Far East Plaza

Today's post is brought to you by Hipster Hamish. I swear these glasses have magical powers that make me want to buy all the super-cutesy girly-girl things in the world.

Again upon local recommendations, I set out for Far East Plaza for an afternoon of shopping. And I must say, it was a very successful trip. I started off by taking the bus to Redhill MRT station - and was confident enough that I would recognise the stop (MRT stations are very well signposted for the most part) to sit on the second storey. They have double decker buses that go around town, which I find quite exciting. There's something about urban commuting that is just better when you sit up high.

 Hamish agrees with me! We were sitting right at the front of the bus so I could see :P

 MRT station just as the train was arriving. I took the MRT to Orchard Rd, notorious for having a gazillion malls catering to pretty much all tastes. There's one attached to the MRT station too! Many of the malls along Orchard Rd itself are designer brands and high-end stores, so not really the pricing point I was looking for. Whilst trying to find Far East Plaza I went past this in one of the big fancy malls (I was mall-hopping for air conditioning since it was so warm)

 I think that's the most Steinway pianos I've seen at once. I was too scared to go in and ask if I could play them though, so I just took a sneaky photo through the window and carried on walking...then I found a jewellery store selling purple gold!

 This quite excited me. As you know, purple is my absolute favourite colour ever and purple gold seems like an awesome idea.

 Eventually I looked at the map. Far East Plaza is on Scotts Road, and although I'd taken the Scotts Road exit just as planned I'd accidentally continued to Shaw House - protip, go towards Marriott Hotel! I'd also passed a gelato place that advertised itself as the "best in Singapore", so I felt like I had to stop and try the gelato.

I'm willing to believe it's the best in Singapore; it was pretty much the best gelato I've ever had. I tried three flavours - black forest, green tea sorbet, and apple pie, before settling on the latter two. Normally I'm a hazelnut/chocolate type person, but the black forest was ridiculously rich and it was a hot day. The gelato itself was super creamy and flavoursome, and the green tea sorbet was heavily green-tea ish to the point where I was almost sick of it by the time I'd eaten it all. I think it started tasting a little bit like when you have green tea and get to the dregs of the pot and accidentally drink some of the leaves, but I would so go back and eat more.

 I managed to snap a very quick picture before I started eating it all - only because I'd already tried some of the flavours!

And then I finally made it to Far East Plaza! I started on Level 1 and worked my way up. This particular mall had a lot of stores selling current fashion as well as cutesy gyaru/hime stuff, mori items, and accessories with some being priced very reasonably and some being more expensive.

 There are also a lot of tailors, hair/beauty/nail stores, and a few tattoo and piercing parlours and wedding dress stores thrown in for good measure. Most nail stores offer express manicures for $8, which I was tempted by. There were at least 4 stores selling swimsuits that I went past, but I was specifically looking for a nice one-piece and a bikini with one of the cute skirt bottoms. This was a success.

The one piece I got - the photo is not accurate to colour, it's a mid-blue shade rather than royal purple-blue. Look, ruffles!

I'm normally a bright colours person rather than pastels, but I saw this and decided that I needed it in my life (this is the power of the glasses, ladies and gentlemen)

I also found some shoes for graduation. I initially very much wanted some diamante-encrusted silver-white pumps made by Anna Nucci with sky high heels and a platform were very much out of my price range, being 4 times as expensive as my dress was, and even other similar styles were going to set me back at least $100. See below: the shoes in question.

So I continued looking around and found some similar silver glitter peep-toe heels for $35. I think I may still add some rhinestones to them, but they are amazing and I can actually walk in them.

Shiny, no?

Pretty packaging!

After several hours in Far East Plaza I decided to head elsewhere to find some food. I happened to walk past another street store claiming to be one of the best takeaway places in Singapore.

Apparently it's been around for over 50 years.

 First item - prawn nuggets. I quite liked these, although I wish that they were more prawn-y. As deep fried nugget things go though, I have no complaints. I also got a Sotong stick (octopus I think), which I found disappointing and chewy rather than crispy and chewy and amazing.

 Although all the little legs are quite cool. The best thing about this was the Curry'O. This is a very tasty chicken and egg curry puff with good pastry and good curry.

I then headed back towards the MRT as it was getting later in the day. I ended up going into Forever21 just to see what all the fuss is about since people often go on about how good it is. Quite honestly, there was nothing particularly special. This could've been because many of this season's colours don't suit me.

Exhibit A: peachy pink, cream, mint green. Colours that do not suit me.

On the other hand, brights are still a big trend, so there were other garments in colours that suited me. However, I was particularly looking for a high-collared long sleeved blouse (tricky to buy during Singapore summer!) and all the blouses and frilly vintage things come in colours seen above.

I also wanted a BB cream (all in one moisturiser/makeup/sunscreen) to match my skin tone, and although I looked in Missha and Sephora and some of the drugstore places, the ones that matched well were $40 which I thought was a little bit too much really, and I seemed to be one shade too dark for many of the drugstore brands (Maybelline, Garnier etc). I think since BB creams are aimed at a market that wants to be pale and I'm not particularly pale in Asian terms, it was making it a little harder. I managed to find one at Etude though! And also some other things...(undereye roller, powder, and freebies)

So, all in all I was very pleased with my loot. Once I've used the BB cream a bit I will know if it actually lives up to its promises (oil control/moisturiser/mostly waterproof/whitening)

Hamish likes custard tarts.