#983

This is going to be a super long post on my staycation so I'll probably break it down into two separate posts or smth, we'll see how things go!

So basically what happened was that this year is my boyfriend, Wq's, 24th birthday and I wanted to make it special to thank him for what a wonderful person he has been in my life.

If you've been reading my blog, you'll know that he had to spend his actual birth day in India on an army trip so I thought, what better way to celebrate his birthday than to have a mini staycation since the both of us are obviously unable to leave SG.

Two years ago, my girls and I had a staycation at the hotel Studio M (read the post HERE) and upon entering the room, I was mesmerized by how cosy the whole room was!

We booked the Premier Loft and it had a staircase that led up to the "second floor" where the bed was. It was super pretty and I told myself that I am definitely bringing Wq here with me one day.

So to surprise him, I booked a room for the two of us and hung by my fingernails to keep myself from taking the plunge and blurting out the secret.

It is super hard for me to keep anything from Wq because he's my number one confidant, the one I go to whenever I need to whine and all.

Plus I was so tired from working so often and he just didn't understand why I was working so hard. I couldn't even tell him why I was doing so :(

(My friends bore the brunt of my whining but I'm pretty sure they still love me despite it all! ^^)

So after telling him a white lie that it was my friend's 21st and I didn't want to go alone, I got him to agree to keep his Saturday free for that.

On Saturday itself, I told another white lie that I had a family lunch at The Central and I was meeting my family at home to head over together. So I'll meet him straight at Studio M because my dad will give me a lift over.

In actual fact, I went home to pack my stuff for the overnight stay, took a train to The Central, and walked nearly 20 minutes in the scorching sun to reach Studio M.

I was lugging a bulging back pack, a paper bag and a DSLR all the way there and I almost died of exhaustion just getting there.

Upon checking in, I told Wq that my parents are sending me over there now so he could leave house at any time. (That was about 2.30pm or so.)

The reason why I went early?

To hang this banner, just so that he'll know this surprise is for him.

I wanted to do more but I just didn't have the time to prepare everything, what with work and school and spending weekends with him (where I obviously cannot do anything related to this at all.)

The sky was turning really dark and I kept rushing him 'cuz we only had like 20h in the hotel and every moment that he isn't there, it's time wasted. 

But HE TOOK HIS OWN SWEET TIME TO PREPARE. I was so pissed off at him!

Prior to leaving him to go home, I told him I estimated that I'll be "done with lunch" at 3pm 'cuz it'll give me enough time to check in, hang the banner and wait for him to come.

But even till nearly 4pm, he was still slowly preparing at home?!

I wanted him to come before it rained but instead he wanted to avoid the rain and only come after the rain stopped.

If you were me, how could you not be pissed?!

I was literally sitting on the bed, surfing tv channels (I haven't watched tv programs in nearly 4 years because I just have no interest of sitting in front of the tv) and playing PvZ. I was THAT bored.

But I knew I couldn't keep rushing him 'cuz he would suspect la so I literally just fumed while sitting on the bed, watching the telly.

He ended up only reaching at 5pm and by then, the both of us were pretty pissed off (on a side note, he wasn't really pissed with me but over something else.....), well actually I was starting to get excited to see his reaction so maybe I wasn't that pissed off anymore.

So I went down to the lobby to meet him, brought him up to the room.

He stopped at the corridor leading to the "living room" area and asked where was everyone and why was it so quiet.

I just looked at him 'cuz I knew he saw the banner on the window.

Turns out, he saw the banner, but didn't read the words on it so he just thought everyone was somewhere else.

He only realized when I asked him "you seriously didn't see that?" and he finally got it.

SURPRISE BABY!

Welcome to Studio M for your mini staycation!

(Sorry for the super dark photo 'cuz the bg was too bright and even with flash, it still turned out like that.)

Little Wq is finally happy!

I broke down all my plans and pointed out all my white lies to him and he was just LOLOL.

I literally told so many white lies to make sure he checked that he didn't have any duty that night if not I would be SCREWED and he didn't even realized anything at all!

