online shenannigans

First it was with ctrip with the hotel we got in Shangri-la. In case you haven't heard me complain about this yet, the hotel we got in Shangri-la had NO HEATING. That's right. None. It was between -1 to 11 deg celsius on the days we were there and our room was unheated. Luckily, we overheard our local tour mates say that they took the matter up with ctrip and were changing hotels. And we did too, else I would have frozen to death in that room. Since then, I've been calling Ctrip to get a refund cos they made the mistake of not getting the facts right on their website! After several calls and one nasty mail, they've finally given me a refund solution and restored my confidence in their service. Phew. That was tedious considering how the words in Chinese tend to escape me when I get frustrated.

Now, I'm up against a new online monster ...trying to purchase something off taobao. Apparently, it's easy but after 2hrs of fiddling with it this morning, I've decided it's not. I can't figure out this whole payment thing! In Chinese no less!! It requires an additional step of activating some option on my ibanking account. I tried but failed. And upon trying to log onto my ibank account, I realised that I got the password wrong. These mistakes culminated in me getting locked out of my ibank. I spent 1 hr sitting at the bank getting this fixed ( another nightmare cos of my new passport number) and I still can't log on!!!!

This is annoying me BIG TIME. The only reason I'm persevering is for Daniel. I'm helping him get a new 3D graphics card while he's away, so that the card will arrive when he gets back, in time for him to fix the computer and play some new World of Warcraft update this weekend. What this means is that I'm going through one MAJOR irritation to bring about another minor irritation of having Daniel glued to the computer this weekend... sigh...at least he's already warned me months in advance. Daniel, you better be grateful. And no, I didn't kick your computer to make the existing card go kaputt.