We hadn't been back here in a while.
Not for a couple of months since pre-pandemic days, but with the feels for a staycation kicking in, and the season of Christmas coming up, Marriott Tang Plaza seemed like a good place to be.
I love Christmas at Marriott.
It isn't because they are a five-star chain; it is because they manage to capture the spirit of the season in such a warm, cozy way such that it doesn't matter whether you're in New York City or South Korea or Thailand or Singapore- you'll get the same fireplace vibes as if you were wintering somewhere.
It could be because they are, well, a family-owned business.
Or it could be that their signature (yet personal) brand leans heavily towards creating an atmosphere of welcome warmth- never mind the season, never mind the time.
Maybe this is what really draws me to the Marriott experience.
That they just go ahead and stick to their guns doing what they do.
So there might have been a pandemic, and visitor numbers might be down to a horrible crunch, but Christmas 2020 in Marriott Tang Plaza was no less different than any other year.
And in the lobby stood the large Christmas tree with colors and decorations no lesser nor smaller than what they've always had every single year.
It was very comforting to step away from the foot traffic outside the hotel, enter the sunlight-filled lobby and be greeted by this gorgeous, beautifully-lit tree.
We got a room looking out towards ION, Wheelock Place and Shaw House on Scotts Road opposite.
The rooms at Marriott Tang Plaza have their distinctive charm.
Very much like most of their properties worldwide, the room decor has in recent years gone minimalist modern, moving away from the plush, thick, richly-colored fabrics to darker-colored ones of lighter texture.
The furniture too has become neater.
No more the large wooden desk and the heavy desk lamp, now it's just one square (silver) table and one neat desk light. They still have a sofa, but instead of being by the side in a fabric of rich red and three cushions of brocade-patterns sewn in gold-colored thread, it's now at the foot of the bed in a shade of midnight blue with only a single small-sized cushion- that's it. The wooden coffee table's also gone, replaced by a movable square-sized little table that you can easily shift around.
One thing they have kept (if I remember rightly) is the cabinet below the TV. In it you have the mini fridge, the coffee pot and the coffee and the tea. However, the frills that once used to sit on top of the cabinet are (in a post-COVID scenario) temporarily gone. No more Granny Smith green apples, and no more cards introducing the offerings of the in-house spa downstairs.
The bathroom is, thankfully, more or less the same. The toiletries from THANN still sit by the sink, the wooden box that holds the rest of the little stuff is still there, and the dressing table's still by the side of the bathroom. There's no bathtub, but that's been gone the same time when they remodeled the room from plush American to minimalist world, so no difference there.
My stay here this time was an unexpectedly restful one.
I say 'unexpectedly', because whilst I had all these plans to read my book, write my journal, watch a couple of episodes from my ongoing drama, even write my blog, what happened was that after dinner at the Crossroads Cafe downstairs, I came back up, took a shower... and fell right asleep.
Nothing of what I'd planned to do I actually did.
And I still don't know why.
In all the times that I've stayed here at Marriott, hardly has it been that I've fallen asleep this early.
It couldn't have been because of the comfortable sheets. (In the same sort of sheets in the same sort of room I've slept as late as 3am)
It also couldn't have been that I got too full from dinner. (I've had dishes plentiful enough to be a full meal up at their lounge during evening cocktail time.)
But, of course, I had had a plate of carbonara pasta for dinner (which portion was significantly larger than what I normally have), and then there was all this social distancing, so the ambience was quieter, and more relaxed than what it otherwise might have been.
One of the things I love about Marriott is their breakfast.
They take this 'most important meal of the day' quite literally.
At regular times you could have a combination meal of smoked salmon and egg white omelet with sausage and salad, then choose from six different cereals to go with fresh, skimmed or soy milk, plus dumpling noodles Chinese style, oatmeal with brown sugar, and their signature sticky date pudding all together at the same time.
But we are in irregular times now, so no buffet spread but the way they do it is to bring you unlimited servings of your favorite foods that you pick from the menu.
And so we decided to go for the works of scrambled eggs, omelet, baked beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, hash browns, sausage, bacon, ham, as well as a couple servings of smoked salmon, two servings of pancakes and waffles, one bowl of cereal (I couldn't resist), a plate of dim sum (I think there were crystal dumplings and char siew bao), laksa (we ordered the soup only!) and roti prata.
I didn't take pictures of everything.
I'll be sure to take picture of the oatmeal with brown sugar, and I hope they'll bring back the sticky date pudding- and the ice cream- to the breakfast menu again.