would have more to show for the trip. The other angler holding the chermin also went after bigger game but someone has got to go after the smaller fishes and ang kor li makes for great eating! My mum fried some of the ang kor lis with tumeric powder and it was all just delicious!

Dim Sum Buffet at Chynna Hilton Hotel at KL Sentral

During our weekend jaunt up to KL last weekend, we decided to abandon our reservation at Jogoya because we had a late checkout (3.30pm) from the hotel and we had to catch the 5pm bus (which was just next to the hotel) to the airport.

After some last minute searches on the net, we found out that one of the top 5 Chinese restaurants in KL was located about 20+ floors down from our room - Chynna. I made reservations for 12noon but we were too stuffed from the breakfast buffet that we ended up going down at 1pm instead.

The decor of the restaurant was definitely Chinese-style with all the lanterns but far from being gaudy, the decor was tastefully done up without being overdone (too "cheena"). For the dim sum buffet, one could either have the buffet with 1 bowl of seafood soup at RM55++ or buffet with 1 bowl of sliced abalone soup at RM98++.

After we were seated and had made our selection from the menu, a waiter dressed in traditional Chinese Manchu Garb came over to our table and poured us a cup of welcome tea from this tea pot with an extremely long spout. I think only a few Chinese restaurants have that! Anyway, other than that one cup of welcome tea, drinks were not part of the buffet.

We placed our order for the dim sum items about 1pm and it took the restaurant 15 mins before serving the first item - fried Thai fish cakes which was very good. We finished the dish in about 2 mins and waited for the next dish which took another 5 mins to come. There was some sort of a cooking/steaming area at the side of the restaurant but it didn't seem like anyone was manning the counter at all. So we got a tad worried about how long it would take for all the rest of the items (this is a buffet, mind!) to be served given that we had to check out at 3.30pm.

After asking the waitress to hurry with our orders, the next dish was finally served - char siew baos. Warm and soft fluffy buns with sweet juicy fillings. Very good stuff.

My CEB ordered the porridge which I didn't have any of but he said it was decent. I on the other hand ordered siew mais which looked rather unappetizing but was in fact done very well. The pork was tender and wet, and when poked with my fork, fell apart in nice bite-sized pieces.

As you can see from the picture below, we also had beef balls, har gaos (prawn dumplings), and rice rolls with scallops. Every item except the rice rolls (which was too plain and tasteless) is worth a try!

I had a second order of the scallops dumplings (pic on the right) and another dim sum item which looks like stuffed balls of some sort - I can't really recall. My CEB had a second order of the Thai fried pan cakes. We also had other dim sum items in between but I can't recall what they are because I was too busy eating to take more pictures.

We ended with dessert - one gets to choose one dessert from a choice of 4 desserts on the menu. I ordered ice cream with red bean and this dish gets a huge thumbs down from me. Not because this is Chynna and I expected the dessert to be of a certain quality but because on its own, the dessert tasted awful - the red bean was tasteless and watery and of course, a heap of flavored ice mixed in did nothing for the dish at all.

Before we left the hotel, my CEB bought mooncakes from Chynna for his mama-in-law. A box of 4 mooncakes cost about RM80 for 2 snow skin mooncakes and 2 baked mooncakes.

The Slog Reviews: 8/10. While the large majority of the dim sum items at Chynna are definitely palate-pleasing, Chynna would do better if the service was much faster (there were only a few tables occupied at that hour and they were still so slow!) and if the quality of the desserts on the buffet menu was improved. Still, I would definitely visit Chynna if in KL and the urge for dim sum strikes me. Will be back.

Lago Restaurant at Boat Quay

So, we had 3 places reserved for my birthday dinner, thanks to my generous CEB who had offered to let me celebrate at any place I wanted.

Well, I wasn't in the mood for miniscule portions so I cancelled our reservation at Forlino in the afternoon. Red meat also didn't tickle my appetite the least so I decided to go to the place with the "Best Pepper Crab" according to my sister. I figured that given her lifestyle (fine-dining on the regular), we couldn't go very far wrong.

