Today I share with you the second vlog from our stopover in Singapore. On this particular day hubby had work meetings and so I headed into Singapore's CBD (central business district) with him. I thought it might be interesting to show you some of the architecture of the CBD area. In and amongst all of the high rise office blocks there are streets of traditional shop houses which have now been converted into office spaces, cafes and and restaurants. There are also places of worship for the different religions within the CBD area including a mosque and the oldest temple in Singapore, the Thian Hock Keng Temple which is dedicated to Ma Zu, the goddess of the sea and protector of seamen.
Thian Hock Keng Temple
One of the things that struck me the very first time I walked through Singapore's CBD area, back in 2011, were the palm tree lined streets and green spaces. There are lots of small parks and gardens for people to enjoy and have their lunch. When we lived in Singapore hubby always used to say that it was a real joy to step outside at lunchtime, after being cooped up indoors with the air conditioning, look up and see bright blue skies and palm trees, and just feel that initial heat rush. Aside from the shop houses and green spaces, there are also numerous water features, some with koi carp, and art installations around the CBD area.
Water and art feature
Shop houses in the CBD
From the CBD, I jumped on the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) which is Singapore's subway system and headed to Orchard Road - the famous mall lined street for a spot of shopping. Singapore's subway system is very easy to use as it is in English. Hubby
and I still had our EZ-Link cards which we just topped up with cash upon our arrival back to Singapore.
With the EZ-Link card you simply tap on the entrance and exit gates at the MRT stations. It is a cashless travel card which can be used on the buses
too, and is available for tourists to purchase. Apparently the Oyster card system that we now have on the London
Underground is based upon the Singapore EZ-Link card. You can see more in the vlog below :o).
Once at Orchard I went to one of my favourite malls, ION. This mall is full of lots of familiar brands like Zara, H&M, Victoria's Secret, Mango, Uniqlo, Muji,and the mothership aka Sephora aka makeup heaven ;o). It also houses a lot of the designer/higher end brands too. The basement levels of most malls in Singapore are full of food courts and lots of different restaurants and cafes. I stopped off at IndoBox for a spot of lunch and to rest my joints.
Malay food for lunch at IndoBox
Orchard Road is home to numerous department stores such as Tangs, Isetan and Takashimaya, as well as all the malls. The road is tree lined and is particularly beautiful at Christmas with all the decorations and lights. If you're not a fan of crowds then the best time to visit Orchard Road is definitely during the day in the working week as it gets very busy in the evenings, and ridiculously busy on weekends. There is always something going on at Orchard Road, be it pop up exhibitions, promotions, events or temporary art installations. On this particular day there was a display of Gundams. The Gundam Series is a Japanese science-fiction anime series featuring giant robots and these were absolutely huge!
The shopping malls in Singapore offer a good mix of western and Asian brands, and every year there is annual two month sales event, known as The Great Singapore Sale, which just happened to be on when we were there :o). After lunch I made my way down Orchard Road to Plaza Singapura which is another mall that I use to go to when we lived in Singapore, and this mall had a huge dinosaur display at its centre! I didn't vlog the rest of my day as we were meeting some friends that night for dinner and I didn't think it would be that interesting for you.
I hope this blog post and the accompanying vlog gave you a bit more of an insight into what Singapore is like. Have you ever visited Singapore? Did you enjoy it? I'll be back with the third and final part soon.
So here it is, as promised in my recent absencepost, the best beauty bargain
of 2013, in my opinion, theSoap & Glory The Yule Monty gift set.
I came across
this completely by chance whilst visiting home last month and was surprised to
see it still on the shelves in my local Boots (drugstore) given the hype around
this bargain. I’ve never really tried many Soap & Glory products (the busy packaging always put me off) but with the level of discount on
offer, naturally I had to pick one up ;o) Or rather my mum picked it up for me as an early birthday present - thanks mum :o) It was only after the purchase that I
thought to myself “hmm how’s this going to fit into my suitcase?” as its a very
large case. But luckily for me, my hubby is a wiz at packing and we managed to
bring this box of goodies back to Singapore with us.
The set contains nine full sized Soap & Glory products
all enclosed within this special limited edition bag designed by British
fashion designer Jonathan Saunders. This delightful package was reduced from £60
down to £27 so a better than half price deal given the 55% discount. When you
unzip the bag there is a pink cardboard box inside, protecting the products.
The bag itself has a lovely flower design with a silver zip. On the inside,
it is lined in grey / silver coloured fabric with a zip pocket in the lid.
The nine products included are;
Hand Food hand cream
Sugar Crush body wash
The Righteous Butter body butter
Peaches and Clean deep purifying cleanser
Heel Genius foot cream
Butter Yourself moisture lotion
The Scrub Of Your Life body buffer
Thick & Fast super volume mascara
Sexy Mother Pucker XL lipgloss in Pink Out Loud
If you bought these same nine full sized products
individually from Boots then they would cost you a total of £70.50 so at £27 I’m
sure you will agree that these are a real bargain. Plus you get this lovely bag
to keep which will come in very handy for storing my growing collection of
makeup ;o)
As well as the nine full sized products, there is also, no not condoms even though that’s what it looks like, but three days worth of the Genius in a Bottle super serum. The sample comes with a £5 off Soap & Glory facial skincare voucher, which I won’t be using now I’m back in Singapore.
For those of you in Singapore, I was at Sephora today and saw that they are selling
the Soap & Glory The Yule Monty gift set at a discounted price of $88 SGD (approx. £44) down from $148 SGD,
and while that isn't as good a bargain as what I managed to get, it is still a pretty good deal. The Plaza Singapura Sephora store had a lot of these gift sets still for sale, although the bag is not the limited edition one but rather the black and white design
with the red zip, just like the Bubble Barrelled gift set I bought a couple of months
ago (see photo here).
I haven't used any of these products yet as I currently have quite a few Body Shop products on the go and I don't like to have too many of the same type of products opened at the same time. So I'm going to be good and wait for my current round of body products to finish before I dive into this delightful package.
Did you pick up this bargain by any chance? What was your best beauty bargain of 2013?
