The Raffles Place Ghost

Garrghhh !!!

I Think I'm coming down with the flu & I feel awful so apologies if this post ends up making no sense at all.

There is currently a video doing rounds on email titled "The Raffles Place Ghost"

The video was created by a HR & Recruitment company called GMP as part of a "work/life balance" campaign Meaning: IT'S A HOAX PEOPLE.

Also I might add Raffles is a very prestigious building in Singapore consisting of a Hotel, Shops and the famous "Long bar" (birth place of the Singapore Sling).

1. All Hotels & Resorts my husband has ever worked in have reputedly been haunted.
2. The Ghost stories usually stem from a housekeeper on the night shift catching sight of a shadow out of the corner of his/her eye.
3. Housekeeper shares the story with co workers and like Chinese whispers the story under goes some embellishments and with in a week we have a fully fledged "Haunting" happening.

Ghost Story 1.1

Background info:
The last Resort we lived at was built next door to a casino, occupancy was high, The town was bustling and there was a lot of money thrown around.

One particular night a man with a gambling addiction gambled away all his money, Depression & alcohol got the better of him and he jumped from a 10th story balcony at the Hotel ending his life with a splat.

Not long after a change of government took place. A pro Islamic party came into power and the Casino was shut down, Almost over night the town became a ghost town (excuse the pun). The Resort managed to remain open despite the loss of revenue from the lack of gamblers as it had an international award winning spa plus there was enough business around town to ensure a steady flow of out of town business men checking in during the week.

The Casino had been operational for 3 years before closing, Hubby took a GM position at the Resort 4 years later.

Our Spa girls first reported seeing the "Ghost" hanging around the spa therapy villas at night. Quite a few of the girls reported seeing him & this started to impact their work as many were to scared to remain in the villas after dark.

Hubby approved for a priest/witch doctor to come in to do a blessing on the grounds although he doesn't believe in the paranormal, As he likes to address the concerns of his staff & keep them happy.

On this occasion the blessing was successful and no more Ghost was seen hanging about, I personally never had an experience with him although I did see a chair move once on its own on the same 10th storey floor as the jumper. I don't really believe in Ghosts so I'm quick to rationalize what I saw as being due to exhaustion or one to many vodka tonics :)

I know the story wasn't very scary, It's just that the "Raffles Place" video reminded me of it.
We did have another bizarre "paranormal" incident occur recently at the hotel I am currently at but it is more funny than scary, I'll post that one later when I get over this flu.

The Great Singapore Sale

I've been so busy this past week, I spent a few days in Singapore for the famous "Great Singapore Sale" caught up with a few friends while there and had family fly in from Oz . So I have been playing tour guide for the last few days as well.

Yesterday I took my Mum & Sis to a Snake Temple to have their photos taken with a couple of Pythons & Vipers. While I was snapping pics for them I felt tiny clammy little hands wrap around my ankle, Then tiny little teeth start chomping on my leg, I looked down and saw a monkey gnawing at my leg !! So I shook him off and continued to snap away, Luckily he didn't break the skin so no need for a rabies or tetanus jab.

Today we've had heavy rainfall most of the morning and the hotel is leaking like a sieve so husband is stuck dealing with a bunch of guests complaints, he is not a happy chappy right now.

BTW, The pesky monkeys I have been mentioning look like this one, the pic was taken when I visited Monkey Beach, it's not the monkey that bit me.

& More Snakes & Monkeys

Funny thing happened since my last post,

A viper was found outside our suite, Now we live on the top floor of a tower block, There is only the Penthouse, A VIP suite and The GM's apartment here. None of the other suites on this floor are currently occupied so it's not as if the viper hitched a lift in a guests bag and found its way up here and I doubt the snake managed to crawl up the stairs or elevator shaft, I never actually saw the viper I only heard the report from security, perhaps it hitched a lift in the housekeeping cart ?

But the funniest thing I have seen in a while happened 2 days ago, Hubby and I had just returned from dinner and were down stairs in the staff car park .

The monkeys were out again, quite a few of them playing in the trees & running along the drive way. One was sitting on a staff members motor bike, He was grabbing hold of the handle bars and mimicking a motorbike rider, It was so cute.

Monkey then caught sight of himself in the side mirror of the bike, His facial expressions changed from shock, to puzzlement and finally excitment as he realised it was his relfection staring back at him.

Monkey caught sight of us and looked almost embarassed that we had caught him checking himself out in the mirror, so he looked away and played with the handle bars again, hehehe so cute !

As soon as monkey thought we weren't looking he went for the mirror again this time grabbing and pulling at it until it was free.

He then hopped off the bike and was on his way back to his jungle home, stopping every few steps to check himself out with his new mirror.

Can't wait for him to show his friends, I wonder if they will all pop down to the car park to get their free mirrors.

Cats & Snakes & Monkeys …. Oh My!

Cats

When we moved into this Hotel, There was a stray cat problem, it’s quite common in predominately Islamic areas, No dogs to chase them away you see.

The staff set about rounding up the cats for relocation, Other GM’s will set baits to poison them as they’re considered pests. Hubby initially considered this to but I couldn’t let that happen to the poor lil kitties. So a “catch and relocate” plan was devised.

I even caught a few felines myself popped them into a purpose built cage that engineering knocked together and had our driver relocate them to the fish markets. I know it’s not ideal but it’s the best option we have here.

Snakes

Who knew that stray cats were a great deterrent for snakes? Not long after our cat problem was resolved the monsoon season began. The nearby mangroves flooded and we had new little visitors take up residence on the hotel grounds, driven in land due to the flooding.

Pythons, This was a first at the hotel, we do see snakes near the perimeter some times but never on the grounds. One decided to slither up a palm and enter a suite via an open balcony door, After a bit of research (read: google) by myself, I found that snakes don’t like pungent smelling plants so will avoid them also sulfur & mothballs act as a good deterrent. Me personally I think stray cats are the best deterrent as the seemed to keep them at bay for so long.