So, I called Lago to confirm the reservation I made 1 week ago and what do you know, they didn't have a record of it. No matter, they assured me that a table for 2 would not be a problem.

We made the mistake of parking at UOB which was all the way to the other end of Boat Quay. Lago is nearer the South Bridge Road of Boat Quay. The boss/manager was an aunty with a sling pouch across her body and she was a jolly friendly soul who gave us drinks (soft drinks) on the house when she heard it was my birthday. And that's where the good part ends.

So, the food right? She recommended kangkong which was the first dish to be served. I can find no fault with the cooking but it certainly was far from lip-smacking delicious. It was severely overpriced at SGD12 given the lack of quantity!

Even worse was the sambal stingray. It certainly tasted fresh but I think the restaurant has a darn lousy cook. Nevermind the size - smaller than 2 of your palms joined together - but the method of cooking was far below average. The fish was fresh but not juicy, just bland...and slices of onion heaped on top with some lemon slices did nothing for the dish. IT sucked and it cost SGD22.

Now, we came here for the crab and let me tell you, although the crab was huge (2kg right?), it was crap. It took forever to come which led my CEB to wonder if they had run out of crabs and had to go get one from another restaurant. After he took a couple of bites, he had his answer: It was probably defrosted. I am not so sure - it seemed to me that the crab was severely overcooked - barbequed to the point where the meat was all tough and tasteless instead of succulent and fleshy. It was truly again to me, an absolute horrific waste of SGD100 eating this dish. We would have done so much better at Jumbo or No Signboard.

The only thing good about the restaurant was of course, the view we had dining facing Fullerton Hotel where there was a local band playing next to the hotel. Then again, this view could be had from anywhere along the river on this side. And not at such a steep cost. The total bill for the 3 dishes above came up to over SGD150 (There is no GST payable but there is service charge of 10%)

The Slog Reviews: 1/10. The 1 point is for the service by the Aunty. This place, it deserves the one star it got on Hungry Go Where (Click here). I don't blame the (quality of the)food so much as the cook(s) who display an appalling lack of skills for a restaurant where so many tourists frequent by pure bad luck. I am not returning to this place. Ever.

Executive Lounge at Hilton at Petaling Jaya after the renovation

The last time I stayed in Hilton Petaling Jaya was May 2012 and the executive lounge was still undergoing renovation. Then, I had been given a standard room which had not been renovated and I found a painter in the toilet when I opened the door. Of course, I went back to the reception and refused absolutely to stay 4 nights in that room, especially with my Hilton Gold membership. And what do you know, where they had previously insisted that there were no renovated rooms available, I was given a renovated room on the 4th floor.

This time, I asked for a free upgrade to an executive room (being a Hilton Gold Member) and I was told that there were no rooms available. I recognized the manager and told him that the service at his hotel was a lot worse than that of Hilton at KL Sentral and DoubleTree where I would always get upgraded to a executive room. He promised that he would upgrade my room the next stay. We shall see. I will definitely be coming back to call on that promise! :D

Anyway, I was given a room on the 20th floor and there was a welcome platter all set out on the table. I would have been even more pleased if they had got the name right.

In any case, here is a picture of the room. The view from the room's window is nothing to crow about but this room is definitely larger than the rooms I had stayed in the past two times (click here for a review of the stay in April 2012).

Another picture of the room taken from the window - it's pretty modern in decor with the safe and robes tucked away in the beige cupboards. The only feedback I have about the room is the placement of the central light switches at the bedside. Now, if one is going to choose which side of the bed to sleep if one is alone, one would naturally sleep near the bedside telephone where the wake up call will come. Surely it would make sense to place the master light switch there so one can conveniently switch off the lights in the room to sleep but no, the switch is on the other side of the bed.

Anyway, given that this was a work trip, I didn't spend much time in the room. I was curious to see the lounge though which had been moved to the 21st floor so right after I checked in, I headed up just in time for the evening cocktail at 6pm.

