The water floweth once more...

Yes! The new pipes are in and the water is running again at home!

The family has been living like quasi-refugees for the past, what? 3 weeks now I guess, since ma discovered one fine Friday afternoon that the PUB bill has been off the charts and a leaking pipe had sprouted somewhere. Off went the main tap everyday except mornings and evenings; and out came the pots and pails and whatever receptacle I never even knew we owned to store water through the day.

Until today. Five plumbers came in a flurry of tile-hacking, pipe-fixing, swing-moving (not that the swing had anything to do with the leak situation, but we decided to donate a swing to the kindergarten across the street instead of hacking it into a hundred pieces of scrap metal, and it helps having the plumbing folks to carry it over), and voila! My first shower with decent water pressure in weeks. I'm going to have to remember not to sleepwalk out the house tomorrow morning to turn the tap on under the mango tree.

Anyway. Had 炸酱面, fish bee hoon soup and the queue-worthy Riverside Indo grilled fish with rice from Tampines Mall Kopitiam to celebrate. Well, not really. Everyone was so tired at the end of the day there was no leftover energy to prepare dinner, so I da-paoed food home. Felt like some kind of celebration.

Never appreciated water more in my life. Really, I think this tops any water-saving campaign PUB comes up with. Maybe they should cut the water supply of every household a day each year to remind us how precious it is.

Hm. Or maybe not.

Uniqlo - Day 1 in Singapore

Ya, I admit it. Was one of those suckers queuing up outside Uniqlo this evening. That was my 2rd time at the store. The first time, I saw that people were actually queuing just to get in, and instinctively walked away. Decided to have dinner at Mac's first. Came back an hour later. The queue had gotten longer; it snaked around the storefront to the corridor next to it, out the door to the lifts, then out to the stairwell. Nearly walked away again, but then the queue started moving, and I joined it when it ended at the door leading to the lifts.

It was ridiculous. I snapped two photos of the queues, and would post them if I could, but they're stuck in my handphone, and I don't know how to transfer them to the computer.

Anyway. Pandemonium inside. There weren't a lot of people. Well not really. Compared to food fare crowds at Expo, I'd say this was nothing, they controlled the human volume pretty well. But whoever were there or had been there certainly knew how to work up a mess. Clothes were strewn everywhere. Labels were blocked. Interminable lines stood in front of the fitting rooms and cashiers. I was so lost I had to ask one of the staff where the ladies t-shirt section was. But when I'd found it, I saw that the battle was lost. All the T-shirts in my size had been snapped up. I spent probably half an hour sifting through the heaps of clothes, but only M, L and XL pieces remained. Those pro shoppers had strategies. They'd grab a bunch of clothes in their basket, take their time to try on everything, then throw out stuff they don't want.

I was ready to give up and leave with the black tunic I'd picked up right at the beginning, until I found out it wasn't a discounted item. Which was probably the whole reason I managed to pick it up in the first place. ARGH. Absolutely refused to go to a grand opening sale and leave with one non-sale thing. So plunged into the mayhem again, and ended up an hour later buying a black linen shirt. Ya, Uniqlo's famous for those. But at least it's $10 cheaper than usual.

Overheard during my 1+ hour in Uniqlo:

Middle-aged fashionista to husband, barely 5 minutes after entering store. "走了啦，我很乱."

Annoyed male shopper A to annoyed male shopper B. "Do you know I walked around the store 10 times?" "Ya, I also walked around the store many times." "Then how come I never see you?" Ah, the perils of shopping in a packed store where there's no handphone signal.

Singaporean employee to Jap store supervisor (I assume). "Do you mean clean it [the clothes] up by folding them?" The Jap employees there must've been aghast at the state of things.

Female shopper A to female shopper B while sifting through "Love for UT" T-shirt pile. "Do you see Give Peace the chance?"