Inevitability

Have you all been to Ang Mo Kio Central lately?

If not, I think you are not “in” enough. AMK Central is currently the hottest neighbourhood on the tiny sunny island of Singapore, with the opening of NTUC Fairprice’s first-ever and biggest hypermart at the 2nd basement of this town’s very own shopping mall, the AMK Hub. I’m not exagerrating when I said the “biggest” NTUC mart – it occupies approximately 7100 square metres of Basement 2!

And why a “hypermart”? Because it sells everything! And I mean practically everything!! I don’t even know how to describe it hhaha! There is a wide variety of products ranging from groceries to electrical and electronic goods, from comestics to bicycles, from clothes to cabinets. Now you can buy your Loreal mascara, apples, dishwasher liquid and mountain bike all together at AMK’s NTUC Hypermart! =) =)

You should see the flow of people at AMK Central every day! I live just opposite so I frequent the place, and there are soooo many people that it feels just like Chinese New Year Eve when everyone’s out to do last minute grocery/goodies shopping/just to mingle with the crowd and enjoy the festive season. And it’s not even anywhere near CNY yet!

And of course, everyone’s here for the hypermart, and I swear that half of these people don’t even stay at AMK, or anywhere near! They have all come here to witness the largest NTUC hypermart. That’s all hahah! Which reminds me how cute Singaporeans are. Nothing excites them more than trival matters like this. Even the arrival of PM Lee won’t attract them like that. But a newly opened hypermart? It draws them like bees to honey! And many of these people just come and leave with empty hands, so it’s clear that their interests are not in buying stuff, but just to see the place for themselves hahah.

But many of them do buy a lot of stuff though they don’t live near and you should see the queue at the taxi stand just outside AMK Hub! It’s so long that you might have thought that there’s some freebie giveaway hahah. And the S11 food centre just outside MacDonald used to be fairly deserted, but now you can hardly get a seat there! Because all the people get hungry after walking for a long time in the hypermart and decide to eat there!

I think it’s amazing what the opening of a new store can do to the economy of the neighbourhood retailers, hawkers and even taxi drivers. And the whole mall’s not even opened yet. Currently only the Basement 2 is opened, and that’s only the NTUC hypermart and some fashion stores like COAX, DANO, Pepper Plus, Double Index, Giordano, Bossini, to name a few.

And may I say that the clothes there are really cheap as compared to town!!! I bought 2 dresses and each is about $30 only! I might never shop in town again!! hahahah