This author is currently on hiatus for the ignoble cause of mugging. The public is advised to remain calm, as this routine protocol has been shown to have no effect on one's violent tendencies in 96% of cases.
| Saturday, December 30, 2006 |
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Earlier tonight, my mum and I along with my cousin, aunt and grandmother (who were staying over in our house again) went over to the not yet completed AMK Hub to take a look-see at Fairprice Xtra which is situated at the basement level. It's this new giant mall connected to an air-conditioned bus terminal (wow) which is just a stone's throw away from Ang Mo Kio MRT station. It's also a mere 10 minutes' walk away from my home, and is a nice new addition to Ang Mo Kio. Won't be surprised if it becomes one of the most popular malls in Singapore, behind VivoCity of course. As the name suggests, Fairprice Xtra is...well, rather extra. Although construction on AMK Hub hasn't completed yet, with the interior and finishing touches still undone, the supermarket is already open for extra business, with extra opening discounts and a whopping extra 38 cashier counters to serve the crowds. Rather unsurprisingly, considering it will be the largest NTUC supermarket and also the first NTUC hypermarket. Heck, NTUC owns the entire building, so i guess they wanted to open the supermarket for business (even despite the rest of the building being still undone - even the carpark isn't up yet!) to woo in the crowds first before the actual opening ceremony. And despite all the construction work, lack of space to park cars and the stretch of road beside the mall being slightly jammed, the crowds did come. It's amazing how far Singaporeans will go just for mere discounts, or worse, just to "check it out" out of curiousity. Well, i guess the aunties have nothing better to do than shaking their legs and nagging at their husbands at home. And so, Singaporeans from all around the island congregated at Ang Mo Kio Ave 8, all brandishing trolleys and raring to zerg into the sacred hall of cheap skates, baguettes and fish. Except, they were held up in their tracks by a narrow passageway and a couple of escalators. Yes, there was such a big crowd that there were actually queues just to take the escalator down. Imagine water going through a funnel, then replace the water molecues with people, dogs and trolleys, and the narrow funnel end with travellators. Oh, and add a sign above which read "[Down] Basement 2: Hypermarket." And that was what the scene was like. If it was already so bad for people trying to go in, i can't imagine how long the queues at the 38 cashiers were. Maybe it was because the entire hypermarket was filled with queues, thus hindering people from going in. A lot of people were turned away by the sheer amount of sardines - no, people - there were. And we were one such group of people. Sadly, we don't quite fancy being canned in the hypermarket, and having to wait an hour or so in queues before being freed, both of ourselves and quite a bit of money. In the end, I walked home, and the rest of them took the free bus service to the Giant hypermarket at Turf City. Like i said, humans are smart creatures and there's always a Plan B. However, the plan can sometimes be severely affected by the promise of not having to spend an extra 10 cent coin, or for the sake of novelty, as was the case for the mass of people at FairPrice Xtra today. |
'Twas teh winnar at 11:53 pm.
