Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

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  • Land of the Lost Review

    Land of the Lost Review

    On Sunday afternoon my wife and I went to the Golden Village theater at Tampines Mall to see Land of the Lost (2009). We weren’t really expecting much from this movie, but it looked entertaining and we weren’t disappointed.

    The movie has a fairly simple plot. Don’t go into this looking for a complicated story. This is a comedy. In fact, this movie is so packed with comedy that it’ll have you laughing the whole way through! I don’t recall going more than 5 minutes without at least chuckling at something. That was actually surprising to me. Will Ferrell typically stars in movies that push a certain type of comedy that doesn’t appeal to me.

    This movie was fantastic though. The jokes were well thought out and right on schedule. You’ll see everything from trans-dimensional narcotic fruits to lizard people getting it on, to a relatively intelligent tyrannosaurus. A lot of the jokes in the movie seem to have a sexual theme to them though. It’s nothing serious but you may want to think twice about bringing your kid with you, unless they’re over the age of about 12. I kinda wondered how this movie got a PG rating.

    One last thing worth noting is that I have an idea that this doesn’t follow along too well with the story-line from the old TV show. I vaguely remember watching it as a kid oh-so-long ago, and I think the family there (a real family, not a thrown together crew like in this film) was actually stuck in the past and lived in a treehouse.

    Over-all it was well worth the money we spent to go see it. I haven’t laughed that much in a long time!

  • BBQ Chicken

    BBQ Chicken

    The first time my wife and I took a walk through the E-Hub mall at Downtown East in Pasir Ris, we saw a very nice looking restaurant on the entry level floor.  The name of the place is simply “BBQ Chicken”. I’ve been thinking about it ever since and we finally had the opportunity to go back.

    The place is very clean and very comfortable.  We were seated in a nice booth in the corner.  We took a look through the menu.  It’s packed with a lot of great choices.  You can get everything from salads to sandwiches to stuff off the grill.  Looking at the posters on the wall, I think their “main attraction” dishes are made with chicken quarters that are cooked over charcoal, possibly using some sort of light olive oil.  They did look tasty, but we were in the mood for something a bit lighter than that, so my wife got a chicken salad and I got the chicken tortilla meal.  We also ordered an appetizer called koshi.

    My chicken tortilla sandwich was pretty good.  It was nothing spectacular, but it was very satisfying.  The fries were a big greasy, but that’s ok.  The coleslaw was surprisingly good.  My wife’s salad was fantastic.  The vegetables were fresh and the chicken in it was surprisingly tasty.  I think it must be prepared the same way as the grilled chicken.  The koshi dish can be seen in the picture above.  It is 3 shish kebabs of chicken mixed with onion and red bell pepper.  They were very good.  My wife liked them a lot and said she could make a whole meal of them.

    I can’t say much about the place.  The food wasn’t extraordinary or unique.  It was just good.  We’ll be going back though, and next I plan on trying one of the grilled chicken meals.

  • Using Swine Flu to Sell Your Product

    Using Swine Flu to Sell Your Product

    Swine Flu has to be the most covered and most talked about event in the last two years, and it’s not even that serious. From what I’ve read, the fatality rate is only 0.1%, which is less than the fatality rate of actual flu.

    It’s a new disease though, and it’s in the media limelight, so everyone’s heard of it, and the more people hear about it and ask about it, the more the media covers it. I think it’s past the point of informing people and bordering on propaganda. Sure, people should be informed, but hasn’t it gone on long enough? I even question the extra scanners that have been set up at airports and such, if the swine flu isn’t even as bad as a regular flu.

    Now, H1N1 is even being used to sell products! Dettol is a common cleaning agent company here, selling everything from hand soap to floor cleaner. The following pictures are from a can of disinfectant spray, similar to Lysol.

  • 3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 10: Heading Home

    3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 10: Heading Home

    Before we knew it, our short 3 day trip in Kuala Lumpur was coming to an end.

    On the morning of the third day we were there, we got up at 9 am to make sure we wouldn’t be late.  We really had no idea how to get back to the airport.  On the way to Kuala Lumpur, the buses were in an obvious location, right along with the taxis and stuff, but it’s not as much of a “no-brainer” when going back to the airport.

