Spoiled

I'm sorry I haven't written much lately. It's not that I have been too busy, but that I've been busy doing nothing of interest I guess. Until Friday.

Erik and I recently came into some gift money, so we thought we would spend it on some last things for the apartment - a small console and a large mirror. Since our furniture is Asian style, we went on a tip from a friend to an area that specializes in that.

We thought when she said, "Dempsey Road" that it would be like a strip mall. Instead, it was a collection of one story stores clumped together ecclectically out in a wooded area. It was a bit of a walk to get from the entrance to the back stores. It felt a lot like wandering a camp where the cabins had been converted to furniture, carpet and idol stores (you get a lot of stores that sell primarily idols here).

Here's where the spoiled part comes in: Erik and I had to keep telling ourselves that the prices we saw on the furniture were not in kuai (Chinese money) but Sing dollars. We are so accustomed to being able to buy this kind of furniture at rock bottom prices that it was hard to believe anyone would pay that much for something. We couldn't bring ourselves to think about buying any of it, especially when I asked a man if a mirror could be smaller, and he said sure, because he has them custom made in China and sent here. We're kicking ourselves now for not buying more while we lived there.

We walked away with nothing, paralyzed by our cheapness, and also not finding anything that we wanted enough to take it home.

As a post note, in the afternoon yesterday I went to Novena Square, which is just a typical shopping mall close to our house. At a fun store called Picket and Rail, I found a large mirror that was exactly what I had been imagining, and a bed. Yes, a bed. We don't have a formal bed right now - just the bottom metal frame with a box spring and two mattresses on top (long story) and I saw one that I just loved. Everything in the store was on sale "less 20%" as they say here, and the prices were already really low. In fact, I'll be really local and tell you that we got both the large mirror (80x130 cm) and the bed for about $400 US. Now that felt like shopping in Asia.