As much as I frequent supermarkets, it is in fact very seldom that I actually get to browse, and shop for my groceries. More often than not, I already know what I want, I know where the shelves are, and each trip to the supermarket is a targeted mission where I go in, grab what I want, and get out.
There's (usually) none of the browsing, the repeated comparing of prices, the hunt for favorite products or the distractions.
Fast in, fast out.
But there are times when I decide that I WILL NOT BUY ANYTHING TODAY and enter the supermarket with no intention other than to get some real-world, real-time lessons about the world around me.
I've said it before, and I say it again: There is really no better place to learn about the world around us than to hop into a supermarket and spend time browsing the shelves.
Especially in a country like ours where diplomatic ties run high, international trade relations are good, we are a transportation hub, we have a strong food culture, and we're accepting of races and religions from all over the world.
What this means is that it doesn't matter whether you're kosher, halal, vegan, vegetarian or keto- and it doesn't matter whether you're from Northeast China, Taiwan, India, Germany, France, Brazil, South AFrica, Norway, the Middle East, the United States, or Canada, there is something in our supermarkets for you.
It doesn't matter that your home country does not have (friendly) political ties or trade relations with another country.
Neither does it matter if your home country enforces such a strict no-frills policy that trying to find an imported product (that is also domestically produced) is like finding a needle in a haystack.
You won't be having such challenges here.
Don't have the product back home?
Chances are you'll find it at Cold Storage, Jasons, Marketplace, Fairprice Finest, Fairprice Xtra, NTUC Fairprice, Giant, Sheng Siong, or the Prime Supermart that's usually found tucked away below a carefully selected HDB block in your housing estate neighborhood.
The fun part of the whole thing is that you never know what you'll find at where.
Or that you never know what you'll find.
Like these square-shaped bottles of natural mineral water from the Dolma Spring in Tibet.
I saw them twice- once at Fairprice Finest and the other at NTUC. At Finest where this picture was taken, they were alongside the Volvic water from France.
These bottles caught my eye, because first of all, there was the Tibetan language neatly printed on the bottle (that's culture for you!), there aren't that many products from Tibet sitting on our shelves (oh good, we've got their stuff here!), and wouldn't I mind trying out bottled water from the Dolma Springs (natural mineral water from the Earth is a good thing, yes?) Oh, and they were distributed out from Hong Kong (that's some sort of economic trade etc etc etc for you...)
And then there are times where you might think you'll only find certain products at certain places, but the shelves at the other places which you didn't plan to go may turn up surprises you didn't expect at all.
Call it competition, or whatever.
But it's great convenience for the consumer, it's marvellous fun for the window-shopper and the killing-time shopper, and for souls like me, a single trip to the supermarket can really motivate you enough to want to see the rest of the world.
There's (usually) none of the browsing, the repeated comparing of prices, the hunt for favorite products or the distractions.
Fast in, fast out.
But there are times when I decide that I WILL NOT BUY ANYTHING TODAY and enter the supermarket with no intention other than to get some real-world, real-time lessons about the world around me.
I've said it before, and I say it again: There is really no better place to learn about the world around us than to hop into a supermarket and spend time browsing the shelves.
Especially in a country like ours where diplomatic ties run high, international trade relations are good, we are a transportation hub, we have a strong food culture, and we're accepting of races and religions from all over the world.
What this means is that it doesn't matter whether you're kosher, halal, vegan, vegetarian or keto- and it doesn't matter whether you're from Northeast China, Taiwan, India, Germany, France, Brazil, South AFrica, Norway, the Middle East, the United States, or Canada, there is something in our supermarkets for you.
It doesn't matter that your home country does not have (friendly) political ties or trade relations with another country.
Neither does it matter if your home country enforces such a strict no-frills policy that trying to find an imported product (that is also domestically produced) is like finding a needle in a haystack.
You won't be having such challenges here.
Don't have the product back home?
Chances are you'll find it at Cold Storage, Jasons, Marketplace, Fairprice Finest, Fairprice Xtra, NTUC Fairprice, Giant, Sheng Siong, or the Prime Supermart that's usually found tucked away below a carefully selected HDB block in your housing estate neighborhood.
The fun part of the whole thing is that you never know what you'll find at where.
Or that you never know what you'll find.
Like these square-shaped bottles of natural mineral water from the Dolma Spring in Tibet.
I saw them twice- once at Fairprice Finest and the other at NTUC. At Finest where this picture was taken, they were alongside the Volvic water from France.
These bottles caught my eye, because first of all, there was the Tibetan language neatly printed on the bottle (that's culture for you!), there aren't that many products from Tibet sitting on our shelves (oh good, we've got their stuff here!), and wouldn't I mind trying out bottled water from the Dolma Springs (natural mineral water from the Earth is a good thing, yes?) Oh, and they were distributed out from Hong Kong (that's some sort of economic trade etc etc etc for you...)
And then there are times where you might think you'll only find certain products at certain places, but the shelves at the other places which you didn't plan to go may turn up surprises you didn't expect at all.
Call it competition, or whatever.
But it's great convenience for the consumer, it's marvellous fun for the window-shopper and the killing-time shopper, and for souls like me, a single trip to the supermarket can really motivate you enough to want to see the rest of the world.