Shopping

According to a wire report, more than two million people -- ie half of Singapore's population -- have trooped through VivoCity, Singapore's largest shopping mall at HarbourFront (what used to be the World Trade Centre down by Keppel) since it opened on Oct 7.

This means that the opening of a shopping mall was a bigger deal than the recent IMF/World Bank meetings. How very Singaporean.

Obviously, I am not one of the two million who went shopping at VivoCity recently. Clearly, I'm not a normal Singaporean. Or maybe I'm just out of touch. No wait, not really. I knew about the hype of the megamall opening. I'm just not curious enough to go and check it out. It'll only be more Ferragamo, Gucci and Chanel. Although it also has GAP store, the first in Asia. But it still ain't a draw for me. I'll be lucky to make it there by Christmas, and I'm talking next Christmas, not the coming one.

Which is coming too fast. It's only October and the Deepavali and Hari Raya lights are still up but are rapidly being converted into Christmas decor by the major downtown retailers.

Yesterday, for some relief at the end of a very long six-day week, made much longer by coming on the tail of a two-week slack-off periods, L and I decided to leave the dogs home (Rupert's become a little more reliable now) and go out for a meal that we did not have to cook and wash up after. And then do some grocery shopping so we wouldn't have to jostle with the weekend crowds at the supermarket. Now that's the shopping that I do. It involves Jeypine and pee pads and not GAP.

We went to one of those Japanese chains that have sushi going round in a conveyor belt. I always order a menu item because I want something hot and freshly prepared. If I want something that I know is going round on the belt, I'll include it since I'm ordering anyway
L thinks the kitchen will make it fresh along with the rest of your order but I say they just pick up something that's already on the belt. I only pick up something from the belt when it looks tempting and I need instant gratification.

Which turned out to be a grave mistake yesterday. What I took to be a croquette turned out to be a rolled maki (with crabstick, that faux stuff that I just can't stand) that was dipped in breadcrumbs and deep fried. You can deep fry anything and make it tasty, even Mars bars, but deep fried maki is an aberration. For all I know, that maki had been going round the conveyor belt for two days and had dried up and deep frying was a way of recycling it. Eww.