As you would be able to tell from the pictures above and below, the new lounge is sprawling and tastefully decorated. Very very nice, especially if you consider what the old one looked like. There are plenty of different sorts of sitting arrangements - settees like the one I had, high seats by the window overlooking the highway and normal round table seats.

But of course, the true measure of a lounge is the quality of food they serve, no? So off I headed to the buffet table where there were 4 types of hot plate dishes and 1 pot of mushroom soup.

Oh, and this was the spread of non-hot cocktail food available ranging from fruits to sushi rolls to various types of pastries. Very aesthetically presented with variety and quality. Definitely a big thumbs up! I would dare say that the spread is on par with that of its sister hotel, Hilton at KL Sentral where I just came back from tonight!

But let's talk more about the hot food selection at the executive lounge of Petaling Jaya which deserves a picture on its own - the mushroom soup was done to warm soupy perfection and the prawns and salmon dishes were very well presented in dainty portions with just the right amount of garnishing to render them appealing.

However, what blew me and my colleague (and our guests) away was the smoked duck. The meat was tender, tasty and came with a delicious sweet sauce that instead of detracting from the taste of the duck, somehow enhanced it so that the juices from the smoked duck and the sauce filled one's mouth with orgasmic delight. I swear I closed my eyes with each bite, and I had more than 6 bites of duck altogether.

The Slog Reviews: 7.5/10. Hilton PJ's lounge definitely deserves a visit. It would be good though if they had takeaway boxes/doggy bags because I was rushing to work in the morning (about 7.15am) and had requested to take away some croissants (they had large delicious chocolate ones - I ate one while waiting to check out at the lounge) but was told the executive lounge does not allow one to take food away which is utter rubbish since I am entitled to breakfast. The restaurant at the lobby level allowed me to take away some croissants the day before when I was likewise rushing to go to work.

While Hilton PJ is definitely a much better hotel after all the renovations, it still has some way to go in treating its hotel guests, especially its Hilton Gold members. It would do well to learn from its sister hotels like Double Tree and Hilton KL which does a far better job overall.

Hyatt Hotel at Kota Kinabalu and its Oxtail Assam Pedas

There was an airfare promo some months back and I'd booked a short weekend getaway to KK for us on the first weekend of August.

I'm really glad for it because this break from the stress factors of the past month has recharged our marriage even though (or maybe because!) we had a most unpleasant experience together on our first night at Hyatt Hotel.

We reached the hotel about 9pm after a RM30 airport ride from the hotel and the check-in was fuss-free at that hour. Unfortunately, our request for a complimentary upgrade to a seaview room was denied (though I had the Gold card) and this was the view from our room in the morning. I'd stayed in a seaview room before at the Hyatt and the view was awesome (click here) so I'll say that if you had to choose, just pay that little bit extra for the seaview room.It's worth it. The mountain/city view is hideous.

We had an hour's complimentary internet access (WIFI as well as wired) which came in quite useful. As the hotel's restaurant only served buffet dinner till 10pm, we decided to order room service for the hotel's famous oxtail assam pedas. We were delighted to find out when placing our order that there is no tray charge and the cost of the hotel's famous Oxtail Assam Pedas for room service is just RM35 (with taxes and svc charge it works out to RM40) compared to the cost of the dish at the restaurant which is RM42 (without tax and svc charge).

My CEB went to the shopping mall next door to see if the shops were still open and when he returned, dinner was served literally. The meals came with rice and a glass of ice-cold water.

Now, make no mistake about it - the oxtail assam pedas is delicious. No two ways about that. There is lots of succulent tender meat cooked to tasty perfection and the sauce is thick and flavorful without being too spicy or too "coconuty".

We enjoyed our meal very much and retired to bed shortly after....only to be awoken up by our tummies less than an hour later! Everything exploded out of my tummy with a huge gush the first time I rushed to the toilet bowl. As I sat on the bowl, my CEB called out to me that his tummy was not feeling too good and he needed the bowl. So I got off and he got on. I was tired from being awake the entire day and fell asleep without waiting for him to be done, only to be awoken up two more times in the next two hours by my rebelling stomach. Liquid from the wrong place! It was awful!

