October 26 – Well I had to change hotels today, from the Hotel Sentosa to the Yuehua Hotel. The access to the internet had been spotty at best since my arrival, but yesterday and today it had been non existent.

When queried, the hotel flunky (er, manager) said that it “was not a hotel problem”, it was the fault of the internet provider. Because another westerner had told me the access in his room was ok, I asked if I could try another room. The manager said that others in the hotel were having such problems and so he didn’t seem interested in obliging me. So I told him to prepare my invoice, at which point, believe it or not, he still didn’t realize that it was indeed the hotel’s problem. Alas, a “world class hotel” (it really is excellent in all other aspects) without a clue.

Later the manager’s boss, a pleasant sounding young lady, got my phone number from my local office and called me at work, begging me to come back to their hotel. I guess they finally realized that with another 10 days or so, at $90 a pop, their internet problem really was their problem after all. After several rebuffs she even offered one free night’s stay if I would return. But being the stubborn old fart that I am, I finally had to hang up as politely as one can do so.

Even though I didn’t need one, I got a haircut just to meet and interact with the locals. It took two people, one for cutting and one for washing (before and after) and the total time took about 20 minutes, a job my wife would normally do for me in two or three minutes, given my lack of a requirement for such activity. The bill came to about $4.50 US. Later I also got a foot treatment (at least I do in fact have feet) which lasted about one hour, believe it or not, for the same price. This place is crawling with these two types of shops over here, I don’t understand why the need.

In this city the majority of people seem to live in these four or five story townhouse type buildings, maybe twenty or so units in length. It must be that almost everyone in the building is allowed to have his own little business shop on the ground level, they are typically 12-15 ft wide and maybe 30 ft deep. Perhaps they were intended for storage or as a garage, but have been turned into shops, I don’t know. Other typical businesses include mini variety stores, cigarette shops, rice shops, etc. I have even seen one that looks to be a porno shop, only 7 feet wide x 10 ft deep or so, just enough for the owner to fit his futon, his TV, and his walls full of wares.