The Nicest Hostel I Have Ever Stayed At!

Posted on June 10th, 2009

www.habitat-hostel.com.sg

Thoughts on Singapore:

It’s the cleanest city I’ve ever been to.
If I was going to build and set up a city…Singapore would be the perfect example of how to do it right.
There are a lots of Indians here…so much they even have a small part of the city called “Little Inida.”
You can get fined for spitting here.
Gum is outlawed here….I kid you not try and buy gum in Singapore and when you finally buy some in Malaysia I’ll say I told you so.
They have more houses then people because the government is building more and more
They have the best public transportation in the world. They have an MRT stop every 500m and you can get anywhere by train or bus.
The city is the country and other then the Vatican they are the only ones like that, that I know
…and the winner is: 1/2 the giraffe population in Singapore has been wiped out because of lighting. They had 4, 2 got struck by lighting and died…you do the math!

Made it to Singapore from Phuket. Nothing special about the flight other then I noticed a flight attendant from this trip that has been on every single flight I have taken yet on Air Asia. I took the MRT train from the airport and went looking for the hostel I had booked. The directions from there website were the exact opposite from reality and I got lost doing circles for 1/2 an hour with all my luggage in tote. When I finally did make to the area I was suppose to be I did another 30 min or walking around in circles because I couldn’t find the building. I mean how hard is it to find a place when it says “Opposite McDonald’s” right? We’ll I finally gave up and asked someone for help and they pointed it out to me which was right where I walked by. They had no sign on the door, there as construction all around it and in front of the door was a support beam that blocked the 8×10 photocopy page that all it said was the name of the hostel. Frustrating but it gets better.

I check into the place and they aren’t expecting me, which might have been expected because I booked the place that morning before I left Phuket. The guy asked me if I had the print off sheet with the confirmation#. When I said no he kind of looked funny at me and went to explain that I should always print that off and bring it with me. Remember rolling my eyes and thinking “who is this guy to tell me I need and not need to spend money at his place…as if this is the first hostel I have checked into. No one prints that off because it’s done on-line and the record is there.” Anyways, they finally get me my room and i was upgraded to a twin-private because the 4 man dorm-room was full. She opened the door and my first thought was “I’ve had train sleepers bigger then this!” I had about 2ft of room from the wall and the bed and that was it. There was also a bunch of kids (maybe 8 in total) running around from the ages of 4-5 and old ladies staying at the hostel. Was weird but I could let all that go because it was cheap but when I went to log onto their wireless network it wouldn’t work. So I asked the lady about it and she just said “Works fine!” and turned away.

By this time I had enough and said was screw this I’m getting a better place. I used their computer and found another hostel, wrote it’s directions down, went down stairs and asked if I could have a refund for the key. I pretty much figured the room price at $11 per night was a loss and could just chalk it up later. I grabbed my bags and on the way out they guy handed me some money. When I counted it he had given me it all back, which was a surprise and have to give them credit for that.

So again I took off and was in search of a place to stay. The new place I had found was called Habitat Hostel and was in a great location. It was a little pricey, $28 USD, but was brand new, clean, looked very modern and had good reviews. The place is kind of unique as it’s a hostel but it’s designed with pods. You have your own walled in pod with reading light, storage locker and check this out…two pillows! Guess in Singapore everyone gets two pillows which is great I think.

The ladies that own the hostel also run the place, Mag (25) and Cheryl (26) were great and got me checked in. They have been awesome and every day after I get done editing pictures I ask them where I should go and they map something out for me. These two ladies had been friends for 12 years and both wanted to do their own business in a new way. One night over coffee they decided to start a hostel. As Mag said “I always liked traveling but since I can’t travel all the time I decided a hostel would be a great place to meet new people. Have them come to us instead of us go to them.” With that idea in storm they started looking for a location to lease. It took them over a year to find a spot but the location was perfect, even if the building needed a lot of work. They both poured in their life savings and built one the of the most stylish hostels I have ever seen. Bravo for two young ladies with a great idea and motivation to start something. If you’re ever in Singapore you will not regret staying here…PROMISE!

So far my stay in Singapore has been great and couldn’t ask for more.