    The first thing we had to do though was… eat of course!  Since it was a day for traveling we didn’t want to risk eating something that might mess up our stomachs, so we went to McDonald’s.  My wife had the sausage biscuit again, which seemed fitting.  That’s what she had on the first morning, when we were at the Budget Terminal at Changi International in Singapore, waiting on our flight.

    After eating, we went back to the hotel and checked with the lady at the front desk for directions.  We specifically wanted to know how to get on one of those cheap buses again.  Why pay more when you don’t have to?  She told us that the best way to get there would be to go back to the Pasar Seni train station and ride to K.L. Central.  She said there were buses there that would take us back to the airport for 8 ringgit each, which is what we paid the last time heading into the city.

    That seemed simple enough, and it didn’t take us long to get to K.L. Central.  The place was bigger than we expected though so we had to stop for directions again.  Unfortunately, the guy behind the counter told us it would be “better for you to take fast train to airport.”  Of course… that’s what we didn’t want to do.  The fast train he was talking about is fast, but it’s also 35 ringgits per person.  I couldn’t see spending that much more just to shave 30 minutes or so off our trip.  We wound up getting the right directions from a guy working at a sales stand.  All we had to do was go downstairs.

    When we got downstairs the bus we wanted was right in front of us.  It was yellow, just like the one we had taken from the airport, and just like the one we had taken from the airport it was indeed only 8 ringgit.  It was called Star Shuttle (see the ticket stub on the left, which was from our trip into the city on the 1st).  We double checked with the guy selling tickets to make sure it was going to the airport and then paid and got on board.  We got on the bus at about 11:30 am, and about 20 minutes later the bus pulled off from the curb and got on its way to the airport.  I dozed off for part of the trip again.  My wife was kind enough to let me know I was knocked out and had my mouth hanging open for quite a while.  Oops!

    We left Kuala Lumpur early because we weren’t sure of the way back to the airport, so when we did get there, we got there early.  Really early in fact.  We had two hours to kill before we could even check in, so we went to the McDonald’s there and got some coffee.  I tried to log into the free wireless but either it was acting up or my phone was, because I kept getting a “no reply from gateway” error.  Thinking about it now, it had to be my phone if I got the same error in two different places.  Since we couldn’t get the internet to work, we found a bench to sit on.  My wife pulled out a book, and I fell back asleep for about an hour.

    When the time came, we checked in, got our boarding passes and then went through the immigration and security checkpoints.  While in line we realized that we hadn’t taken the time to stop for Dunkin Donuts.  There aren’t any Dunkin Donuts stores in Singapore.  I have no idea why, because the donut stores that are in Singapore aren’t very good.  We were both kinda sad about the whole thing, because we love their donuts.  Fortunately for us, there’s a Dunkin Donuts just past the immigration checkpoint.

    We had just enough ringgits left for four donuts, so we chowed down!

    The rest of our trip home was fairly uneventful.  The gate was a bit crowded and the flight left a bit late, but we were back in Singapore by 5:45 pm.

  • 3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 9: Street Food

    3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 9: Street Food

    It goes without saying that when you visit a place you have to try the local food, and you’re not going to find authentic local food in chain stores or fancy restaurants. Not typically anyways. We spent most of our 3 day trip looking around the Chinatown area and it has a fairly decent mix of tourist style restaurants, franchises (3 McDonald’s encircled the area… not surprised at all), and a nice assortment of “street food”. That’s what my wife says it’s called. She’s referring to the stand alone carts that sell food. She was insistent that we try eating at one of them before leaving and I love to eat, so I didn’t put up any argument.

    So, the second night of our trip we found ourselves wandering down the road that runs along eastern edge of Chinatown and we saw a stall that was selling satay. I think satay is just a local word for shish kebabs, except they’re plain grilled meat on a stick, with a sauce applied to them during the grilling process. The stuff smelled fantastic and we couldn’t resist. We snagged their last beef satay, 3 chicken satay, 2 chicken liver & gizzard satay, and an order of rice cubes. It was served up fairly quickly and came with a dish of a spicy and sweet peanut sauce. We cleared the plate in about 3 minutes. The stuff was delicious and left us wanting more. I’m not a big fan of gizzard and liver, but even that tasted great coming off the grill there.