At 7am, I asked my CEB to call the hotel to ask for charcoal pills as my stomach felt shaky and the hotel suggested that we go to the clinic instead. Now, I was exhausted from all the trips to the toilet and definitely was not happy to get out of bed at 7am on a holiday to go to a clinic. So I decided to go back to rest and hope for the best. My CEB and I both fell asleep till 11am when he woke me up.

The first thing I did was call the guest services to complain. They had the assistant manager call me back . He explained that it was the hotel's policy not to dispense medicine and urged us to go to the clinic. I did not see the point of so doing since everything had been purged during the numerous trips to the toilet. He told me that this was the first time any hotel guests had complained about their famous oxtail assam pedas giving them diarrhoea. I told him that this was the first time I had ordered room service that I had such a stomach upset - not even room service in a South Africa hotel had given me an experience like I just had!

I even had to tell him specifically that I was not going to pay for the food that had given us diarrhoea. He did not offer to take it off the bill. And he definitely did not offer to compensate us in anyway to make us feel better. If this is all the Hyatt can offer, and to its Gold member, then I'm definitely glad that we have chosen to maintain our Hilton Gold and SPG Gold memberships instead.

PS: I gave Hyatt feedback by referring this post to them and what do you know? They took almost a week to respond and all the manager said was that they would take the cost of the meal off my hotel bill, something which they had already done. There is absolutely no way I'm going to support the Hyatt group of hotels ever.

Lotus Desaru Beach Resort and Desaru Fruit Farm Tour

When I came back from UK, my CEB surprised me with a short weekend getaway - a 2D1N stay at Lotus Desaru Beach Resort that came with a complimentary Fruit Farm Tour and return ferry tickets. All that, together with free parking at Changi Ferry terminal, complimentary entry to the Water Park, a buffet lunch at the Fruit Farm and ground transportation in Desaru taken care of for only SGD99 per head seemed like a jolly good deal.

The ferry was due to depart at 9.30am and we reached the ferry terminal at 8.50am despite the fine print on the form stating that we had to be there at least an hour before departure. I think we were the last to pick up the ferry tickets but there was no trouble at all. Surprisingly, there were quite a number of foreigners in addition to the groups of older folks waiting for the ferry to Desaru but all of us cleared the 2 booth customs checkpoint at the ferry terminal and boarded this ferry to Desaru.

I was incredibly tired from having slept little the night before and fell asleep on my CEB's shoulder. When I woke up, I thought the ferry hadn't moved because the view outside the windows looked the same. But apparently, we had completed the 45mins journey to Desaru. As we had chosen to sit indoors (which had aircon) as opposed to on the deck, we had to queue a bit to clear the Malaysia customs at Desaru ferry terminal. Although I had the MAC card, the customs officer insisted on stamping my passport. 1/3 pg of the precious few pgs left, sacrificed.

There was a tour leader waiting for us once we cleared customs and he directed us onto the wrong bus. After waiting 15mins, we were told to disembark and board a smaller bus which took us straight to Desaru Fruit Farm. Our driver directed us to join one of the English speaking tour groups which were filled with middle-aged and older folks from Singapore. Thankfully the weather was just right as I hadn't brought my umbrella and despite my fears of being bitten by mosquitoes and other bugs at the farm because my mosquito repellent was in the luggage, I survived the entire 1 hour tour without incident.

The tour guide at the fruit farm was a lady who looked to have helped herself generously to the farm's produce and she spoke really good English. Despite our initial reservations and resignation to a boring meaningless tour, the tour turned out to be pretty informational. Stuff that I either had forgotten or hadn't learnt back in school.

I didn't take many pictures of the Cat's whiskers, durian trees, pineapples, pomelos and other native fruits, herbs and vegetables but I could not resist taking the picture above of 2 young girls posing for a photo with the giant jackfruits, and of this banana plant. The tour guide told us that the many little bananas symbolizes fertility for women. I've never seen anything like this before!

