It was the long awaited sale of the year, so Vin n me decided to have a good shopping day at Suntec. Before that, we went to the bank to apply for a joint account.
Our joint account~!
Since both of us have been working for almost a year, we decided we should start saving up together. Saving up for many reasons.Hopefully in a year's time, this account will be fat full of money ($.$)
Banks in the city area are much better than those in the heartlands, cos there wasn't much people queue-ing, and usually people wouldn't wanna travel to the city area to bank. So, our account was done up quite swiftly.
Went to the Suntec's Fountain Food Terrace for lunch. When we reached there, it was during the lunch hours, so it was very difficult to find seats, even for two. We finally got ourselves a seat, and here's the chicken rice we had. The rice was made like a pyramid.
The portion wasn't very big though, and the food was rather ex.
After lunch, we went to the first floor (the side nearest to Carrefour), and started our shopping at the big big World of Sports. I wanted to get myself a new pair of running shoes, cos the ones I had have been talking alligators to me, so I need a new pair of shoes before I can start to run.
I was looking for either Reebok or New Balance shoes. (There was a saying that people who wore New Balance are kind people). However, New Balance was much more ex than Reebok, and Reebok was the only brand that is having a 15% discount on its regular priced items, so I decided to go for Reebok.
My super honest mood when I entered the shop:
The intention of buying a pair of new running shoes started because of my "talking old shoes". The last time i ran seriously was like a year ago, and to get me running again, I need shoes that can just motivate me to jog once a week. I was never a marathon runner, and I believe I don't want to be cos I don't really like running. Running is more like a chore, so in this case, the shoe better be as cheap as possible.
With that, I started looking at the shoes on the wall, and was more concerned with the price than the fanciful designs. I found a shoe which was simple, and the cheapest on the wall - $79.90. With the 15% discount, it's roughly $68. In this big big shop, there were some other shoes selling on the shop floor. It's those out-dated designs that didn't worth a standing on the shop walls, so they were placed there like bazaar sales. There were also posters printed 50%, (but in fact the discount was only 30%).
I decide to take a look at these shoes first before deciding if I wanna get the Reebok shoe on the wall. Found another very cheap reebok shoe amongst the 50%-batch and it's selling at $69.90 with further 30% discount (about $49). On the tag of the shoe, it says "X-training". I guessed it's for people whom wanna do light exercises like me, including light running. Wanted to look for my size, but I wasn't very sure about my shoe size for running shoes.
Tried on a size 7 and it was just fitting, and a bit tight at the ends. I couldn't find a 7.5 size, so decided to go back to the $68 shoe on the shop wall I saw just now. Asked the shop assistant whom passed by, and she said my size was sold out, so have to give up on that one.
Went back to the 50%-batch of shoes, and I was trying to look for a bigger size, like size 8. Took size 7 and size 8 (dug up from a pile of shoe boxes on our own), I went to a seat to try. Suddenly, one very huge guy came towards me and said in a rather unfriendly tone, "'Xcuse me, are you trying on these shoes? Let me help you."
This sales guy came at a very weird timing. Usually when you see customers messing up with your shoe boxes, then you go and stop them right? Not when they are trying to put their foot into your shoe den you said you wanna help them. I told this guy I didn't need help, but he insisted, in another unfriendly and assertive tone, "No. Let me help you" and he took my shoe boxes away and started packing the shoes into the shoe box.
Wat's wrong with this guy??
"What's your shoe size?" he asked in his rather Indonesian accented English.
"I just wanted to find out my shoe size by trying these two shoes." I replied.
He busily packed the shoes back into their boxes and didn't replied. Then he said, "ok", and went to get a "shoe-meter" thingy that could measure the size of your feet. He gestured unfriendly that I put my feet on the meter and we took a look at how big my foot was. I saw my feet at size 6.5, but he replied, "You should get a size 8.5, in case you are wearing socks.."
"But i don't wear thick socks." I told him, but he ignored me and started to look for size 8.5 in the heap of shoe boxes.
Next thing, he told me, "There's no size 8.5. You want get other designs? What sport do you do?"
"Running."
"This shoe you chose is not for running. It's for X-training." He showed me the tag like I haven't noticed it before, and gave me a look like I have picked shoes blindly."Do you run outdoors or indoors?"
(What do you say about running in the stadium and occasionally beside the road?) "Outdoors" i replied.
"This shoe is not for running outdoors", he continued.
