My Maltese Memory

It has been almost a month since I was back from a week holiday in Malta. We initially planned to go to Japan, but due to the pandemic of Influenza H1N1, we cancelled our trip to Japan. However, we couldnt change the Brunei - Singapore return air ticket. Instead of staying in Singapore for 10 days, I was looking up at any flight offers out of Singapore.

Voila! Emirates was having promotion in June to European and US destinations. A week was too short for visiting USA, so we opted for European destinations.

So we were deciding between Nice and Malta. As we couldnt get any more cheap places to stay in Nice, we went to Malta. Emirates is the only airlines that have good connection to Malta from Singapore.

When we first arrived in Malta, unlike other European countries immigration officers, theirs were extremely friendly. Instead of having stern faces, they were laughing with us as well as showing us the tourist information brochures. I think all immigration should be friendly. Not everyone is entering a country with suspicious intention.

The followings are what I think of Malta:

1. Almost the same population of Brunei, but the land area is half of that of Singapore.

2. Everyone speaks English so there is no language barrier.

3. The students follow the British education system. They sit for GCE "O' and "A" Levels as well :)

4. Weather was very warm. In June, the sun rose at 5.30am and set at 8.30pm.

5. A very relaxed atmosphere. We only did sightseeing after breakfast till 1pm. Then we rested and went for walks at the seaside promenade in the evening.

6. Almost everything is imported, especially from Italy.

7. Yummy gelato! and cheap as well. It is like B$4 for 2 scoops. Dream on...Dream cone!

8. You can get anywhere on the island within 45 minutes bus ride. The buses are classic!

9. Food in snackbar was cheap.

10. The churches have 2 clocks on the walls in front. One is the real time, the other one is to trick the devils. So the devils will not know when the mass prays are, from avoiding the prayers to stray away by the devils.

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My winning Bill with face masks

On Thursday, I received a phone call from DST that I won some kind of cash bonanza from my BroadBand account. That sounded great but the only thing was I didnt ask her what I won. Silly me!

So, I did online research and found out that the prizes are $10000, $6000, $4000 or $140. And of course I am the lucky 7 who won the $140 as the other grander prizes will only be drawn in August.

Look at the above picture obtained from Weekend Bulletin on Saturday 11 July 2009. There are some people with face masks on. Okay I just need to share the story.

We arrived at the main entrance and our body temperature was checked. We were then ushered into a lift of 10 or more people. I had to hold my breath due to the worries of the spreading of any virusesas we all were in 'close proximity'. When we arrived at the top floor, we were then given a face mask each to put on. Duh!

So the whole ceremony consists of winners receivinfg prizes with face masks. I felt I was attending some sort of 'secretive' or 'medical' award ceremony lol...We only saw the beautiful eyes of the winners.

The time for group pictures has finally arrived. We still saw people wearing masks while taking pictures, but not me. Come on, my pictures were taken and I wanted people to know who I was in pictures, not just my pair of eyes. I think I did look okay with face mask :p What's the point if taking pictures with face masks on?

Anyway we still had to take off my masks sooner or later...Of course, like every function in Brunei, the refreshment of nasi lemak and kuih muih. No matter how careful a person is, by putting on the face mask, they still had to show their true faces while 'devouring' the food.

Countdown to Singaporean efficiency

Last night, we caught the MRT train from Bugis station to Changi Airport, to catch flight out of Singapore to Brunei. After having a brief dinner of roasted chicken with noodles at Banquet Food court at Raffles Hospital, we left Bugis station at around 710pm. It was a great hassle to drag 2 huge luggage from Arab street to the Bugis station. It was damn crowded with the Friday night crowd.

We managed to jump on a train and when it reached Aljunied, people who were getting on the train at that station mentioned about someone fell onto the track. And we could see security personnel and police rushing to the scene and a pair of slippers on the platform. We couldnt see anything else due to the crowd, but to wait inside the train.

We were worried if we would miss our flight and how we would get a taxi in this station during rush hour. Impatiently, I was thinking why the man could not fall onto the track 5 minutes later so our train would not be disrupted.

Then the announcement saying that the train would be delayed for 15 minutes, stating the reason of a fault in the track. 5 minutes later, there was another announcement. But this time, it stated the train would be delayed for 10 minutes. Wow, there was really a countdown. The next announcement came 2 minutes later saying, "doors closing".

Great! I find everything is very efficient in Singapore, and I wonder why Singaporeans still complain about it.

More story on 'a man falling onto track' can be found here