Happy shopping day!

I have been randomly taking PM leave here and there to clear leave from last year coz I could only bring over up to 50% of remaining leave. Yes, I have that much unused leave! Even though now they would commute up to a certain number to cash, I decided my time is worth more.

So yesterday I headed to town. I had wanted to head to town last Wednesday but decided to walk around the nighbourhood instead. What a great choice - better to walk in very slight drizzle than in the blazing hot sun like yesterday! In town, I was indoor mostly :)

First stop was Macs. I didn't have breakfast so was hungry. Thought I would have a curry puff at OCK at Paragon but since I passed by Lucky Plaza, I thought of trying the salmon burger. Unfortunately they didn't have that there :( So I left after wasting some time queueing.

The curry puff was satisfying - I haven't had that for ages!

With food in my belly, I went on my first errand. I wanted to use my Mont Blanc pen the other day but found leaked ink and a broken pen tip. The salesperson was very nice and asked me to return in 30 min while he tried to clean it for me in-store; sending it in for service would cost money.

I thought of having a Starbucks so I spent some time queueing for that, and then strolled around the basement looking at food while sipping the thing. Yeah, relaxing!

The most fascinating stall was Chalk Farm - they have such a beautiful array of cakes! And I tried a few of their cakes before, so good! I noted that the prices are higher now than when I bought them. Now that I think about it, I bought them when I was there for obgyn checks with Yu?!! 

Ok, I'll skip the sweet coffee and grab some cakes when I go back to collect my pen!

So anyway, the nice guy had both good news and bad news - he managed to clean up the pen but found that the twist mechanism wasn't working! I could hear the excitement in his voice in the former and the disappointment in the latter. He also explained the cost of fixing the pen. It's not cheap. But it's a present from Sito and I like it. So I went ahead.

Next stop was Brooks Brothers. Two weeks ago when I was in town with Na for breakfast and catch-up, we went to the outlet in Taka. But the selection was small. And at that time, I only knew Sito wanted one with a pocket; I didn't know Sito was fine with button-downs. I didn't realise his shirts were getting tattered until I finished sewing on two buttons and saw the fraying collars *.*

Na and I in front of the shop where we bought shoes 20 years ago!

Yesterday, I thought I would shop for a present if not a shirt. Then I remembered there's an outlet at Paragon, yeah! And it was a big one, double yeah! Met yet another nice salesperson and I ended up with not one but three shirts! And also learnt about the difference between two cuts that Sito wears.

And finally, Daiso!!! I thought of going to Ion but realised it's quite small. So I bus-ed down to Plaza Sing. Gosh, I spent more happy time shopping :) Even though I didn't manage to find a suitable box to keep our passports and foreign currencies - I recently found the old bags covered in dust *.* Anyway, I found a zipbag today and transferred everything over.

But I wasn't done yet. I was going to pick Kai up from CCA. But a look at the bus arrival time told me I might be late so I traced my steps back across the road to take the train instead. To avoid the sun, I dropped off at Stevens to take the bus instead of Newton :p And I was early, woohoo!

Met A at the bus stop - asked her to go too as I wanted to show her the way home via Little India, which is a dry route on rainy days. Next time when the boys can go home on their own, it's also a safer route. Kai was surprised to see both of us :)

The traffic was pretty heavy at that time so we took 10 min longer to get to Little India, compared to the time I took on rainy mornings. But ok, safety trumps everything else.

We reached home past 5 pm, and I rushed to cook pasta sauce for baked pasta. Since A couldn't be home to cook our regular 三菜一汤 I asked her to cook the pasta before leaving and I would finish up the sauce in the evening. Popped the pot into the oven and left to fetch the younger ones. And dinner was a success! Except that it was pretty flat as A didn't add salt to the pasta water and my sauce is a salt-less one *.*

A memory of yesterday - I only wished I didn't give my Daiso bag to A so early!

Let Sito discover the bag when he returned last night :) Early birthday surprise! :) He tried them all and all's good - two to wear now and one for LNY, yeah!