Last night, Mel and I decided that we would go to Mustafa to do some late night shopping. Let me wax lyrical about Mustafa for a moment.
Despite the fact that it has been in Singapore for years now, I think there are still some who cannot fathom the brilliance that is Mustafa Shopping Centre. For starters, some people are frightened at the prospect of Little India. I remember once bringing a pair of non-Desi friends there. They clutched desperately at each other at the sight of so many Indians and refused to wander out of my sight even though I'm mixed meself (cue heavy eyerolls).
I have been to many places - to Tesco and Costco and Carrefour and Giant and K-Mart and Target - and even though I've enjoyed them all, none of them has been able to live up to the departmental store right at my doorstep.
If you've never been there, Mustafa is basically a twenty-four hour shopping centre that sells everything. And I mean everything. It is four or five stories high, comprises three buildings connected by bridges and underpasses and even has duplicate stalls scattered throughout the store just in case you miss something. It has its own travel agency and hotel. The store interior is so crammed that it has been shut down for being a fire hazard several times.
There are at least twenty rows of just soap and shampoo. Ten rows of vitamins. A make up selection to rival Sephora. Three whole rows dedicated to deodorant. The shelf of spices is longer than my house. The luggage section sells everything from Samsonite to Camel to American Tourister products, but at a lower price. Crocs that cost $70 in the shoe shop cost $50 here.
Like any self-respecting supermarket, it has a fresh baked goods section but on top of that, also a section selling plants, a mini bookstore and an entire floor dedicated to electronics (home of Big, my camera). The gold section is larger than any jewellery store that I've ever been in (though most of the pieces wouldn't look out of place in a temple) and don't even get me started on the floors for clothes, sporting goods and homeware. And when you emerge with your plastic tie-bound bags, there is dosai and chai masala waiting on every corner.
It is quite simply, the best place I've ever shopped at.
You can't quite appreciate the wonder of Mustafa until you visit it yourself. Every time I go there, I see the same thing - a tourist staring round in glazed wonder and saying, "My god, this place is insane," and his local friend exasperatedly replying, "I told you. They sell everything."
"How can people not like Mustafa?" Mel texted me yesterday.
"I wonder if it's a racist thing," I smsed back.
We arranged to go late at night to avoid the crowd and headed for tze char beforehand. When we finally rolled into the car, fully stuffed, I eagerly pulled out of the parking space... to a horrendous grinding sound.
"What was that?" Mel looked alarmed.
I already had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, but I stepped out to take a look anyway.
WELL.
I know how to change a tire. In theory. I've never actually had to do it before and of all times for this to happen, when my parents were out of town. We inspected the damage for a minute then decided that we were going to attempt changing it ourselves.
I literally rolled up my sleeves and retrieved a set of intruments, sans jack, from that boot, but they looked like they were meant to open wine bottles. After poking them ineffectually at the flat, I decided to change tacks and looked for the manual instead.
We found the jack under one of the seats eventually and all systems were go. Mel read from the manual while I attempted to carry out all the instructions. Except that she kept getting lost, and I had no idea what some of the things meant.
"Unscrew the cap and take out the spare," she read.
I did it and held it up to my chest huffing and staggering. "Then? Quick, Smelly, then?!"
"I..." Mel scanned the booklet frantically. "Where are we?"
"Smelly!"
Eventually, sweating and clawing, we got the spare round the front and decided to go ahead even though we had nothing to chock the flat. We jacked up the car and even loosened the nuts of the flat with great difficulty. At one point I tapped the spare and wondered out loud if the tire pressure would be okay.
Mel gave me a despairing look, pointed at the flat and yelled, "It has to be better than that, right?" which sent us into ten minutes of hysterical howling on the carpark floor.
As we were about to swap the wheels, it suddenly occurred to me that I was not very strong. I'd literally had to stand on the nuts to loosen them and even if I did change the wheel, I wasn't sure I was strong enough to screw the nuts tightly back in in the opposite direction. A horrifying vision came to me, of driving at 80 and the tire flying off on the ECP.
"Um... Smells?"
Several dollars later, we were safely ensconced in a tow truck, on the way to a tire shop.
We made it to Mustafa eventually. Mel bought something like a thousand dollars worth of toiletries while I went round snapping photos.
Part of the electronics section that sells tablets, computers, cameras, lenses, filters and anything else you can think of.
Can you believe they have such adorable shoes for $16.50? If you just hunt, there are some gems out there.
Bits of the never ending toiletries section where we got lost for an hour. Anyone remember the Impulse brand of body spray from school days? We used to spray the vanilla scent in the classroom and everyone thought there was baking downstairs.
Endless walls of makeup and perfume. The sections are so huge I simply can't get them all in view, so these photos feel a little bit futile because they look like any other store.
And the all important Victoria's Secret section, where everything goes for $16 - $5 cheaper than the store in Marina Bay. Delicious.
