Here is my birthday present to myself. Red ladies pants. From Fairprice. The big branch of Fairprice, in Nex shopping mall, beside Serangoon MRT. It is up on level 3. (Unlike Bukit Panjang where Fairprice is in the basement.)
I was surprised and delighted to find a complete range of underwear. First I saw ladies knickers, panties or men's pants. (In British English outwear is called trousers whilst underwear is called pants. The Americans say pants for outwear and underpants for undergarments.)
A lot of the stuff looks really cheap. Plastic shoes and sandals. I see my face in a mirror and notice I am wearing my surprised and slightly disgusted mouth turned down expression.
However, those red items are just what I was looking for. Anything in large? One size. Brand Beauty. Never heard of them. (A small Triumph boutique underwear only shop is out in the mall. But pricier.)
Next day I try on the underwear and I am delighted. It fits! No pulling. Not uncomfortable.
What about the price. It cost 4.90 Sing dollars. I should have been able to get a pack of three in London for that price. Should I phone my family? Nope. Easier just to buy and try myself.
My family in Singapore frequent the Fairprice supermarket in Bukit Panjang in the north of Singapore. Our supplementary supermarkets are Coldstorage (our local is the one near Hillview MRT station, two stops along the line, slightly nearer into the city than end of the line Bukit Panjang. I believe is merged under the same ownership but retains its identity of having slightly more expensive food and a slightly wider range of Western style foods and brands and imported products. My husband tends to alternate trips in order to get the full range of what is on our shopping list.
The UK and Australia, New Zealand and South Africa
Some time within the last ten years supermarkets in the UK and worldwide got bigger, emulating the French Carrefour, and started stocking clothes and seasonal items, more back to school stationery in the autumn.
Summer-Winter Clothes
Down under in Australia the seasons are reversed. If you travel across the time zones and seasonal lines, that means less opportunity to buy the usual seasonal stuff, but more opportunity to buy novelties. One year we travelled via Singapore on a round trip ticket UK to New Zealand and back, leaving the UK in summer, arriving in New Zealand in winter. I could not buy clothes for the cold weather in London before I left, and could not afford the pricier and small selection or styles and sizes at the destination ski resort.
Charity Shops
I had to resort to shopping in a New Zealand charity shop. I spent most of the first afternoon while my husband and son were doing their exploratory tour of the ring of ski slopes to check snow conditions for skiing and compare lift prices and whole week or family ticket discounts.
While they were away, by early evening, as the sky darkened and the shop assistant warned me she would be closing. I had gone through the rails and boxes of jumble in the charity and second hand shop three times. I finally, forced to end my eternal browsing, surprising the assistant by actually making a decision. I bought a jacket, hat and gloves. On seepacond thoughts, I bought another cheap jacket, not what I wanted, but it was cheap.
I also bought, after some thought, and bargaining, a one piece outfit with a tear and a stain. How to repair it?
Another trip around the shops eventually revealed a stockist of sewing items. A shop selling clothes, offering repairs, had, hidden at the back, and under the desk, a stock of DIY sewing stuff. It wasn't on display because they only had one kind of needles. Okay. The threads were only three colours. I bought one of each. And only two styles of patches. Sigh.
Charity Shops
If you are looking for charity shops, they have different brands and different generic names in each country. It is handy to know the name of the cheapest supermarkets in each country (as well as the dearer ones). The same goes for fast food.
Morrisons
I love shopping for clothes in Morrisons (Hatch End) and Sainsbury's (Stanmore). Whilst I could not justify clothes shopping, I might sneak a set of underwear or another tee-shirt into the basket of brocery shopping without causing my husband to compalin, 'but you have so many clothes!'
One UK supermarket decided to go back to food stuff.
Aldi
However, the bargain supermarket, Aldi, which used to make my late father's bridge partners run to their local Aldi shop in Stanmore on a Thursday to find the just in bargain re-stocking. I recall them enthusing, "You must go first thing on Thursday, like us. The bargains might be gone next day!"
Aldi has just emailed me (March 15 2022) to say that some items are available to pre-order. I looked and saw loads of gardening stuff. No thanks. Then I spotted silk pillowcases. Just wanted for my birthday. My unfavourite colour. Grey. But if Aldi say the product is silk, I trust them more than an unknown shop in China selling a single item at half the price.
Singapore
This week in Singapore I was in Nex shopping mall above the Serangoon MRT underground railway station.
You can also buy from them online. They make a change for delivery, another for picking and packing.
Useful Websites