    Here are some photos!

    The other thing I can recommend is a stand called Air Mata Kucing. I have no clue what that means, but it’s located at one of the intersections along Jalang Petaling, near the center of the Chinatown area. They serve a drink that tastes like tea made with sugar cane. There were also bits of some fruit in it. My wife says she thinks it’s longan fruit. It’s very good, very sweet, and can be served with or without ice. We wound up going back for more of this stuff on our 3rd and last day there.

    I would have liked to have had the opportunity to try out more of the local dishes, but our trip was a short one. There’s always next time!

  • 3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 8: Jalan Petaling’s Night Time Street Fair

    3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 8: Jalan Petaling’s Night Time Street Fair

    During the day, Jalan Petaling is already a busy place. It’s packed with tourists and locals as well as people trying to make sales on everything from PS3s to bootleg DVDs. As you walk down the street, you’ll hear “hey sir!” and “hey boss!” and “cheap deal here!” coming at you from every angle. At night, when the street is filled with portable, makeshift stalls, that madness is doubled.

    As you can see from the picture, it’s a really big change. Almost every inch of space along the short stretch of Jalan Petaling is packed tight with street stalls. At these stalls, you can find all sorts of souvenirs, clothes, jewelry and toys. As you walk down the narrow paths the people running each shop will call out to you, making offers, and trying to pull you in.

    The whole thing is loud, exciting, and fun, and if you know how to haggle you might be able to get a good deal. Before going, a friend of mine who’s been there before warned us that the initial prices being offered are meant to be a starting point. You can argue the price down a bit, and then if you’re not satisfied you can start to walk away from the stall and they will call out lower prices to you, hoping you’ll turn back and make a purchase. It happened exactly the way he said it would. The one time we stopped to look at something and asked how much it was, the guy’s opening price was 180 ringgit. We never intended to buy it and only asked out of curiosity, but as we smiled and walked away he called out “170! 150! Ok! 130, good deal for you!” Of course we kept going since we never intended to buy it in the first place, but it really illustrated my friend’s point perfectly. According to him, if you can get a price down to about 50-60% of the original asking price, you’re paying a reasonable price, or getting a good deal. If you’re not interested in making any purchases at all, the only thing I can say is look quick, keep moving, double back to look again if you have to, but don’t stop, and don’t make eye contact. Don’t Make Eye Contact! As soon as you do they come rushing towards you with offers, asking you what you want, asking if you’re interested in half a dozen things.  That can be very tiresome.

    These stalls get set up around 6 pm and then get taken down around 11 pm, and I really recommend that anyone stopping by check it out at least once.

  • 3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 7: Petronas Twin Towers

    3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 7: Petronas Twin Towers

    If you’re going to Kuala Lumpur, you of course have to go see the Petronas Twin Towers.  Missing them would be like going to New York City and not stopping by the Statue of Liberty.  If you’ve never been there, it’s just something you have to see!  Also, the Petronas Twin Towers were featured in a movie with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones called Entrapment.

    Getting to the Petronas Twin Towers was very easy for us.  We left our hotel on Jalan Petaling and went to the Pasar Seni train station.  To get on the train, we first had to buy tickets.  Two one-way tickets cost us 3.20 ringgit.  We scanned the cards, went through the turn-style and hopped on the train.  Four stations later and we were at K.L.C.C. station.  From there we went up the stairs and the towers were right next to us.
     

    We managed to get a few good shots of the towers before it started to rain.  You can see in the picture above how overcast it was.  Once it started raining we ran towards the entrance and went inside to check out the Suria Mall that’s between the two towers.  Also, just inside the doors there are signs that mention an orchestra or theater room?  I can’t really remember because we weren’t interested in it.

    When we entered the mall we saw signs that prohibited video recording and photography.  I can only guess it’s a security measure that’s been implemented to prevent a repeat occurrence of what happened to the Twin Towers in New York City.  So, I didn’t take a lot of photos.

    The only place where photography seemed to be ok was at a display set up in the center court of the mall, on the bottom floor, where a display was set up by Lego.  I think it was a competition, because there were quite a few different ‘exhibits’ of famous places from around the world.  The most interesting, and amusing, of them was… The Petronas Twin Towers!  Lego Style!

