Singapore: great service, poor building codes

One of the ways I fight jet lag is to adjust on the plane to the time at my final location.  I left Norman on Saturday morning and arrived in Singapore midnight Sunday.  So, I stayed almost entirely awake for the 20+ hours I was on airplanes.  The idea is that I check into the hotel, take a shower and hit the bed and when I wake up, I'm on Singapore time. This always works like a charm.  I'm typing this on Monday morning and feel completely fresh.

But sometime at night, I shuffled off to the bathroom and back to bed.  As you can imagine, having gone 20 hours without sleep, I was dog-tired.  My eyes were firmly shut as I was doing my shuffle.

And lo and behold, it turns out that the bedroom was at a slightly raised height from the rest of the suite.   I tripped on the step and nearly fell.  Shockwaves through my feet as I clutched them and hopped onto bed.  

Five minutes later, there was still a sharp pain coursing through my feet.  Something was wrong.  I switched on the bedside light to find my toe bleeding profusely.   Washed it off in the bathroom to find that a quarter-inch of the top of my middle toe had been scalloped away.   Till the bone, but luckily not through it.

I covered it up with a bandage I had in my kit, went down to the reception, got antiseptic cream and dressed it up.  

"Where is the trash can?," I asked the person at the front desk.

"Oh, give it to me.," she said, holding out her hand for all the stuff I'd used to clean my wound.

"No, can't ask you to touch this stuff," I told her, "show me the trash can."

Reluctantly, she did.   Can you imagine a receptionist in the US willing to dispose off bloody cotton balls?  Would never happen in India either.  I'm not sure if this sort of self-effacing service is typical of Singapore. 

Or may be it was just the general poshness of the hotel.  My suite in the hotel would be a rather upscale studio apartment stateside.  Very posh. Sports a Bose music system and a couple of flat-screen TVs.  The bathrooms floors and walls are granite. The fridge and microwave are built into the cabinetry. You get the idea.

When I went back to my room, I looked at where I'd tripped.  Surely, I should have just stubbed my toe if the bedroom was at a slightly different level.  How can a step take quite a bit of flesh off?  Closer interrogation revealed that the "step" was really a ledge.  Pretty much how you'd set a trap if you were of a mind to:


So, this brings me to my second observation about Singapore.  Regulations that we take for granted in the United States, like building codes, are not part of the milieu here.   Don't let the nice buildings and roads fool you.  This is still a third-world country.

7 comments:

  1. more:

    very often buildings have emergency exit doors opening towards the inside
    or emergency exit door locked with chains

    there are no standards for sound absorption level (or if there are, they are either not checked, or at extremely high level)

    Highways with buildings next to them have no sound bouncing walls

    Still developing....

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  2. What does this have to do with building codes? It's just the design of the interior.

    Don't make a conclusion that Singapore is a third world country based off the floor design of your hotel room...........

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  3. A FRIEND OF MINE IN THE MILITARY TOLD ME THIS STORY . HE GOT SHORE LEAVE AND GOT A HOTEL ROOM . IT WAS NICE HE TOLD ME . THEN HE TOLD ME ABOUT WOMEN THAT WERE PROSTITUTES FOR THE HOTEL HE WAS AT . THEY WERE THE HOTEL WOMEN THAT WERE FORCED TO SATISFY ITS CUSTOMERS . ACCORDING TO HIM IT WAS A GREAT HOTEL . HE COULD CHOSE THE WOMAN OR WOMEN HE WANTED TO SPEND THE NIGHT WITH HIM .IT IS THE SAME IN MANY PLACES IN SINGAPORE . YES ITS SAFE THERE . BUT MAYBE NOT FOR WOMEN . ITS A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY .
    THANK YOU ,
    KEVIN MC INTYRE .

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  4. hahaha the Anonymous person writing about others concluding Singapore is a third world country based on their hotel room and other building designs is quite right!

    how ridiculous these observations are, if only... if only they knew what the definition of a third world country really was...dictionary anyone?

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  5. If singapore were a 3rd world country, US would not be a first world either... look at our average living standards and look at yours... look at ur poorest living standards and look at ours than do a comparison... unless of course ur definition of third world country like Anonymous said is the condition of the floor of the hotel room

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  6. I have worked and lived in the U.S. for a time, and believe me, the standard of their buildings, highways etc. are pretty abismal, dirty and shoddy I can tell you. (bed bugs in N.Y. another instant). I now live in singapore and am convinced that the standards here (being based on the British Standards Institute) are superior to those of the U.S.

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  7. Building codes and interior design are 2 different things, at least to me. Since when was a step considered to be under building codes?

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