My good friend Amie is leaving us this week and she asked if I could help her to transport this huge pan grill of, I assume, hers to home.  Sure, that’s what friends are for.  I often wonder what she does during the office lunch hours.  Had I know she grills meat all this while …

So she wanted to make a stop at Mustafa and buy something.  OK.  Cynthia’s not in town and I’d love to have a dinner partner.  Besides, it’s shopping!  How I LOVE shopping.  So I asked Amie how long she planned to stay at Mustafa.  Apparently, she is a regular resident there and knowing exactly what she wants, she said: 1 hour.  That’s all, I asked.  I really don’t mind to shop till the cow comes home.  Oh yes, I can be your best shopping partner.

Once I spun my car into the main street, guess who was I tailgating?  (OK, I exaggerated a bit.)  I recognized my movie buddy’s car plate!  So I stepped onto the accelerator, pulled up beside his car, gently tapped onto my car horn, and waved at him.  My buddy was so shocked that he didn’t even notice the pretty girl besides me.  Kekeke.  Evil me!

I am always fascinated by Mustafa and the area around Mustafa.  I was so enthusiastic that the waiter at Sakunthala took time to explain how I should eat my Tandoori chicken meal.  Eat with the first cup of curry first (spicy), and then eat with the second cup of soup (sour and salty), and last, eat with the third cup of watery yogurt (cool sour).  It worked!  I finished everything!  Delicious!  Amie laughed because I looked so much like a tourist.

How not to get excited by Mustafa?  Every mall should be like this.  The variety and the sheer quantity of what they are selling is enough to send a thrill down your spine!

First stop: pharmacy.  There are so many pills!  I read from the news that in America, they have discovered sex hormone amongst other prescription drugs inside the drinking water.  People take pills, people visit toilets, water get treated, water get passed back into the reservoir.

While waiting for Amie to do the things she did, I was staring at the tiny boxes of “Spanish Saffron”.  What the heck is saffron?!  Apparently saffron is a spice that is anti-carcinogenic (cancer-suppressing) and anti-mutagenic (mutation-preventing), amongst some other bizarre properties.  Saffron has a certain aroma and can be used to add a luminous yellow-orange coloring to foods.  Interesting, eh?

Next, we passed this huge machine and a guy said, “10 dollar per massage!”  Guess what?  It’s an aqua massage!  How strange.  You are supposed to lie on your back inside this capsule that covers your body with some waterproof blanket.  Then comes the jets of water that cover every inch of your body facing the sky.  Wow …

I found my childhood favorite soap Cussons Imperial Leather.  I seriously don’t recall seeing any of these in NTUC.  Maybe there are.  But I haven’t seen a ‘mountain’ of soap right before my eyes like the ones I saw in Mustafa.  Unfortunately I can’t buy just one piece.  And neither did my friend wish to share the cost.  Well, next …

There are weird brands of perfumes that (apparently from Paris) I have not heard of.  Like: “Do It”.  OK, that is my favorite motto at work and inside Mustafa, “Do It” is placed in a shelf together with all other ‘sexy’ fragrance.  Uh-huh … maybe not.  Talking about sexiness, I was at the media section with walls and walls of DVDs and CDs – English, Hindu, and other languages.  There was this Indian DVD with a really sexy cover and a NC-16 sticker titled “Dance Attack”.  I guess it is a collection of music videos.  To earn a NC-16 sticker should mean that it has some really hot and steamy stuffs inside, right?  Maybe next time I shall return to Mustafa, alone … hehehe.

In fact, I was so enthusiastic and Amie asked: You came here before or not?  Ya, that one time.  But with a guide, it was a whole new experience.  There were model boats (nice!) that range from S$2.50 to around S$40 depending on size.  There were the whole bunch of Montblanc pens chucked inside a cheap display cabinet.  MONTBLANC pens!  The price tags go all the way to beyond a thousand bucks.  Cramped inside a cheap display cabinet!  Can you believe it?

I like the stationary section.  In fact, I wanted to buy some nice desk decorations for my family and friends.  OK, maybe it is a bit mushy ya?  I must have got Facebook overdosed and have a deep desire to send some real gifts to some real people for a change.  There is one with a very nice tag line: Dear friend, even if you go to hell, I am sure to follow you there.  But then again, I think, if my friends – touch wood – do go to hell, I am not too sure if I wish to follow.

Ha ha ha … technicality, technicality.

I said I didn’t know what Care Bears were and Amie said that I have no childhood.  I didn’t know that Frangipani is a flower and she was surprised (OK, I will read more books).  And when she held out a package named “Canopy” and I asked: What is a canopy?  She stared at me with her pair of big eyes and replied: You don’t know what canopy is?

I looked at the packaging and replied, “I know what canopy is (by looking at the picture) but I didn’t know what ‘canopy’ is (the English word)”.  She replied, “Some people use it for wedding, celebrations …”

Like a kid who just learned a new word, I repeated, “Canopy!”  Amie countered, “What cannot be?  People do use this for special occasions!”  “Canopy!”, somehow the word still fascinated me.  “It can be!” she reassured me.

Before we left this wonderful place called Mustafa where every 5 minutes there was an announcement asking a vehicle or motorbike to park somewhere else other than the disabled lot, my friend pointed at a long wooden stick and told me that Indians use that as a toothbrush.

“Cannot be!” I screamed (this time I really meant cannot be).  I took a mental note of the ingredient and after some research at home, I learned that Peelu is derived from the fibers of the Asian Peelu tree and for centuries, people have chewed its branches for preservative dental care.

*         *          *

You know, I really wanted to write a short blog entry tonight.  In fact, I planned to announce something else but that took a bit longer to complete than expected.  I think most readers may not have the stamina to digest every word I write and that is understandable because there are million other better things to do in the Internet such as Facebook, YouTube, and to visit the celebrity bloggers’ websites.  Maybe one day I shall master the art of writing just enough so as to suit a wider audience.

Meanwhile, to reward my loyal readers, here is one personal thought of mine to share with you.  Over the weekend, my NAD CD player that has been with me since 2000 has died on me (after I put one of my CDs on album and song repeat for the entire weekend).  I have not really appreciated this CD player of mine until I have to use my DVD player and HD DVD recorder as a music player.  The sound was so displeasing to my ears (too ‘bright’ and ear piercing) and all of a sudden, I do miss my inexpensive NAD CD player a lot.

Why didn’t I notice and appreciate the sound of my CD player till it broke down?  (To confirm that it’s not an illusion, this morning, my CD player sprang into action again and the sound is so much better.)

For days, one of the three fluorescent lamps in my bathroom stopped to work properly.  Hence for days, I was bathing in this ‘disco light’ ambiance and it hurt my eyes.  Not only that, I couldn’t kill those annoying flying flies as part of my daily ritual because of the light setting.  So tonight, I have decided to change the lamp.  All of a sudden, the room seemed so bright.  It seemed much brighter than any given day.  But the truth is, the room was not brighter than it was before that one lamp went into a disco mode.  Just that I did not notice how bright it was.

Why do we always take things for granted once we get used to what we have?

Time to give Cynthia a good hug when she comes back from her overseas business trip this week.