I was a bit confused. “Uh, yes? Why?”

He explained that people are getting PIN numbers for their credit cards these days, for increased security and to save paper. This sounded pretty good to me, since I hate having to sign, so I went to my bank and got them to give me a PIN number. Now I find it much quicker at the check-out, as I don’t have to wait for that bit of paper to be printed out, wait for the attendant to take it and make markings on it, then pass it to me for me to sign it. Then of course they have to check the signature against my card, approve it, pop it in their register drawer and finally, once it’s finished processing, I get my docket.

I also like the idea of the paper I am helping to save! I’ve seen the bundles of credit signature slips sent up at the end of the night and there’s a shiteload of them. Seriously. Just think - if we all had a PIN number for our credit cards, we’d save all that paper. And the trees. Think of the trees!

Anyway, this rambling post does have a point, and I wanted to ask you all if you are still signing for credit, or do you have a PIN? Did you even know it’s possible? It’s worth looking into, anyway.

**

Sorry for being so silent … I’m finding I’m getting quite swept up in, well, life in general. I am either at work, at uni, or at both, every single day of the week, and I think I am burning myself out a little. There is nothing I can do about it, but unfortunately it means I simply don’t have the time to sit around thinking of witty, funny things to post. I’m trying to get a bit better, but as assessment is starting now, I must get my priorities straight.

I am, however, still visiting blogs as much as I can, and I am trying to leave more comments. It’s just a time issue.

For those of you still reading my blog, thank you.

…JOKING!

Hehehe. I could just imagine the horror on your faces as you read that … that’s terrible! I’d never do that to Puddy!

We considered having Puddy stay at a cattery, but decided against it for the main reason that it would probably freak her out more than if she stayed at home. Long story short, she’s not very good with strangers and she has major abandonment issues. So we decided that she should stay at home, in familiar and comfortable surroundings, and a friend of ours would pop around every day to feed her, change her water and give her some snuggles. This is the same friend who looked after her on a previous occasion and lived with us for about a year, so Puddy’s very familiar with him and likes him.

When we pulled into the driveway and I went to put the key in the front door, I heard her miaowing, just like the last time we were gone. I opened the door and she came bounding out, tripping us up in the process. The first thing I did was change her food and water, then I gave her lots of snuggles and pats.

Then I attended to the … less exciting … part of seeing a beloved pet again.

The litter box. And the few little … presents … she had left lying around on the tiles.

You see, Puddy is very particular about her litter box. Although I left her with three large boxes to use, she decided once they’d all been used once, they were no good. So the tiles became the new box. Let’s just say it wasn’t a highlight of my day.

But once that was all clean, she was thrilled to see us and spent most of the night on our laps, sleeping. It was nice to be home.

For more cat-related posts, check out Weekend Cat Blogging hosted at Catsynth and the Carnival of the Cats, hosted at Skittles the Huntress. See you there!

The entrance was quite beautiful - so many flowers! There were big pots near the front lobby filled with water, with little flowers resting on the surface in pretty patterns. We saw this repeated a lot during our stay and we wondered if they had to re-do them every day. In the below picture you can see the lobby, with the main desk on the left where we dropped our keys in whenever we left, and up the stairs is the restaurant where we had breakfast every morning (included in rates).

The end of the restaurant overlooks one of the pools and the pool bar is situated just underneath. This is a necessity for us - where we stayed had to have a swim-up pool bar. And this one certainly didn’t disappoint, especially during happy hour, where you got the same drink again for free.

I tell you what, it was heaven to come back to that cold pool after a day walking around in the heat! We downed many a cocktail (and beer) at that bar. The only downside was that the pool closed daily at 7pm, which is rather early in our opinion.

The rooms were quite nice - not too big, not too small. The bed was rather hard though - we flopped down onto it and both recoiled, but by the end of the holiday I guess we had become used to it and felt it was softer than we had first thought. Unfortunately for us, we had a toilet that made weird dripping noises and a shower with no water pressure if you wanted to use the hot water. I’m a girl who likes a hot shower in the morning (even if it’s hot outside) so that was a bit disappointing.

The highlight of this resort?

Buffet breakfast.

The range of food was amazing - hot food, cold food, doughnuts, waffles, cereal, toast… they had everything. Well, everything except bacon for some reason. We thought that was odd. Could it have been the price? Too expensive for them to supply daily? I thought it might have been some anti-pork thing, but they served ham, so I don’t think that was it. Anyway, here are some photos of our breakfasts over our stay. Let’s just say it was hard going back to a coffee for breakfast in Australia!

