I find myself back in Singapore this week. It’s a quick trip, only a couple of days but the flight wasn’t great. Singapore’s Changi airport is so efficient however that you can literally make it from the plane to the taxi in under ten minutes if you only have carry on luggage and thats what I was trying to do on this occasion. Previously, immigration had held me for a couple hours, just so IRAS, the tax department could scrutinise my records in order to make sure that I had paid them all they were due when I left Singapore after six years on a working visa. Once they were satisfied, I escaped, but several hours late.
On this occasion, things went swimmingly and I arrived early evening and raced over to the hotel to drop my bags before meeting an old friend at one of the fashionable watering holes on Tras St. I was staying at the new Marriott hotel, it’s right next door to Raffles hotel and is very swanky. I didn’t really pay much attention to the room at that moment and I just flew out of the door within moments of getting there.
One thing led to another and predictably, it was quite late when I got back. Hopping from foot to foot to get my trousers off, I fell backwards onto the incredibly soft bed and after struggling for several minutes to escape from its clutches, I gave it up as a bad job and fell asleep.
Some hours later, I awoke with a stabbing pain in my bladder and a mouth like an animals burrow. I rolled off the bed, disentangling myself from the sheets and stumbled towards what I presumed was the bathroom. I actually wasn’t sure where it was as all the walls were mirrors. All of a sudden I heard a whirring and a soft hiss of compressed air. Bugger, I thought, surely I’m not sharing a bathroom? (remember, it WAS late and I WAS tired….) I knocked on the mirror but didn’t get a response, so I wall walked around the room until I found what looked like a handle and slid it back.
I recoiled when the lid of the toilet flew up and ultra violet disco lights lit up the floor. Water spurted from a hidden tongue under the seat and a fan that sounded like a football rattle clicked on before it flushed with the noise of an airline toilet. I steeled myself and approached the salivating beast and stared into its depths. I felt like I was looking at a portal to another world and half expected to hear a stentorian voice commanding me to ‘sit down’ As I got closer, the potteresque throne flushed again, perhaps this time, in anticipation?
Here’s a short clip of the scary beast in action.
Feeling more nervous by the minute, I saw that there was a remote control unit for the creature that offered a soft or wide pulsating and even oscillating jet of water to clean one’s botty. Given that I had previously seen said jet of water from the maw of the beast reach several feet into the air, I felt sure that the previous occupant of the closet had perhaps not been rushing to leave that small room. I, on the other hand, could not bring myself to tackle the thing, or indeed work out the several dozen permutations of ‘treatment’ that were available at the touch of a button and so I pulled on my bathrobe and went up one floor to the loo by the pool. that one at least, looked like something I could do business with.
As I type, the resentful beast is hissing, flushing and flapping its lid, challenging me to come in and visit. I just can’t do it and no one can make me. I’m going to hold it in, no matter what….
The future is not all it’s cracked up to be !
No, it’s bloody not, but I have gin and therefore will be ok.
We love your blog, more please and soon. Love you Mutley xx
Hello Mutley. I can feel one coming along soon – watch this space! xx
I first encountered one at a house swap in Byron. A Japanese model attached atop an Aussie bowl (a Nippon clip-on?). Seems symbowlic of our times. Anyway i think you have missed an unexpected pleasure. Should you return to the Mariott I would recommend ‘oscillate’ at force four. Bliss.