    The Lego display was the most interesting thing in the mall.  All malls are basically the same right?  So, we stopped to have coffee and chat for a while at a San Francisco Coffee on the 2nd or 3rd floor.  I didn’t think the coffee there was very good, by the way.  It was too bitter for my taste.  After that we headed back to Jalan Petaling and took a nap so that we could be ready to explore the night-time street fair that evening.

  • 3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 6: Day 1

    3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 6: Day 1

    Our first day in Kuala Lumpur was really more like a half-day, if that.  We arrived at the hotel around 3 pm and after checking-in and getting our belongings situated, we went out to look for food.  We hadn’t had anything to eat since before our flight, and that was a pretty light breakfast/lunch.

    On the way to the hotel, we had seen a Kenny Rogers.  The last time we’d eaten at a Kenny Rogers was on a day trip to Johor Bahru, which is a Malaysian border-town just across the water from Singapore.  The food there was pretty good, and we didn’t want to take any risks.  We were tired and just wanted a good solid meal.  So, we went back the way we’d come and found the Kenny Rogers.


    Our meals were good, and the service was tolerable.  I still can’t get over how tasty those muffins are!

    After we ate we went into the shopping centers along that same road to find toiletries.  We had to buy soap, shampoo, and some toothpaste.  My wife also picked up some lotion.  We didn’t bring any of that stuff with us, because replacing it in KL was cheaper than paying the fee to check in a bag.  We didn’t want to risk having to throw out our larger, more expensive stuff from home at a security checkpoint.  Besides the toiletries, we also got some water to take up to the room with us.  I doubt the tap water in Kuala Lumpur is drinkable, though I’m just guessing on that one.  Plus, I got a pack of cigarettes.  It was nice to buy a reasonably priced pack for a change.  After the conversion, the pack we bought there in KL was only 3.74 SGD.  In Singapore we have to pay 10.60 SGD at the cheapest, because of all of the taxes.

    [Update: When we packed to head back to Singapore my wife put the small travel sized stuff into her carry-on bag and there was no problem bringing it on the plane.]

    We hadn’t had much sleep the night before, because we were excited about our flight, so we went directly back to our hotel, washed up and got in bed.  I was so tired that I dozed off while waiting on my turn to shower.  The rest was good.  There was something about that closed-in room, with no window, that made us feel cut off from the world and we were really able to get some solid sleep.

    At about 11 pm our stomachs woke us up and we went out looking for food.  On our way back to the hotel from Kenny Rogers we had seen people pulling carts out and setting up stalls in the center of the street.  As we went out again to find food, those same stalls were being torn down.  There was trash all over the place.  It looked like we had missed out on a lot of fun and we were anxious to check it out the following night.

    We weren’t sure we’d find anything open, besides McDonalds, but we got lucky.  There were quite a few restaurants still serving customers.  In fact, it was more like they were trying to hook in customers.  As we walked down the street, a server from each restaurant would dart out towards us and press a menu into our hands and start talking about how great the food there is, how low the prices are, and what a good deal it is.  Some would try to entice us by telling us they had cold beer.  It was interesting, but after checking a few menus we realized the prices were about the same (+ or – 1 ringgit) and they were all “tourist friendly”, as in they were overpriced for the country.  We expected that though, since we weren’t straying too far from the hotel at that time of night.  We picked a restaurant and sat down.

    Overall, the food was decent.  The fried rice really stood out though.  It was just like the fried rice I was used to in the US.  If I’d known it would be like that, I’d have asked for a larger plate and ate it by itself.

    After our meal, we treated ourselves to a cold bottle of Tiger beer (kind of amusing, since we had just arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Tiger Airways).  Again, it was over-priced, but what’re you gonna do when you’re eating in a tourist area?  It was too late to go anywhere else.

