Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Y'd think...

One thing that perplexed me all the way around Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore was the search for a cold drink.

We first learnt that one should ask for 'mineral water', which means bottled drinking water, not the carbonated (and often flavoured) variety we get here. Okay, I can do that.

We learnt to ask for a "Sprite", not lemonade, because no-one seemed to know what that was.

My parents found you couldn't get "Diet Coke", but if you ask for "Coke Lite" you might do better.

But what were the chances that whatever liquid you get would be cold?

... Yep.

Sometimes you'd get your room temperature softdrink with a glass of ice, but water was usually just plain room temperature. To the point it was a surprise when the bottle of liquid arrived with tiny beads of condensation. Ahhhhh!

It was hot. It was steamy. You'd think that cold drinks would be just that, but the chance?

... Approximately Not Much At All

6 comments:

Givinya De Elba said...

That's weird. You'd think that they would have had Australian tourists there before! I am surprised that people serving tourists haven't assimilated "lemonade," "Diet Coke" and refrigerating drinks into their culture.

Aleta said...

That's funny about the word change... but I have heard that a lot of countries don't drink "cold" drinks. Whereas, you have to ask for "no ice" in the US. Lol.

Allegro ma non troppo said...

How exotic! Warm drinks!

Swift Jan said...

Someone needs to show them the wonder of refrigeration! I'm not a fan of room temperature softdrink...

Emily Sue said...

Although we call Sprite 'lemonade' it's not really. I think most other countries refer to it by brand name because of that.

Serving it warm, no matter what it's called, is another matter entirely... yuck.

Anonymous said...

I prefer water room temp to ice cold. Do you know how hard it is to buy a bottle of water unrefrigerated in most lunch bars, eating houses or cafes in Brisbane? Almost impossible!