First Shopping Trip

I arrived in Singapore early Tuesday morning and had the whole day to get settled into my hotel, recuperate from the 24 hour trip and adjust to the new time zone.  I began unpacking and immediately realized I had forgotten my black belt and would need to go shopping.  After using the hotel hair dryer, I decided that just wasn't going to work for me so I'd need to get one of those too.  So, off I went to the shopping district of Orchard Road.

After just three hours of walking around Orchard Road, I am convinced you can get absolutely anything you could want.  Now, the price may be double what you pay somewhere else, but you can certainly get it. There are almost all the brand name stores one would see in the US, from Cartier and Coach to Payless, Forever 21, and Gap.  What I found so interesting about the shopping here is that its like an iceberg.  You see a couple stories of stores from the outside but when you get inside the shopping malls, there are half a dozen levels below ground.  At the bottom level of many of the malls is the food court which I intended to try but chickened out.  It was a bit overwhelming and I didn't see anything I wanted to try so I continued on shopping.

One of the multi-level shopping areas.

Derek will be happy to know I exercised restraint
and did notgo into Tory Burch.  It's only a matter
of time though. 

Food court vendor.  Yes those are cooked chickens with the
heads still on. 

More meat just hanging in the food court

I read online that you could get excellent macarons so I was happy to stumble upon Canele and pick up a couple.  They did not disappoint!  I can't wait to go back and get more!

I did manage to find a department store to buy my belt and hair dryer.  The belt was reasonably priced at $39SGD but the hair dryer was kind of ridiculous at $49SGD (1 SGD = .8 USD).  I wouldn't complain if it was a really nice hair dryer but this one was pretty basic.  

I wandered around all the shops looking at prices to determine just how much things cost compared to what they cost in the US and I have to say at times it was shocking.  As an overall generalization, I would say clothing costs are 33-75% higher than the US.  For instance, a pair of Levi's jeans is well over $100.  I saw you could buy three pairs of Calvin Klein underwear for $69 or a Van Heusen men's dress shirt for $129.  Now I understand why everyone I know from the US who lives here tries to buy all their clothes when they visit back home.