Destinations

Four Seasons Hotel Singapore: a perfect escape for lovers

by Christine Salins on February 13, 2012


Four Seasons Hotel Singapore Exterior

If I were to check into one hotel in the world to celebrate Valentine’s Day, it would be the Four Seasons Hotel in Singapore.

Apart from the fact that it is a lovely hotel with an understated elegance, it has set aside a “Couples Floor” with various romantic indulgences for those who are in the flush of love (or for those who want to re-ignite the spark).

Just a block or so from the hustle and bustle of Orchard Road, the Four Seasons is a quiet haven, with spacious guest rooms and marble bathrooms, great dining facilities, a spa and fitness club, pools and tennis courts (including, quite remarkably, a couple of air-conditioned indoor courts).

The hotel has the feel of a private club, with classic furnishings and beautiful artworks and antiques, many of them from the owner’s private collection.

Take the lift to the adults-only 11th floor and you’ll find yourself in a luxurious cocoon with the promise of no housekeeping doorbell until 12.01pm.

As someone who has been woken more than enough times by enthusiastic housekeepers after forgetting to put out the Do Not Disturb sign, that’s a promise that definitely appeals!

The treats start as soon as you alight from the lift, with fruit and chocolates on the lift landing, and mood lighting in the hallway.

Once inside our room, we found plenty of special touches to sweeten the mood – some luxurious, such as curtains operated from the bedside console, a fabulous sound system piped through to the bathroom, and the ability to plug our iPad straight into the big flat-screen TV.

Four Seasons Hotel M & MsOthers were more whimsical, such as a book of love poems by the bed; colourful jars filled with marshmallows, M & Ms, cookies and jelly beans; and a box containing 101 romance ideas … “dress up and go on a date together, wink at each other from across the room when attending a group function, hire a photographer to take couples photos of you around Singapore”… you get the picture.

Hell, there were even some red and yellow cards that you could flash if you felt your partner was spending too much time on their iPhone. Not that we had to resort to using them, of course.

Guests staying on the Couples Floor are assigned an “Experiental Assistant” to “pamper you with bespoke services” before, during and after your visit. They pledge to get to know your preferences within two hours of arrival, so that they can ply you with inside knowledge of Singapore and organize whatever indulgences you might want to take advantage of.

These range from a butler-drawn bath to in-room massages and breakfast in bed. We had a city to explore so took advantage only of the Lazy Lovers breakfast (Bircher muesli, berries with cream, scrambled eggs on an English muffin with blue cheese).

Nevertheless, we were showered with lots of attention including delicious chilled mango juices on arrival and loads of good advice on dining out.

Some of the options from the bath butler sounded positively divine: the Lycheetini, for example, allows you to soak in lychee milk and orchid petals while sipping a martini with berries.

Four Seasons Hotel BathroomI drew my own bath but, hey, there were beautiful L’Occitane products to play with, a gorgeous orchid by the bathtub and a CD of Essential Love Songs playing on the sound system. No complaints from me.

Even the spare roll of toilet paper was in a pretty embroidered bag.

Dressed in the fluffy robes provided, we found much to fuel our passion. The bowl of fruit contained what is quite possibly the biggest and certainly one of the juiciest mangoes I have ever had, and there was a tray of strawberries and blueberries on skewers with little pots of chocolate, cream and brown sugar for dipping them in, along with beautiful embossed white linen serviettes. Glass mugs and a dainty glass teapot were provided so that we could pour our own rose tea.

We could have borrowed from a selection of romantic DVDs for free. There is also a pillow concierge service but we were more than happy with the feather-soft pillows and doona provided, enjoying a long lie-in and checking out just before the housekeeper had a chance to ring the doorbell.

Fact file:

Four Seasons Hotel Singapore, 190 Orchard Boulevard, Singapore.
Tel: +65 6734 1110
www.fourseasons.com/singapore

Four Seasons Hotel Singapore Bed

{ 3 comments }

Morning Mist at Burrawang, NSW

by Christine Salins on February 6, 2012

Morning Mist at Burrawang

I took this photo of the morning mist at Burrawang on our drive back from the coast last Thursday.

{ 3 comments }

Emily of Emerald Hill

by Christine Salins on February 3, 2012

Emily Of Emerald HillMy food writer friend, Carol Selva Rajah, called this week to tell me about a great play that was having its Australian premiere at the Phoenix Theatre in Wollongong. I wouldn’t normally drive three hours to see a play but this one, Emily of Emerald Hill, has won rave reviews in Singapore and Malaysia.

The story is centred around Emily’s Peranakan heritage and as we had only just returned from Singapore and Malaysia, where we immersed ourselves in the Peranakan culture, the timing was apt.

Carol was unaware we had been visiting the land of her birth, so there seemed to be a message in the fact that she was contacting me out of the blue to invite me to a play about the places we had recently been exploring.

In Penang, we had spent hours at the wonderful Peranakan House, which vividly portrays the intriguing blend of Chinese and Malay culture that has developed over hundreds of years of Chinese settlement in the region.

I’m a great fan of Nyonya cooking – “nyonya” is the term for a Peranakan woman and the name has been given over to their cuisine. Sydney-based Carol Selva Rajah is one of its foremost exponents, and I was pleased to see one of her cookbooks prominently displayed in a newsagent in Singapore’s Changi airport during my travels.

Carol Selva RajahCarol cooked a special Nyonya meal which preceded Wednesday’s premiere, with theatre goers tucking into an assortment of beef, fish, chicken and noodle dishes, including her piece de resistance, beef rendang.

The Phoenix Theatre, formerly the Bridge Theatre, is committed to expressing the cultural diversity of the region, and the premiere of Emily certainly exemplified that. The room was exceptionally crowded but there was a great conviviality and a strong Malaysian presence, not just among the invited guests but also among the posters and decorative objects on the walls.

The theatre has very comfortable tiered seating and is quite intimate, making it the perfect venue for Emily’s monologue. Pearlly Chua gave a riveting performance as Emily, holding the audience in her hands as she took us through the full gamut of emotions, even getting us to join in with singing Happy Birthday at one point.

There’s a beautiful scene where she cooks a dish, taking us through the recipe step by step, and although it is done without props (save for a single spoon), you could almost smell the dish being cooked.

I’m not going to give away the story for it is one you need to see for yourself, but let’s just say Emily is a compelling character. At times, she is bossy and manipulating and it is hard to feel sympathy for her; at other times, she’ll have you in stitches, and there are times when your heart aches for her. As director Chin San Sooi says, she is “beautifully authentic with warts and all. She is an open book”.

First performed in 1984, the play was written by Stella Kon, who is descended from two families with strong links to Singapore’s historic Emerald Hill Road. The play is fictitious but based on stories told in many families, thus providing an evocative portrayal of Singapore life in the early decades of last century.

Pearlly Chua has performed the role of Emily more times than any other actor, and her energy, facial expressions, mannerisms, voice and command of the audience are remarkable – not to mention her memory in being able to recite a couple of hours of almost non-stop monologue.

Emily of Emerald Hill is on at the Phoenix Theatre in  Wollongong until the end of February; from Wednesday to Saturday at 8pm and Saturday matinees at 3pm. I heartily recommend it.

It will also be performed at the Zenith Theatre in Chatswood, Sydney, on March 1, for one night only.

 

{ 5 comments }

← Previous Entries