Tai Tai my Foot.

The Lobby @ The Peninsula.

When you visit Cantoland, Lonely Planet tells you to take high tea at the Lobby of the Peninsula Hotel. This is a practice from colonial days when the rich ladies of leisure sat about and sipped English tea in fine bone china cups and nibbled at dainty sandwiches while gossipping and comparing the size of their diamonds.

And just because Lonely Planet said so, the queue at the Peninsula was an hour long. They do not take reservations and all guests must queue up, or pay some one else to queue. They don't even take a number and call you back when there is space. Snobs.

Yours truly queued patiently, while playing games on her phone and checking out the cute waiters . The lawyer and her friends joined in, and we were all dressed like aspiring tai tais complete with dangly jewellery, clutch and high heeled shoes and silk dresses. I had just woken up and had a cream puff for breakfast, while the others had a bun each. So when we ordered, we ordered a portion for each of us. We made small talk while I checked out the china and the silver. I have better at home.

When it arrived, we looked at each other and said: " that's it?" Then proceeded to woof everything down, and complain we needed more food. No one else seemed to be complaining about the miniscule portions. Idiots.

Tell me, how do grown women survive on so little? This is FOUR portions!

We had a pot of tea each to our individual preference. In Cantoland, they have a great fondness of tea, and when your teapot is empty, you lift the lid and the staff will refill your pot. We didn't know what to do with our empty teapots. We had been commenting on why the girl who ordered Chinese tea, had a taller teapot. We also commented on the gradual lightening of her tea in her teacup and further debated on how best to draw attention our empty teapots. Suggestions ranged from lifting the teapot lid a la Chinese restaurants to hailing the waiter in Mandarin a la Mainland tourist/Singlish a la your friendly neighbour.

The tea service by Tiffany & Co.

Then one of the girls burst out laughing. And wouldn't stop for five minutes. And then very soberly told us that she had been drinking 'tea' from the hot water pot to refill our teapots. We looked into her teacup to see clear water with 2 tea leaves floating about.

The peninsula has never seen such failures in womankind. I guess I am just not cut for the tai tai lifestyle *sigh*. Or I should eat more train harder.