    I suppose you could call it free entertainment, even though it was annoying, but as we sat there smoking and drinking our beer, some guy walked up and asked us for a “dollar”.  I was kinda surprised, since the local currency is called ringgits.  I told him I didn’t have any money for him and he moved on to the next table, where he tried his begging on an English girl.  I listened in and heard her waffling with some excuse, instead of telling him to get lost like I did.  She said something about only having “pounds”, because she was leaving for England the next day.  He kept up that way, moving from table to table, getting turned down.  I heard one woman tell him she would give him a cigarette, but not money.  She sounded Australian.  I think this guy had a run of bad luck in the tourists he targeted, because everyone in the restaurant came off sounding as though this wasn’t the first time they’d experienced this sort of behavior and they weren’t going to fall for it.

    Here’s a picture of the bum at the table where the Aussie girl offered him a cigarette:

    Still, the meal was satisfying and once we’d eaten we went back to the hotel room, showered again, and then watched some TV before calling it a night.  The TV there is really great stuff.  I mean, it’s not great because it’s good; it’s great because it’s funny.  You may have read about the Indian music videos I mentioned in the last post.  Besides that, there was a really funny Indian movie on.  It was overly cheesy, with bad effects, and poor quality film.  We couldn’t understand what they were saying, but we had a blast watching it for a while.  We also got to watch some… interesting… shows on the E! channel.  One was about home redecorating.  That wasn’t too bad!  The other stuff about expensive weddings, society girls, and the sort of crap I could’ve done without, but our viewing options were limited.

    At about 3 am we turned off the TV and went to sleep.  Day 1 over!

  • 3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 5: Hotel Chinatown 2 Review

    3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 5: Hotel Chinatown 2 Review

    Hotel Chinatown 2 is located on Jalan Petaling in the Chinatown area of Kuala Lumpur.  It’s a little tricky to find it, because there is also a Chinatown Hotel Inn or something like that a few doors down.  Also, the only visible sign is the one high up on the building, that you can see in the above picture.  There is a sign at the street level entrance, but that entrance is hidden from the main walkway by street vendors.

    This hotel is a great find, if you go into it with the right mentality.  If you’re looking for luxury, you’ll have to look elsewhere.  This place is all about price and location.  For two nights in the hotel (check-in Monday afternoon and check-out on Wednesday morning) we paid a total of about 188 ringgit.  That’s a good deal!  As for the location, the door to the hotel opens onto Jalan Petaling, which is a touristy type area in Chinatown with lots of shops where you can browse for souvenirs.  Also, it’s two blocks from the Pasar Seni train station, which we put to good use.

    As for the hotel itself, the lobby area is very comfortable.  It has a few cozy couches, a TV, a book rack with a guitar on top, and a few computers for public use at 1 ringgit per 10 minutes.  There’s free wi-fi, which worked for me on my Nokia E51 in the lobby, but I couldn’t connect properly up in the actual room.  I kept getting a “no reply from gateway” error.  I don’t know what that was all about, but it didn’t really bother us too much, so I didn’t ask about it.  We just used the paid computers for a little while in the evening to keep up with e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

    The room we booked was the “standard” room, which came with a double bed.  It was a bit cramped, honestly, and that feeling was compounded by the fact that there was no window.  At first that bothered me a bit, but then I realized that it probably had no window because it was on the back or side of the building.  That’s a good thing, because it meant we wouldn’t hear as much of the racket from the street below.  The paint was worn and scuffed, the floor was a bit dirty, and there were no toiletries provided.  The TV in the room only picked up 5 or 6 channels.  Only one of those channels was in English and it seemed to rotate between different stations.  What I mean is, if you left it on that channel, which was 12 I think, it might be National Geographic at 8pm, Animal Planet at 9pm, and then a local station at 10pm.  I thought that was kinda odd, but again, it didn’t bother us that much.  We weren’t really there to just lay around in the room watching TV.  If you do happen to be up late though, around 1 or 2 am, flip through the channels until you find a program where there’s a girl sitting behind a laptop, presenting requested music videos.  Neither the program nor the videos are in English, but it’s hilarious!  They played these crazy Indian music videos, complete with “Slumdog Millionaire” dance routines and the accompaniment of the high pitched female vocals.  Besides that, the videos are just hilarious!  I don’t think they’re meant to be, but they were to us!  Also, the music really isn’t that bad at all in most cases.

