Azio Hotel

So quickly the next holiday season is already around the corner. Well before everyone goes off for holidays again, I just have to get myself off my lazy bum and finally write this review of the hotel my friends and I stayed in in Lankawi over the Raya break. It's called Azio Hotel and Residences on Jalan Pandak Mayah 7.

It's situated at a pretty convenient location and the rooms were pretty clean...and that's where my compliments end. Oh yeah and they lent us a bottle opener.

Here are some facts about the place.

It's like a converted row of shop houses. The lower level is a duty free store owned by the same company, and you walk up to the 'hotel' area. AT the top of the stairs, you will see room doors, and the reception desk is on the left. At every room door, theres this light with the room number on it. I can't remember if it goes on or off when your key card is inside the thingy in the room. Point is, while it makes it easier for housekeeping to know if the room is occupied or not, it also makes it easier for everyone else to know. The room doors have no peep holes nor security door chains so you can't ever check who's at your door should anyone knock.

The bathroom walls are made of glass. The door is frosted, and the glass walls are covered by a shower curtain. Hot water is iffy in some of the rooms despite the new, cool-looking showers. Oh yeah...the frosted glass door doesn't lock..as in there's no lock on the door.

Staff were rude and unhelpful. This one guy in particular was so rude, lazy and lied to us about stuff (they decided to do some 'emergency' repairs to the bidet hose in my room so they'd simply packed up all our stuff and dumped them in our friends' room and insisted they'd tried to call us but couldn't get through - a complete lie since my roommate and I had been texting each other during the day. He later changed his story to "one of the other receptionists had said we'd gone island hopping and therefore they couldn't contact us" - another load of complete bull since they don't have our itinerary at all.) After refusing to answer me when I asked several times (very nicely if I might add) if they could assure us none of our stuff was missing, he had the damn balls to tell me that if I don't lower my voice, he will refuse to answer me. WTF. And what was supposed to make everything completely okay was that they gave us a replacement room. At the other end of the hallway, far, far away from the lobby and from the rest of our friends. Call me paranoid or whatever but really, how convenient that hotel staff who don't seem to think that simply packing up our stuff is a bit of a violation of privacy (for a very dodgy excuse of an emergency repair), move the only two girls in the group to a room far far away from the lobby and from our friends (recall the lack of security for the doors).

Blue Reef

Last night, we'd thought we were going to 75 degrees Celsius for dinner. First, we went to get a cake to surprise the birthday girl with. By the time we were headed to the restaurant, it was almost 7pm and pretty dark. So the first time we drove by, we wondered if we'd somehow missed the place. We only realised the place had closed down when we drove by a second time. Whoops.

Anyway, we ended up heading to Blue Reef. It's this nice little fish and chips place at Permai 32, No. 22 Lebuh Lembah Permai 4, Tanjung Bungah. To find this little business area it's located in, from the main road, turn in at this place with a sign that says F&B with a list of stuff below in print that was too small for me to read from the car.

It was Saturday night and the place was completely full! For a place that's comparatively out of the way, it's pretty popular. But we were in luck. A group of customers were just leaving and the table was big enough for the five of us. The staff were nice about having us wait a few minutes for the table to be cleared.

The food was pretty good. We had the soup of the day which was cream of tomato with garlic and basil. I had then the Fettucine with salmon (RM 21) which was great but might be a bit strong if you're not into the taste of salmon...or dairy products. The fish and chips were also lovely. It's great if you're someone like me who can't take dory (whatever that is) which is served by most places. Here, you can have a choice of three types of fish although I can't remember what the other two were. My friends had the Mahi Mahi. Gina had the pan seared salmon (RM19), which I'd also had on my first visit there. It's absolutely lovely, served with couscous. Finally the miso chicken was also pretty good.

The staff were all great: they were attentive and friendly. As usual, we'd bought the cake but hadn't thought about the fact that we had no lighter for the candle or that we hadn't been provided with a cake knife. Well, the restaurant did a lovely job of providing us both, and also paper plates and appropriate dessert spoons. They even dimmed the lights for us. When we'd arrived, I didn't even need to ask for them to keep the cake refrigerated for us. They noticed the bag and just told me they'll take care of it for me. It's a pleasant change from a few places I've been where they scowl at you, refuse to even provide you plates or stuff like that. Awesome.

erm...get out of my way...please?

Yesterday when there were only three of us at belly dancing class, I thought that it would be a really pleasant class with nobody getting in my way while dancing or blocking my view of the instructor or of myself in the mirror. But then, Rose showed up. She's nice and all but when it comes to dance class, I really, really, really cannot stand her. At first I thought she was one of those bimbotic tai tais who just don't realise what they're doing but yesterday I learnt she's got qualifications that prove she's supposed to have more brains than me.