Of course, I didn't leave empty-handed either.
The awesome B.U.M equipment Converse lookalikes were $20! I wish I'd bought another pair.
By the time I got home, it was almost two in the morning.
I was a little sleepy driving, but trust me, the repeated thoughts of tires flying off kept me wide awake.
If you've never been there, Mustafa is basically a twenty-four hour shopping centre that sells everything. And I mean everything. It is four or five stories high, comprises three buildings connected by bridges and underpasses and even has duplicate stalls scattered throughout the store just in case you miss something. It has its own travel agency and hotel. The store interior is so crammed that it has been shut down for being a fire hazard several times.
There are at least twenty rows of just soap and shampoo. Ten rows of vitamins. A make up selection to rival Sephora. Three whole rows dedicated to deodorant. The shelf of spices is longer than my house. The luggage section sells everything from Samsonite to Camel to American Tourister products, but at a lower price. Crocs that cost $70 in the shoe shop cost $50 here.
Like any self-respecting supermarket, it has a fresh baked goods section but on top of that, also a section selling plants, a mini bookstore and an entire floor dedicated to electronics (home of Big, my camera). The gold section is larger than any jewellery store that I've ever been in (though most of the pieces wouldn't look out of place in a temple) and don't even get me started on the floors for clothes, sporting goods and homeware. And when you emerge with your plastic tie-bound bags, there is dosai and chai masala waiting on every corner.
It is quite simply, the best place I've ever shopped at.
You can't quite appreciate the wonder of Mustafa until you visit it yourself. Every time I go there, I see the same thing - a tourist staring round in glazed wonder and saying, "My god, this place is insane," and his local friend exasperatedly replying, "I told you. They sell everything."
"How can people not like Mustafa?" Mel texted me yesterday.
"I wonder if it's a racist thing," I smsed back.
We arranged to go late at night to avoid the crowd and headed for tze char beforehand. When we finally rolled into the car, fully stuffed, I eagerly pulled out of the parking space... to a horrendous grinding sound.
"What was that?" Mel looked alarmed.
I already had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, but I stepped out to take a look anyway.
WELL.
I know how to change a tire. In theory. I've never actually had to do it before and of all times for this to happen, when my parents were out of town. We inspected the damage for a minute then decided that we were going to attempt changing it ourselves.
I literally rolled up my sleeves and retrieved a set of intruments, sans jack, from that boot, but they looked like they were meant to open wine bottles. After poking them ineffectually at the flat, I decided to change tacks and looked for the manual instead.
We found the jack under one of the seats eventually and all systems were go. Mel read from the manual while I attempted to carry out all the instructions. Except that she kept getting lost, and I had no idea what some of the things meant.
"Unscrew the cap and take out the spare," she read.
I did it and held it up to my chest huffing and staggering. "Then? Quick, Smelly, then?!"
"I..." Mel scanned the booklet frantically. "Where are we?"
"Smelly!"
Eventually, sweating and clawing, we got the spare round the front and decided to go ahead even though we had nothing to chock the flat. We jacked up the car and even loosened the nuts of the flat with great difficulty. At one point I tapped the spare and wondered out loud if the tire pressure would be okay.
Mel gave me a despairing look, pointed at the flat and yelled, "It has to be better than that, right?" which sent us into ten minutes of hysterical howling on the carpark floor.
As we were about to swap the wheels, it suddenly occurred to me that I was not very strong. I'd literally had to stand on the nuts to loosen them and even if I did change the wheel, I wasn't sure I was strong enough to screw the nuts tightly back in in the opposite direction. A horrifying vision came to me, of driving at 80 and the tire flying off on the ECP.
"Um... Smells?"
Several dollars later, we were safely ensconced in a tow truck, on the way to a tire shop.
We made it to Mustafa eventually. Mel bought something like a thousand dollars worth of toiletries while I went round snapping photos.
Part of the electronics section that sells tablets, computers, cameras, lenses, filters and anything else you can think of.
Can you believe they have such adorable shoes for $16.50? If you just hunt, there are some gems out there.
Bits of the never ending toiletries section where we got lost for an hour. Anyone remember the Impulse brand of body spray from school days? We used to spray the vanilla scent in the classroom and everyone thought there was baking downstairs.
Endless walls of makeup and perfume. The sections are so huge I simply can't get them all in view, so these photos feel a little bit futile because they look like any other store.
And the all important Victoria's Secret section, where everything goes for $16 - $5 cheaper than the store in Marina Bay. Delicious.
Of course, I didn't leave empty-handed either.
The awesome B.U.M equipment Converse lookalikes were $20! I wish I'd bought another pair.
By the time I got home, it was almost two in the morning.
I was a little sleepy driving, but trust me, the repeated thoughts of tires flying off kept me wide awake.
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