    I think the best features of the room were that the water was nice and hot for showers, and the air conditioning blew nonstop and got nice and cold at night.  Even under the thick blanket it was a bit cool.  Both of these things were a nice change for me, since I’ve been living in Singapore.  Here, the air conditioning isn’t used much and the water heaters are small and I can rarely finish showering before the hot water runs out.  I think I stayed in the shower for 30 minutes each time, enjoying how hot the water was and the fact that it stayed hot.  Plus that cold air conditioning is a relief after a day out in the sun there.

    Another thing the hotel has going for it is the staff.  They’re very friendly, very helpful, and very knowledgeable about the city.  They helped us find the train station and also told us how to get back to the airport for the best price (a cheap bus from the downstairs area of KL Central).  Also, the guy at the counter had a conversation with me while I enjoyed a cup of coffee and my wife was busy on one of the public computers.  Oh, and the rooms are cleaned daily.  At least, I think it was cleaned.  The bed was made at least, and nothing was missing from our bags.  That’s always a bonus.  If you do have something expensive, the place has safe deposit boxes in the lobby too.

    The hotel also has some dormitory style areas that can be rented out.  I didn’t look around there too much, except for one time when I passed through it to get to a bathroom.  It looked clean and the beds were set up two to a cubicle.  There was a youngish looking girl writing a paper on her laptop at a table in the dormitory area.  I guess it must be fairly safe.  I did see a TV behind the front desk that was showing views from security cameras, so that area must be kept under surveillance to make sure nothing happens to the guests.

    Overall, we were satisfied with our stay there.  If we find ourselves in Kuala Lumpur again and need to stay the night, we’ll definitely be trying for a room there again.

    Here are some of the photos we took inside the hotel:

  • 3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 4: Finding Our Hotel

    3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 4: Finding Our Hotel

    If you remember from the first post, we booked a place at Hotel Chinatown 2, on Jalan Petaling. One of the things that appealed to us about the place is that it’s near the center of town, close to a train station, and there are lots of shops around it, or so we had read.

    Our hotel:

    And, unfortunately, the airport:

    I’ve never seen a city where the airport is as far away as it is in Kuala Lumpur. We were actually worried about the fare from the airport into the city itself. It’s a long way! In fact, the ride from the airport to our hotel in Kuala Lumpur wound up taking longer than the flight from Singapore to the airport there in Malaysia. Weird right?

    Before we left, we’d gotten some directions from the hotel’s website and saw a list of what prices we could expect for the various means of transportation. We had a few different options, all of which were about 80 ringgit, meaning none of them were appealing. Luckily, Malaysia has a similar system to the Philippines when it comes to transportation. Private buses. As we wandered down the length of the airport we saw waiting areas with lots of buses pulled up to them. I got excited and we went on ahead to check it out.

    Buses like these probably aren’t the safest mode of transportation, but we’ve used them in the Philippines and we didn’t see why we shouldn’t use them in Malaysia as well. The best part of the deal? The cost was 8 ringgits per person. So, 16 ringgits total for my wife and I to get to Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown. That’s a lot better than an average of 80 ringgit.

    After getting on the bus we worried for a little while that we’d been taken in, and that the bus wasn’t actually going past Jalan Petaling, but the guy seemed pretty sure, and the ticket he gave us looked pretty official. There was even an office address and a phone number. Just to be on the safe side though I asked the guy that sat down across from us if the bus passed by Jalan Petaling. He said it did, so we went ahead and kicked back and got comfortable.

    The bus had great air conditioning and the ride was smooth, if a bit long. I think I dozed off for a little while, because I don’t remember some parts of the trip that I saw later on the way back. Thankfully, it went without incident, and after about 50 minutes the bus was making it’s first stop in town, about one block from Jalan Petaling. We actually went right past the entrance to Jalan Petaling, so we were sure we were in the right spot.

    After getting off the bus, we walked down the street, over a foot bridge, and onto Jalan Petaling itself. As we made our way through the crowd, looking for our hotel, my wife told me she was shocked. I asked her why. She told me it was because she’d never seen so many white people in one place before. I looked around and it was true. The place was packed with foreigners, most of whom seemed to be blonde-haired and blue-eyed.  Australians perhaps?

    After about a block we decided to stop and ask a police officer we saw for directions. His English was a bit rough but he was able to point us in the right direction and we found our way to our hotel.