Now I understand

Just hours before, I was queueing up at Uniqlo that has just opened its doors to the public at Tampines 1 today. From the night before its opening, I had already planned what I should wear and what I had wanted to buy (from the Internet catalogue).

I was in full Uniqlo gear: Boyfriend jeans and UT t-shirt. I even 'stole' the Today paper for the day as it had all the details of the store, opening hours etc. As I ate breakfast, I sms-ed one of my former colleagues and asked if she would be going. She said she was on night shift but was going to work early so that she could hop into the shop to look-see.

At 10 plus in the morning, sms comes in telling me that the place is super crowded and the queue was very long. I thought to myself, "Only cashier queue long, so why give up the chance?"

Sms comes in at about 4 plus that the place was still super crowded. Then, at about 5 plus, another sms comes in from yet another former colleague cum regular travel 'kaki' (loosely translated as friend in Malay). She told me that the queue was so super long that she had but given up. She was going to Dorothy Perkins instead.

Woah! This made me want to fly down there even more (instead of deterring me from going)!! At about 6.40pm, I sped away from my work place and went to pick up two of my other colleagues who decided last minute that they too wanted to come along.

By the time we reached the "Welcome to Tampines" part of the journey, it was almost 8. I was hungry but nevertheless, determined to get to my destination. The traffic jam started from Safra Tampines and I had to make a detour as I could not cut into the turning lane.

As I turned into Tampines Mall car park, yet another jam!!! I could kill the cars. Wished I was driving a monster truck then, so that I can roll over all the other cars. When we finally emerged at Basement 1 of Tampines Mall, we decided we had to eat something: Bread. We scooted in to Bread Talk: One chose the bread while the other two lined up at the counter. What time work!

By the time we reached Level 2 of Tampines 1, it was already quite late. I made a mad dash for Uniqlo only to be greeted by yet another queue!!! This queue went all the way back past the toilets, diaper change areas and into the staircase leading to the car park!!!

Yet, I felt really excited. There was a strange buzz and everyone else was talking at the same time. I wanted to just get in there and start shopping. I could just feel my hand itching to go through the different t-shirts.

Thank goodness we were a little earlier for shortly after us, they stopped the queue giving the reason that they would close at 10pm. Phew! Once inside, there was no stopping me of course. Seven pieces of clothing in all!

I kind of felt dizzy from all this fan-fare like actions. Now also understand why groupies can spend hours waiting for their favourite singers to appear for just that one or two seconds :)