The Great Singapore Sale

GUESS WHAT?!?! I've added a link to my photo website that contains all of the pictures I've taken so far!! YAY! The link is on the left side of this blog. It's called "My Photo Website". I spent lots of time on it today, so I hope you like it :-)

This morning, I went out into Singapore with a few of the girls to go shopping in the Great Singapore Sale. Unfortunately, we went to a pretty expensive area of the city, so I couldn't find very many affordable items. Luckily, there is plenty of time to find the good bargain areas because the Great Singapore Sale continues through the month of June! We spent our time going to malls along Orchard Road, which is like shopping in the Times Square of Singapore. Therefore, I only bought one item: the most amazing wrist watch! It has a huge white face and a white leather band, and the best part is that instead of numbers, it has CHINESE CHARACTERS!! Oh and I also bought some Belgian chocolate because it was big time on sale and the food here is so salty that I have a major craving for something sweet after every meal. Yes, Belgian chocolate. I am in heaven :)

Orchard Road was a beautiful area! There were big canopy trees lining the streets, creating shade all along the sidewalks. There was also a small breeze, which made for an enjoyable experience. There were tons of people walking around outside, street vendors were selling ice cream, and there was even a band of high school students playing music to raise money for the Red Cross. The buildings along the street weren't nearly as tall as New York, but all of the malls were vertical! It was fun going through malls that had over six stories of shops! Of course, the malls are high (instead of long like in Georgia) so that they don't take up as much space on the island. Also, the majority of the stores in the mall are very very small because they try to fit as many as they can onto one floor. In some of the shops, if I stretched my arms out, I would touch both walls! In the clothing and food stores, the aisles are very narrow and very close together, once again to save space.

As a break from shopping, we went to a cute little bakery for lunch. The smell of fresh bread and pastries was just too inviting! We picked up trays at the door and walked through the bakery with little tongs, putting lots of little goodies on our tray to buy. I got a warm ham and potato filled croissant and a dessert croissant drizzled in chocolate. Trust me, it was delicious. I was so close to buying a fresh loaf of bread too.

My favorite shopping location was Tanglin Shopping Centre, which is where I bought my watch. This mall was more out of the way of the commercialized area, and they carried antiques from ancient China!!! One of the stores had these lovely antique chests decorated with intricate carvings and Chinese engravings. My favorite antiques were a jewelry box and a medicine cabinet (each little shelf in the medicine cabinet was labeled with hand-written chinese characters!).  I also enjoyed looking at the ancient Chinese screens that featured elaborate paintings and stories of ancient China. I even found this thick wooden headboard, and carved out of the wood was a Chinese dragon! I wish I had a truck to take all of these items home with me. 

I also found a store that sold scrolls of traditional Chinese landscape paintings. Inscriptions were made on the paintings by the artist, typically containing the name of the artist, a few words about the subject of the painting, and poems. Occasionally, a painting will contain inscriptions made by an additional hand, usually a friend of the painter or someone who was moved by the painting's beauty. Most of the traditional paintings in the store even had seals on them, which I found so intriguing! Seals are used in China just like in the Western world- they are affixed by officials to authenticate documents. In ancient China, seals were also used in lieu of signatures. Officials in ancient China who viewed the painting added their seal to it in approval. Thus, the combination of inscriptions and seals provide a remarkably vivid history of the painting.

We also went into a store that sold handmade clothing, hand bags, and jewelry. The store was very pricey, so I did not buy anything, but the items were beautiful and so colorful! We spoke with the shop owner for a quite a while because she was very interested in our study abroad program. We told her that we were going to stay in Beijing too, and she gave us lots of advice about living there. She said that whenever she goes there, so goes completely vegetarian because the meat will make you sick. She says that even if your meat is well cooked and hot, the oils will make your stomach upset, so it is just best to avoid it altogether. Uh oh, what am I going to do? She also explained that Beijing is uncomfortably crowded, especially around this time because of the Olympics. When she started telling us about the preparations Beijing has made for the Olympics, she said, with wide excited eyes, that they installed air conditioning in one of the bathrooms in the city for the Westerners!! The more I am in Singapore, the more I begin to appreciate the comforts that we have at home. I can't even begin to imagine what Beijing will be like. We truly live luxurious lifestyles in the land of the free.