Pork and chicken sausages, omlette, toast, gravy and mini rissoules

Doughnuts with vanilla custard

Stir-fried potatoes, snow peas, carrot, ham and croissant

But the most random part of the resort? The kittens! Seriously, it is so hard to try to keep Puddy out of my mind when I’m surrounded by cute little miaowing kittens. They followed us everywhere. You’re not supposed to feed them, but it’s obvious guests do. Their cute little miaows…aww!

There’s four of them in this photo but all in all, I counted about eight. The one rubbing my foot was the most confident, while the one lying down seemed to be the most aggressive towards the other cats. I don’t know if they were kittens, or just really small cats, but they were absolutely adorable, and they made me miss Puddy so much more.

To be continued…

Until today.

Poo. I had to get my first filling, and it was pretty deep. Ouch.

I was watching TV the other day and I felt something stuck between my teeth, so I flicked it with my fingernail. And a chunk of my tooth fell off. Well, it wasn’t a chunk, more the size of a fat grain of rice, but it was still something that just shouldn’t happen. Apparently teeth don’t just fall apart. The (extremely cute) dentist took one look and informed me a filling was necessary.

“Uh, okay.” I mean, what else can you say in that situation?

Anyway, the left side of my face is numb and saggy, although it’s starting to wear off and I’m starting to feel some sensitivity in my teeth. Oh, and those people who claim dentist needles are the worst? Pfft. Have you never had a numbing needle from a doctor when you get moles removed? Seriously, dentist needles are nothing compared to that. Gosh, at least I didn’t have to have a root canal. Apparently those hurt waaay worse (and cost in the thousands).

Anyway, $195 later, I’m lying on the couch watching the Olympics. I’ve got to go back next week to have all of my teeth checked. Fingers crossed I won’t need any more fillings. There’s something really unsettling about having four different types of drills in your mouth (not at the same time!!), whirring away. Even if the dentist is pretty cute, it’s still no fun.

(Yes, this is a sympathy post. My mouth is ouchie and Phill keeps laughing at me because when I smile only half my mouth turns up and at the moment I’m speaking with a lisp.)

What do you hate the most about the dentist?

Within an hour of taking off, we were offered drinks and brunch - perfect timing, since I hadn’t had breakfast and was pretty hungry. We had a choice of chicken with rice, or omlette, and since I don’t really like egg, I went with the chicken. Phill had the omlette - we’d already agreed to try not to get the same things so that I could photograph both meals (see, I am a little crazy sometimes!).

My chicken, rice and pretty vegetables

Phill’s omlette with sausage, tomato and potato

The food was quite good. In addition, we got a warm bread roll with jam and butter and some fruit. Pleasantly full, we handed over our empty trays and settled down to watch some movies. We tried to verse each other in a game of Tetris but when it tried to connect us, the entertainment system would reboot, so after the second attempt, we gave up. There was a good range of movies and television shows, and the best bit was that it didn’t matter when you wanted to watch them - you could press stop and restart the movie or show from the beginning. Perfect.

Soon it was time for lunch. I had a chicken and mushroom pie and Phill had Malay style fried egg noodle with beef. When they were handed to us, we knew we had made the right decision - Phill’s beef had chilis (seeds and all) on it! I would have had to drink lots of water … and that’s not fun for anyone when we’re stuck on a plane and every time I wanted to use the bathroom I had to shuffle across a poor innocent man who was the unfortunate passenger on the end of our group of three.

 
Malay style fried egg noodles with beef

Chicken and mushroom pie

Innards shot. Fuzzy but hey, there was turbulence!

Soon we were descending into Singapore. Our connecting flight was due to leave five minutes before our plane landed, so we pretty much had to leg it through Changi airport. Thank goodness our plane was leaving from the same terminal, otherwise we’d never have made it!

The flight from Singapore to Phuket was about 1 hour 45 minutes and I was pleasently surprised when we were served with a half-decent meal, since the airlines was a budget one and I’d figured we’d get crackers and cheese or something. They were supposed to have chicken and spaghetti or fish and spaghetti, but they were out of the fish, which suited us fine.

Chicken with spaghetti

The spaghetti was the stand-out for me - it had a lovely sauce on it that tasted garlicky and buttery…mmmmm! It looks dry in the photo, but I promise you it wasn’t. At the top of the photo you can see a coconut rice dessert with a mango sauce - it was really yummy and much thicker than I thought it would be. The sweet mango really cut through the rice. I’d love to know how they made it - any ideas?

All in all, I was pretty happy with the food we’d been served on the flights - it was a good start to the holiday. We got off the plane in Phuket in our jeans and shirts and promptly felt like stripping off - it was so HOT HOT HOT! Phill’s Dad was waiting for us with an employee from the hotel and he gave us a bottle of water (the first of many!). We got into the car and began the 45 minute drive into Patong Beach.

To be continued…