Feed My Vanity

Just to get a jumpstart on the stuff I shopped in Singapore, I’m sharing this with the hope that you won’t turn into a birdbrain like me in the face of wallet adversary.  Believe me, it wasn’t a pretty experience. More like a nightmare. Imagine you’re Becky Bloomwood and you’re in the middle of a street. And both sides of the street are lined with malls. You clap and jump in delight, reach for your purse…

…and with horror you realize it isn’t there. Or maybe you run into a random mall and you discover you’re in some parallel universe where people pay in peanuts and salesladies giggle embarrassedly or look pityingly at you when you hand over a hundred smackers, or worse, you discover credit cards have never been invented.

Nah, none of these happened to me (duh, I don’t even have a credit card), but since the trip was a spontaneous one, I didn’t have a lot of cash with me. I reassesed my belief that our country has too many malls; the famous (or infamous, depending on you) Orchard Road is lined with malls that can make Ayala’s malls look… amateur. But that’s a post for another day ‘coz it’s 3am and I need to catch up on ZZZZzzzs. Here’s a peek of some of my stash.

Hat from Rip Curl (Original Price:S$60, Sale: S$39), Zara peeptoe shooties(?) (Original Price S$200, Sale:S$99)

The hat is for the boyfriend. Shoes of course, are for moi. I didn’t plan to buy it. I walked around Zara, saw lots of stuff on sale, saw the sales tags, and immediately went for the exit lest I get tempted into buying a $60 dress. My companions dawdled over some stuff so I reluctantly stationed myself near the exit to wait for them. BIG MISTAKE. Located near the exit were marked down shoes, tried out a pair, checked the orange sale tags, and started taking off the shoes when my aunt suddenly appeared behind me and chirped “buy it!It looks good on you”, the second bird then chirped “go! go! it’s rare you buy nice shoes anyway,the third bird appeared and tweeted “wahaw! those shoes make your legs look long! buy it”. I started to gesture and cock my head side to side, chirping madly that I shouldn’t. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. But what could I have done? It was three insistent birds against one.

Clutching the shoes, I flew over to the two harassed salesbirds in the check-out counter and fell in line with other little birds of all shapes and sizes but with similar glazed looks in their eyes. Upon reaching the counter, I handed over a hundred birdseed to the salesbird with the glasses who wordlessly wrapped my shoes and handed it over to me; I then flew quickly out into the night, Zara paper bag flapping in the wind.

Because I have a bunch of articles to write, I’ m going to ruin the momentum of my Singapore Series by posting about hotdogs. Orange Julius’ hotdogs to be exact.

How come I don’t remember Orange Julius at all? My mom and my boyfriend said that Orange Julius used to have a branch here in the Philippines. Anyway, my family and I were walking along Orchard Road when we came across an Orange Julius stand.

Orange Julius, Orchard Road

When my mom and my aunt saw the stand they started to jabber how yummy the food in Orange Julius is, blah blah, but we didn’t stop to try the place out (hungry, but too infused with the need to shop). My mom couldn’t get it out of her mind so we went back the following day. My brother and I ordered the hotdog in a bun with cheese and bacon toppings while my mom ordered the one with pepperoni toppings. We also ordered an orange juice just to try it out.

Hotdog with cheese and bacon toppings

My mom is one picky eater. I ask her to taste something because I think it’s good and it’s always rare for her to agree. So when she says something is good, I expect it to be good. But Orange Julius? Well, it’s supposed to  be good in junk food standards, but well, it’s kind of boring actually. I was really disappointed to see that the bacon was imitation bacon, hell I don’t know what it is, but that sure isn’t bacon. The cheese was just right because I like my cheese in small amounts, except when it’s partnered with chips. The hotdog (beef) itself is kind of nice, and I thought maybe I should’ve ordered a plain one. I also like the fact that they ask if you want beef or chicken hotdogs rather than shoving some greasy artificially-colored hotdog to me.

Hope you like the hotdog post that looks misplaced in my blog. I want to get to the shopping part but if deadlines can kill, I’m already six feet under. I WILL GET TO THE SHOPPING PART. Hahaha.