"So what exactly is X-training? you mean x-training shoes cannot be used to run?"Vin asked him.
"X-training shoes is for running in the gym's treadmill. The sole is much softer."the sales guy replied. With that, he started walking to the higher end of 50%-batch of shoes. He pointed three shoes which cost $110-$130 at its usual prices, and told me to get those shoes instead.
I took a look at the prices and I guess I made a face that I wasn't interested.
"These shoes are for outdoor running, the one you chose just now cannot be used for outdoor running."the sales guy pressed on. Did he really need to repeat that so many times? "You see, the soles of these shoes are much thicker than that one. If you run for long hours, you are not going to wear that (x-training) shoe for long".He bragged on about how sophisticated the running soles were.
"In the first place, I am not a very committed runner" I said.
"So what are you looking for? Design? Price?"
"Price. I don't want to spend too much, and I don't run a lot." I replied.
"Now look at this", the sales guy slightly raised his voice, "that shoe over there (x-training), is not suitable for long distance running. These shoes ($110-$130 range) are also having a 30% discount. After discount is roughly $80. But those shoes is roughly $50, so with a $30 difference, you get better running shoes, isn't it better?"
"Sorry, but I said I wouldn't run for long hours, and I was looking more for the price, and I don't really go for the features of the shoes."I said. Didn't I said I don't buy shoes for marathon?
"You see. It's $80, as compared to you girls, you spend $80 on ko-mes-tics..."
"You mean cos-me-tics."I interrupted.
"You girls like to spend a lot on bags, LV, these $80 is much more worthy isn't it. If you run everyday.. each day would be roughly 30 cents..."he continued with his male chauvinism.
I was totally sick of that sales guy. In case you don't know why he pissed me so much and if you happened to be a guy, imagine you trying to buy some male beauty/hair products which you seldom wanted to buy, and when you finally decide to buy, the sales girl came to tell you that you should go for this more expensive product, as compared to you usually spending $70 for your PS games...
"I would consider if I want to buy from you", I said and stormed out of the shop. Does he have to be so assertive to his customers? I seriously despised guys like this whom think highly of himself.
Neeways, I'm glad and lucky that that indonesian sales guy pissed me off, cos there was another "world of sports"(smaller shopfront), at the higher levels of suntec, and the shoes inside are much cheaper, at 50% discount. I got these so called sophisticated running soles, Reebok branded, for $35. Thanks to him, thank you.
Other than the shoes, vin also made some purchases too. He bought 2 polo tees from G2000 and I also got a half-priced dress which usually sell at $59.90. At the first floor of suntec, there was this special GSS event that if you spend $100, you get a $10 voucher and a chance to spin the wheel for more prices. When we got our turn, the vouchers were already finished, so I took my chance to spin....
And guess what, I landed at the "Mystery"!! Guess it must be the best part of the wheel to land at, cos we won ourselves with a chance for this Grab-&-Win.
Vin bravely went in and won ourselves with three discount coupons at Haagen Dazs. So, that would be for the night's dessert~~
Dinner came and we went to Food Republic for this exotic dinner. It was nice!
After the dinner, we went to a Book Fair as organized by SPH (no Popular's booth though).. so there's this 商务印书馆 booth, and I got myself a 《全球华语词典》 there.
It's the first global chinese dictionary ever made, and I think it's a very interesting dictionary that every household should get. It's a chinese dict where there are nearly 90% of the words which you haven't see or hear before, despite they are chinese words. For example, some of the first few entries in this dict are "阿兵哥"，"阿丢"，"阿达阿达"，"阿舍奶"etc, and for each, they give explanations on what these words mean, and where these words are used. For eg, "阿兵哥" is used in Taiwan, Msia n Sg, meaning soldiers, "阿丢"is used in Macao，meaning uncle, "阿达阿达" is used in Tw，meaning someone whom is very 糊涂, "阿舍奶"is used in Thai, meaning 少奶奶..
So this whole dictionary is about cultural words like this, and I believe it would come in very useful, becos common chi dictionaries do not include words like this. Plus, the dict sells for a mere $17, as thick as the usual good chi dictionaries.
Vin and me bought some jap books and ya, guess we still haven gave up JLPT1.
When we are finished with the book fair, we moved on to Haagen Dazs.
Ordered 4 scoops of ice-cream of different flavours and waffle.
The price is really steep. Despite the discount coupon, these ice-cream can still cost us $18++.
Had a very tiring but satisfied day. ^w^