The only thing he found weird was that I didn't go over to the hotel with him and instead opted to go alone and meet him there.

HEHE. I am awesome.

By the time we got settled in and unpacked our stuff, it was pass 6pm and I was starving 'cuz I didn't had any lunch 'cuz I was rushing to check in, and he didn't eat anything at all as well so we decided to head to this Italian food place at Liang Court!

I thought the food there was pretty value-for-money and the atmosphere was pretty unique and different so it's definitely a place I'll make a second trip to again.

Don't expect fancy food, it's more of a simple food affair with simple but pretty good tasting food.

Like if fine dining was more quality than quantity (the portions are puny), this is more quantity over quality, although the food isn't bad-tasting, just pretty normal.

So basically what you do is you decide what you want from the menu, then press the little button located at every table, some waiter/waitress will come over to take your order!

We ordered quite a lot of food (I feel) and the bill only came up to about $22.

And the best thing about this place is that they do not charge you service charge or GST. How awesome is that?

For starters, we had the Special Mushroom Soup. I thought it was pretty yummy for someone who doesn't like mushrooms at all.

We also ordered cheese sausages (MY ALL TIME FAV AND MUST HAVE) and it came with a portion of wedges at the side.

We ordered Ham cabonara or something, basically it was spaghetti with ham in a creamy sauce.

I got sick of it within less than 10 mouthfuls so the main bulk of this dish ended up in Wq's stomach. 

And the last dish was a simple pineapple and ham pizza.

The pineapples were really sweet!

I was so bloated at the end of dinner even though I didn't eat much.

I think that's due to the drinks 'cuz for just $2.90, you get free-flow from the drink bar. HOW AWESOME?!

I drank like orange juice and iced milo and iced mocha......... Super happy ^^

After that we decided to walk around Clarke Quay 'cuz we rarely, actually I don't think we ever have, come to Clarke Quay and The Central.

There were so many things to see and watch. Street performers performing optical illusion tricks, a group of youngsters playing the drums, booths selling anything from shirts and bags to plants....

Clarke Quay is a happening place at night indeed.

Took a stroll by Singapore River and just chilled in the evening breeze. I honestly think that the simplest things in life like this are irreplaceable.

Despite being in a r/s with Wq for more than a year, we hardly ever find time to just take things slow and take a stroll instead of having movie dates or shopping dates like we so often do.

We also met the nicest bunch of Japanese guys who helped us take the photo below.

They were so willing to accommodate us and even took multiple photos because they were unsatisfied with how the previous photos looked like.

This just reinforces the notion that I have that Japanese people are one of the nicest and most polite people there are out there.

After our stroll, we decided to head back to the hotel for a swim! Wanted to do so in the afternoon but due to Wq arriving so late, and me feeling so hungry, we only managed to do so at night.

No pictures, 'cuz we left everything in the hotel room and only brought the card key out but it was so fun playing around in the water.

The water wasn't that cold, surprisingly so we had a good swim!

Went back to the room to shower and watch some shows!

I literally sat at the stairs and blow dried my hair while watching Mel B: It's a scary world on the telly.

Thank goodness for the fact that there were two tvs! One downstairs and one upstairs so I can watch whatever chick flick I want to without bothering Wq hehe.

Was debating whether to head out for the night (Rebel and a million clubs and pubs were just a stone's throw away!) or to just chill in the room and watch movies and I guess the lazy side of both of us won in the end.

I was exhausted from my Friday schedule and he was tired from his camp's activities so we both ended up chilling around, watching the telly on the bed!

(Was reading a book about Singapore's hot spots that the hotel provided!)

At about 11 ish, guess who's stomach decided to start growling and making noise despite the huge dinner she ate!

My horrible tummy started growling and Wq knew I was hungry so we went out to buy maggie mee back ^^

Headed to the 7-Eleven at Quayside hotel but they only had a miserable selection of noodles available so we went off to the 24h NTUC at Havelock road in search of noodles!

And we watched more movies again on the tv.

Oh glorious movies, I can spend the whole day watching movies!

I'll leave the next day's activities for another post. Thank you for reading! :)