Singapore Blog Awards 2012, Far East Hospitality Groups of hotels and fun!

After a rather dramatic start to my weekend in Sg (hhmm.. I always seem to have some drama happening to me during my trips, such as the fright I had on my first day in Paris), I arrived safely albeit slightly late and SGD30 poorer at the Landmark Village Hotel in the Arab quarter in Singapore city.

Sponsored by Far East Hospitality and OMY.sg, this marks the beginning of my weekend in Singapore for the Singapore Blog Awards 2012.

A warm and short speech by our gracious sponsors kicked off the evening.

Bloggers from Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and HongKong were my newfound friends this trip!

A boisterous evening followed after, with the picturesque poolside of Landmark Village Hotel being the venue for dinner.

An evening with like-minded bloggers are always fun! 🙂

Groovy baby!! :DD

Now I wasn’t told that this part of the trip was supposed to be covered in my blog as well and since I was tired from my terrible rush from the hotel that I was staying – Changi Village Hotel in Changi Village (about 45 mins away from the city), I didn’t take much pictures of dinner. Thankfully the other bloggers were more hardworking 😛

Below: From docgelo.com, a cool blogger from Penang – spot me? :DD

Below: Pic from Charmaine of http://xkiyo.blogspot.com. Woohoo! 🙂

Here’s the sweet Charmaine!

Another pic thanks to docgelo.com!

Before dinner, we were escorted for a tour of the Landmark Village Hotel. The Far East Hospitality Group in Singapore owned and manages 7 distinctive hotels and 10 exclusive serviced residences in Singapore.

We were shown one of the rooms and some of the facilities of the property.

Below: A suite in Landmark Village Hotel, Singapore. Rates fluctuate according to seasons but should be about SGD275 ++/night.

Once done with the hotel tour, all of us sat down for dinner and more exchanging of namecards and bloglinks ensued. It was late 10.30pm before I finally reached my hotel for the much needed rest.

The best sight ever after such a longggg day!
Below: My room at Changi Village Hotel, Singapore.

The next day we were taken for MORE hotel tours. The Far East people are really proud of their hotels and can’t wait to show them off! :DD

First was the hotel I was staying in, thus I’ll cover that in my next post; which will be all about Changi Village Hotel, Singapore. Next hotel was the Albert Court Village Hotel, a charming colonial building located on the fringe of the vibrant Little India. Again it was a 40 minutes ride from Changi Village to the city centre. Thank god a shuttle was provided.

Albert Court Village Hotel is boutique hotel comprises of restored pre-war shop houses with Straits Chinese carvings and motifs. All parts of the original building are restored and no changes are allowed on the exterior unless proper permissions are obtained from the relevant authorities.

However, not to worry as all of its 210 rooms and suites offer modern facilities and amenities valued by today’s contemporary business and leisure traveller.

Room type: Executive Room.
Rate: CHECK HERE.

Well I must say I’m a sucker for colonial buildings thus I appreciated the charm and allure of Albert Court Village Hotel.

Then we headed to Oasia Hotel for our lunch. Oasia is a new hospitality brand by Far East Organization with a different concept compared to the Village and Orchard groups of hotels. Situated near popular lifestyle shopping malls, Novena Square Velocity and Square 2, as well as the Novena MRT Station and Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital, Oasia offers convenience and accessibility for those who seek to be in the heart of the city.

We had drinks and a chat with the F & B Director of  Kitchen Language ( the F & B arm of Far East Hospitality Group which owns COLD STONE, QUIZNOS AND DEAN AND DELUCA) at the poolside. The sun was blazing and I was hungry thus the lack of pictures. 😛

Finally! Lunch at Zaffron, buffet -style!

When in Singapore, eat Singapore Laksa! 😀

Happy bloggers – just feed us!!

Since they own Cold Stone Creamery, there were cold stone ice cream available at the buffet.

I chose banana and coffee. No toppings.

It’s GOOD!

One thing I love about Singapore? There’s pork on the buffet spread! 😀

Char Siew (BBQ pork).

And I couldn’t get enough of this – Fried Oysters ala Singapore.

Ah, can’t spend too much space on this post for the food. Here’s 2 more pictures! The rest might be a blogpost on its own.

Satiated, we hopped into our shuttle and headed for the Singapore Flyer where the blog awards event was held.

But not before we grabbed a quick picture. This was just half of the group. The other bus was on the shuttle already.

The Singapore Blog Awards 2012 was held at the Food Trail – an open air food court just below the Singapore Flyer. Needless to say with Singapore’s weather, there were a lot of perspiring and grumbling bloggers.

But all of them were just as excited about the awards and everyone stayed on till the end.

We all took tons of pictures and generally soaked in the comradeship and atmosphere.

Bloggers ROCK! Oh yea!! :DD

The “funny” pic!

Winners of the Singapore Blog Awards 2012: