Check out is at 11am, it’s self check out too coz reception don’t open till 12pm (even though staff is already around, I hear them giggling in their break room) so I never got to meet anybody in the hotel, which suits me just fine. Though, the room being windowless meant that my body couldn’t quite understand that it was already morning and I had some difficulties waking up haha. 

I don’t quite have a plan for the morning. I only knew I need to meet my family at our hotel at around 2pm, and I had a number of permutations on what I can do before that which involves checking out and moving my luggage to the new hotel etc. In the end I settled for breakfast nearby (which ended faster that I imagined because they didn’t really have seating space and I can’t hang out for long), so I went back to the hotel and checked out, and headed over to the new hotel. Obviously hotel room wasn’t ready so I just left my luggage behind, and went off to chill at a cafe. 

Back to the hotel at about 2pm, in time for my family’s arrival! Still ahead of the official check in time at 3pm, but one of the rooms is ready so we headed up first to freshen up. Agenda was late lunch for them, and the sister wanted Din Tai Fung immediately lol so googled for the nearest one, which didn’t seem too far away so we decided to…walk. In hindsight I don’t know why we thought this was a good idea because it took far too long (15 minutes but x2 coz of dad’s speed) though it didn’t seem too bad at that point coz it was the beginning of the trip. 

Felt that there isn’t a need to go to any specific DTF branch (I think some flagship branch is more popular than others) and the food quality should still be consistent. This particular DTF branch is within a Shinkong Mitsukoshi branch and we thought dining at odd hours should be fine…this strategy didn’t work coz it’s a DTF. Oh well. One hour wait, dad 頗有微詞 but we went ahead with it, killed some time walking around the supermarket and in the end it was just an half hour wait or so coz they were pretty efficient in turning around customers. 

It was almost 5pm by this point, sun is setting (another disorienting part of the trip, sun sets early and we kept thinking it’s late but it’s not really) and the only other agenda of the day was night market. So we decided to Uber over to 寧夏夜市. Bit of jam but we got there, and holy shit it was crowded. Walkway between the two rows of stalls is pretty tight so it’s hard to stop and check out the stalls - and especially when you are with elderlies. Food is enticing as always though! In the end we managed to buy from a few stalls and found seats at a dessert shop to sit down and eat. 

Back to the hotel and called it a day. I think that’s enough walking for the parents for the day oops. Flagged down a cab instead of Uber and I think that turned us off for the rest of the trip - uncle didn’t quite know where our hotel is so we just gave him the nearest MRT station thinking that we will guide him as we approach the hotel, but he was more focused on the drama that he was watching WHILE DRIVING and missed our instructions so end up detouring, and still didn’t manage to drop us at the correct street urgh. Uber Uber.