Monkeys

Months later the sulfur/moth ball mix is working wonders around the hotel. We’ve had no snakes on the grounds for quite some time now.

What we do have is funny little white faced monkeys! Maybe Gibbons? I’m not to sure.

They’re cute silly looking things so we leave them be and they reciprocate. Occasionally the cheeky lil monkeys get a bit to close for comfort and inhabit our sky walk (it’s a bridge that connects the hotels towers together). They were out again the other day when Hubby was using it, The monkeys started hissing and screeching at him so he called up the engineering guys to chase them away, I have no idea why he chose the engineering dept over say, housekeeping or the porters and come to think of it, this is also not the first time monkeys have acted aggressively towards him. I recall being at “Monkey Beach” once and hand feeding wild monkeys, up walked Hubby the monkeys screeched at him, ran off then started doing wild monkey sex to each other!!

Once again I’ll put in the disclaimer that my stories are 100% true, trust me I could not make this stuff up if I tried, I’m not that imaginative.

Me, Mans Best Friend ?

My eyes have been red & sensitive to light for the past couple of days,

Hubby was heading out of the Hotel for lunch so I asked him to stop by an Apotek (drug store) and pick up some conjunctivitis ointment for me. ( Why no Doctors visit?..... Because YOU DO NOT VISIT DOCTORS in remote S.E Asia)

"Sure no problems" he says, sounds easy enough I thought.

Later on he came back, handed me a tube of ointment, So I slathered it all over my pink eye then thought, hmm I better google the name of the cream. "Terramycin" manufactured by Phizer.

After a quick search I click on a link and wait for the page to load up, Scan the page quickly thinking "Phew, The cream seems legit, not a generic no frills made is China but banned every where else brand ".

Then I take a closer look the the web page & think "Huh?!?!, Phizer ANIMAL HEALTH....... WTF!?! "
Scrolled down the pages a bit to see these 2 magic sentences,

For animal use only. Not for human use.

Restricted drug in California; use only as directed.

My initial reaction went like this: F%$#& !?! #$%^@!!! #*&^$%!!!!

Then after a few deep breathes: PMSL, LOL, hahaha So typical here even the simplest things turn into a drama !

I do think it's kinda ironic the Apotek is dispensing dog medicine considering this is a predominately Islamic area I'm in.

Wonder if Terramycin is halal ?

Beware of the men in Blue

I just heard this little bit of gossip that happened at one of our sister hotels.

The hotel has undergone a refurb and had LCD T.Vs installed in all rooms as well as around the public areas like the lobby & bar as that has become the brand standard.

Anyway last week a couple of guys in blue overalls came into the hotel, I guess all the staff just assumed these guys were either in house engineering or contractors because nobody batted an eyelid as these guys went about their business of removing the LCD’s from the walls.

Only after they had finished the task & left, did the staff realize the blue overall guys were actually thieves, lol.

How embarrassing would that police report be to make, hehehe.
It’s all on CCTV but I bet that tape never see’s the light of day.

From tomorrow onwards I’ve requested no engineering enter the GM’s apartment with out prior authorization from me, just to be on the safe side.

Duty managers report 16th April 2008:

Another Naked Sleepwalker last night (female).
A Pilot one of the aircrew that are currently checked in found her wandering around the hall, Retrieved a blanket from his room covered her and her naughty bits up then called through to front desk.

The aftermath is one very embarrassed lady, She has checked out already.

Thankfully The Pilot that found her handled the situation is a professional manner.

Now that reminds me of the “Dirty Hotel Room”, I mentioned in my earlier post.

At the time Hubby was looking after a city hotel in Australia, Airline crew (from a very well known airline) had checked in for the night.

After the aircrew had checked out the following day, An issue arose with a housekeeper refusing to clean one of the vacated rooms. A flurry of activity and discussions went down between cleaners, head housekeepers, supervisors, onto “Joe” the house keeping manager and eventually to Hubby.

“Um we have a problem with one of the Pilots rooms” Joe advised Hubby.

A brief and very vague description of the issue, left hubby intrigued & also a little annoyed that the supervisor & housekeeping manager were unable to resolve an issue of a housekeeper refusing to clean a “dirty room” after all it was occupied by a Pilot & he had stayed there for less than 24 hours.
How bad could it be?
So off hubby went with Joe in tow to check it out for himself.

At the room, Joe swipes the access card into the card reader, hears the click of the lock, swings the door wide open and……


The first thing that hits Hubby is the stench,

Then the sight of what can politely be described as a pilots abstract expressionist art using feces as a medium and 4 walls as a canvas Or to put it bluntly there was SHIT EVERYWHERE, It was smeared all over the walls as well as the sheets, floor, lamps, sides tables, t.v, just about everything he could hit !!

Immediately Hubby made his retreat back to the confines of his office and booked “ABC Cleaning Co” a specialist cleaning company that was able (willing) to disinfect, sanitize and deodorize the room to remove all traces of the Pilots art works.

“ABC Cleaning Co” turn up to begin the job & guess what? Not even the ABC cleaners with their hazmat suites on would touch the room, It was THAT BAD !!! Perhaps the Pilot had a curry feed and a few beers the night before?

ABC cleaners were sent back to the cleaners (hehehe). Leaving Hubby to come up with “Plan B”. So as we all know Money Talks and Hubby dangled that carrot in front of his housekeeping staff until finally a few accepted the offer of the extra cash to venture into the “Poop Shoot Den” and clean it up.

An official complaint was sent to the airline along with an invoice for cleaning the room.
As for the Pilot? Who Knows, Perhaps he is still flying the friendly skies.