After wandering around more shrubs, trees and waiting for the other folks to take pictures of and pose with fruits and plants that we see in the markets, we finally got to the halfway mark of the tour - the pond below. Some folks had bread with them and they threw that to the koi fish in the water. The sight of so many kois surging forward to eat the bread was quite unforgettable. We also had a chance to buy bottled drinks made from the farm's produce at RM2 before proceeding to the mini-zoo. My CEB fed an ostrich while I chased a duck around and clucked at some chickens. There were rabbits for sale and lambs for petting too.

At the end of the fruit farm tour, we were picked up by the farm's vehicle for the 3mins ride back to the main building. The rest of the other folks rode in their air-conditioned buses. There, we found a table with our names and had quite a decent but very basic buffet. The folks at Desaru Fruit Farm were very well-organized and friendly. Definitely a thumbs-up in terms of service but one should not expect fancy fare (whether food or to buy back) there. The supermarket had an extremely poor selection of stuff to buy back (mangoes mostly) and I didn't see any mangosteens which the tour guide had informed us is 1 of the best source of anti-oxidants and has cooling properties.

After lunch (which really was not worthy of a picture), our driver sent us to the resort. He helped us to check in which took all of 8minutes while we waited in the lobby with our bags. The resort had a shuttle service from the lobby to the various blocks so we hopped onto one with our bags and had a tour of the buildings and club house before getting off at our block (Block B). Now, I have to say that the resort is very much like First World - the appearance of the buildings is definitely far from attractive, with each block painted some awful faded dull shade of pink, blue, green, yellow...you get the drift.

I didn't hold out much hope for the room we had either which was a long way from the lift and had to be accessed by stairs. However, we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves in a spacious chalet which had 2 floors and came complete with a kitchenette. The next 2 pictures are of the ground floor. The TV was surprisingly small (32inch or less) but it had cable tv. And in place of a sofa in the living room, 2 armchairs were provided. Maybe to discourage additional guests from camping out in the room, or to allow for more chairs to be pulled up to the smallish dining table.

A picture of the bedroom on the second floor and the en-suite. My CEB complained that there was no TV and I have to say that if I hadn't brought a library book, I would have been bored out of my mind. The WIFI signal in the room was terrible, even on the ground level.

We thought of going for a swim since our room was so near the water-park but I'll let the picture below do the talking. Yeah...what water park?! There was only 1 decent slide/ride (and not even very high) and the park is meant for kids. Like for kids below 12 yrs- nothing like Sunway Lagoon even (and I'm using Msia standards to compare!). The rest of the park consisted mainly of a giant bucket collecting water and tilting over every few mins on the heads of those who somehow found joy in being doused with a gallon of water from Gawd-knows-where.

There were other swimming pools in the resort and this is a picture of the one near the breakfast area. Good for a soak right after coming back from the beach.

In the evening, we made our way to the clubhouse. The function rooms of the resort are located there as well as some arcade machines and pool rooms. Again everything looks worn and dreary. This hotel is rather new but already like most hotels in Malaysia, it is in need of the maintenance that will never happen. I think it must be because it is cheaper to build something new than the maintain the old in that country.

So yes, dinner. As one can see from the picture below, the beach is within walking distance of the resort. The water is (still) an unappealing greenish bluish hue that makes swimming a no-no. And the beach is of a nondescript white that I feel sorry already for the foreigners who have come all the way for this. Still, beach-front dining beats the non-existent room service in the rooms so we had pizza and 2 drinks for just RM35 -this resort does not try to take advantage of guests with exorbitant meal prices. Alcoholic drinks are available and reasonably priced at the sea-facing bar.

The next day, we woke up to a very basic mass-market buffet breakfast but which left us satisfied till 430pm when we finally got back to Singapore on the 3.30pm ferry. 

The Slog Reviews: 5.5/10. Unless you have kids who are easily content with basics, or unless you have no access to a swimming pool or beach or unless you have really no dough and the beaches and pools of SG bore you, I would not recommend travelling from Singapore to Lotus Desaru Resort hotel. To put it simply, it just ain't worth the time and effort to get there. Not going back ever.