hangout @ mt emily, Singapore

After hearing about hangout @ mt emily for what seems to be years now, I finally booked a two night stay there when they posted some October room deals on their Facebook page. I picked last weekend so that I could go to USS before the school holiday crowd. I went a little crazy and booked a double room all to myself because as a light sleeper, the shared dorm room arrangement wouldn't work for me.

Getting there: Walking there from Little India MRT station was closer (never tried the hike from Dhoby Ghaut MRT station), but it didn't feel like it when you're climbing the stairs of Mt Emily Park to get to the hotel with even a small piece of luggage. While not as brutal as the 272 steps of Batu Caves, it's probably just my unfit self. You also walk past some fancy schmancy condos getting to and from the hotel.

Key cards

Checking in: Because I went through immigration on both sides quickly (no crowd, I was there 10 minutes, tops) and good traffic, I was in time for the 3 p.m. check in. At least they don't charge your card (even though they asked for card details during booking) until you're there to check-in. Or in my case, the people at the front desk forgot to charge it until after I had already left my stuff in the room and had just returned for the night. Then there's the S$30 refundable deposit for the access keys (in my case, per room), where one could only access the floor one is staying on, room (duh) and also the lounge on the second floor. Great safety feature. The card readers took awhile for it to detect/read the card to let me in.

Room: Got a room on the third floor. It was clean, no complaints there. You get one bottled water per person per room (which you see in one of the pictures). For a few days, I get my own bathroom (that I don't have at home) that I don't have to clean myself (heh heh). Since it was just me, I didn't think about space too much as long as I didn't trip over anything. I could also adjust the air conditioning however I liked as I never got the hang of sleeping with the A/C on full blast. At least the bedding was adequate in keeping me warm and cosy so I didn't feel too cold to fall asleep. As for the sleep part, it was so quiet that I didn't need the ear plugs I brought.

I might've gotten a windowless room, but the natural daylight strewing into the room (via the clear frosted bathroom door) in the morning was enough to wake me up. Which was just as well, otherwise I would've missed breakfast (7.30 - 9.30 a.m.). Also kept one of the keycards in the power switch just because I didn't want to lose it and I didn't want to wait ages for the A/C to kick in when I come back after a long day out.

Internet access: Same username and password all around the premises I think, but what I did mind was that they had some really old version of IE on the 6 computers on the second floor lounge which made browsing newer Flash-powered sites (like Facebook) a pain. There wasn't even Firefox or Chrome on there *headdesk* Thanks to the front desk staff, I found out the hard way that I had to key in the username and password on the phone browser (I don't usually carry a laptop when I travel) before I could do anything else, like say check in on Foursquare. It's pretty fast after that - I could watch YouTube videos from the comfort of my own bed. 

Breakfast: Was at the on-site posh restaurant Wild Rocket (the posh restaurant is only open for dinner). It's not just the typical hostel breakfast fare like bread, cereal and coffee out of the machine (although it's not too bad), there was also items like fried rice, bread and butter pudding, scrambled eggs, potato salad, macaroni salad... okay lah. You could say you were dining at Wild Rocket - just don't tell them that it was for breakfast :P

Beside the usual grouses about the crazy early breakfast hours and the uphill climb, it wasn't too bad a stay. Just keep an eye on the promotions and be reasonably fit to climb up and down the hill. Was too exhausted to check out the park outside, but great for young families and the retiree set. Service from the front desk staff was great even though I was grumpy and tired from the weather and the preexisting sleep debt.