I did absolutely nothing much today except stub my toe and get a nasty bruise on it. I've been accident prone lately and my back is still a pain in the butt from my fall as well. This was one of my "free days" and i'd had so many plans of what i'd do on these days when I was at home. Now I am here and feeling tired and a little under the weather and maybe still jet lagged so gotta play it by ear. I did go for breakfast of course; I love Chinese brekkies. I wandered around the hotel and checked out the shops through the windows as they were closed because it's Monday.....remember back in the day when our stores were closed on Sundays and some on Mondays as well? Or was that just in my small town? I went looking for the swimming pool and found it and while it did look lovely and inviting and nobody was in it and I could have had it all to myself I didn't. I actually went back to my room to get my swimsuit but the bed looked so inviting I jumped in and slept some more! When I got up I was all stiff and sore and I was cold as well and couldn't seem to warm up. When the housekeeping girl came I tried to convey that to her and from then on it became like a 3 ring circus with her phoning someone because she didn't understand what was wrong with me as I tried to show her how I was feeling by wrapping a blanket around myself and shivering and pointing to the AC and the wall thermostat. So number 2 girl comes and she didn't understand me either and so she phoned  someone who might. Soon girl number 3 arrived and I was regretting the whole dam thing but the AC wouldn't turn off and I couldn't even unplug it and the thermostat was rigged so nobody could mess with it. Even so, it was too much and embarrassing to try and make sense with these girls so I tried to convey to them that I was ok and to just go away and forget it but noooooo, they didn't understand that and they wanted to help so they called girl number 4 who for some reason understood my problem although she didn't speak English either. She took off but was soon back lugging an electric space heater and I let her know that was exactly what I wanted. She then proceeded to attempt to plug it in with great difficulty and eventually succeeded though she turned it down to the lowest possible setting but hey, I sure wasn't going to complain about that. Once they were all gone I cranked it up to high and got all cozy and dozy and napped again and when I got up I felt much better. Later when I went down for dinner I saw a couple of them and both said hello and then they laughed their heads off which made me laugh too, lol. I guess i'm going to be gossiped about or at least remembered. I don't know if it'll be in a good way or bad though, lol! Hopefully not remembered as the crazy Canadian!
At the buffet there were some unusual foods and I tried a few things i'd never eaten before. One was lotus root and I liked it a lot; it was nice and crisp with a delicate flavour. I also ate a Vietnamese salad that had veggies in it that I didn't know or recognise and they were very mild and delicious, a selection of sushi and they were all very good except they had made their wasabi much too dry but I can handle that easily.  I passed on a lot of other things though including the raw fish that was presented and although I like most sea foods I don't eat raw or oysters, mussels, squid etc so I walked by that section quickly.

Then one of the morning girls who must work an awfully long day came to my table offering a dish of some sort of pudding with a crispy fire flamed topping that she said was "free dessert" but when I asked what kind of dessert it was she couldn't say; it was just free dessert. So I thanked her and ate it and it was a good free dessert and I don't know what it consisted of either. It gave me a chuckle because it was a buffet and I had paid so why she added the "free" part I don't know. Maybe she confused the word "free" with "good" or "vanilla" or something. Whatever, it was such a nice friendly thing for her to do in attempt to look after me as she knew I hadn't felt well early in the day and so I appreciated her kind offering.
I have gone through my pics and cant find either the free dessert, the lotus root or the Vietnamese salad pictures although I'm sure I took their pics.
The pool on the 5th floor
I sat by this handmade broom and had a little rest

Back in the hotel