Anyways, the studio is emptier than usual and there's plenty of room. At the beginning of the class we were at opposite ends of the room. The current song we're working on, however requires a lot of turns and thus, loads of space. So okay I get it if she wants to move closer to my end of the room to accommodate steps moving towards the right. But standing right in front of me and blocking me completely? WTF. I couldn't see the instructor, couldn't see myself and because she's fumbling around with the steps all the time, I was half worried she'd hit me or get in my way while doing the turns. And did I mention she's enormous? Like say way taller than me and about twice my width. Proportionate for her, yes. But also big enough to completely block my view of the mirror should she stand in front of me. And it just always bugs me like when there's plenty of room but someone comes so close to me that they crowd me. uuurrrrgggghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Burger King, Penang

I finally went to the Burger King here. And frankly, I don't see what all the fuss is about. If you've never set foot out of Penang and therefore have not been able to try Burger King in other parts of the country, then okay, I can see why it's something you'd want to try. Otherwise, I fail to see why people are willing to queue all the way from the counter to the doors just for a burger. I only ended up there because we'd thought all the hype would've died down by now. But when we got there, the queue was still pretty long. But I was hungry and really didn't want drive anywhere else anymore.

It took about 20 to 30 minutes of waiting in line only to reach the counter and observe pretty erm...inexperienced workers behind the counters. I just couldn't stand the one who was refilling ice cubes at the drinks dispenser. It was just so messy and makes me worry about how clean the ice cubes that will end up in my drink are. The one at the cash register routinely forgot to give people napkins and several people in the queue ahead of me had to come back because there was some mistake or other.

The food was okay. No different from any other outlet I've been to. Except that I've now got a bit of an upset tummy...although I've got another suspect on my list for that. So I can't be sure if it was from lunch today.

My verdict: Could possibly go again eventually but I'm not in a hurry.

~insecure~

It's been a pretty nice two weeks of not teaching. My students had school exams and wanted the two weeks off. While I thought I'd find uninterrupted Saturday afternoons a nice break, I ended up practicing during the time I usually spend teaching. And I realised something...I don't think I'm all that good. I'm just having one of those times when I worry that I'm not good enough and that I'm a pretty lousy teacher. Most of the time I don't think so. I think I do a good job of getting otherwise uninterested kids engaged in the lesson and getting them to enjoy playing. But what if that's not good enough? I definitely know I'm not the best teacher as far as technique is concerned (if I were, then well all music degree programs could just close shop, no?) What if I'm not good enough?

Seriously?

Okay sometimes I really just don't get all the weird things some people are capable of doing/saying.

First up, insane things I would never dream of saying to a teacher myself.

1. "Can you just read the whole script and we record it and we'll just act it out?"

Apparently that's what one of the classes said to my German language teacher while they were discussing preparing a sketch for one of our language school events.

2. "I would throw it away."

This was apparently their response to what they would do if they were members of the audience given little potted plants from their environmentally-themed play. First of all, why throws away plants? If they didn't want it, they could easily pass it on to the next person or give it back to the cast for them to settle it. Or, since it's a tiny little plant, I'd say it's the perfect thing to put by the window in our otherwise super bare dorm rooms. Secondly, even if you were going to throw it away, who says that so bluntly to the lecturer we already know is so passionate about her cause? Seriously..

Next up,

3. "Oh yeah, it is beef."

When I asked the girl who prepared the food for the event. I always thought people knew not taking beef was pretty common. Apparently not. The beef was an unnecessary addition to mac and cheese and was nowhere mentioned in the menu.

4. "You'll have to pay for that."

When my friend went to ask where the potato salad that was to go with our mac and cheese (which we already paid for) was.

urgh

Okay seriously I just don't get why people seem to think the world revolves around them. I used to think that I'm a pretty shitty team player but I'm starting to realise that I'm still a whole lot more considerate than most of the other morons I go to school with.

Now we've got one moron who thinks that the entire team revolves around her and dares to tell me what dates she's available and therefore we should have our pre-tournament intensive trainings then. WTF. First of all, the dates of the tournament have been announced ages ago. Second, everyone's been told training is definitely for the week before that. And thirdly, she lives within the state. If anything, she should be a bit more considerate about those who live half the country away and are making another trip back just for training and to go to the tourney. Oh how nice that we should all come back, have training to suit her schedule and then rot for another week (not to mention have to pay for extra accommodations for the out of towners for an extra week) before we go to tourney. =.= Sometimes I wonder if people realise what a pain in the arse they're acting like.