Important lessons learned:

• Yes, the weather is that nice and some people are easier to talk to in public
• Even if you have googled maps on the go, check your route before you head out
• Take pictures/remember stores and buildings for signposts even with your map
• Shopping: Sheng Siong, Giant and/or Fairprice for groceries/weekly purchase
• Cold Storage for more fancy items
• The Mustafa Centre for appliances and big household items. Make a day of it like IKEA, they really do have everything, and it’s built like a casino.
• Some toilets (Mustafa Centre) only have bidet with tissues in the vending machine outside, very easy to miss if you’re desperate
  
  

Part 1: The cold

For circumstances that are too complex and embarrassing on my part to explain, I spent my second full day in Singapore headed to the supermarket, as recommended to me by the hotel receptionist, without any mobile data and so no way of checking where I was headed. All I knew was that I had seen the shopping mall I was headed to the day before and so knew my way from there to the apartment I had moved into that morning.

Note, that same morning I also went to HSBC and got a gift, but more on that later.

So, I head down the escalator as told and enter into an overwhelming but slowly familiar scene of a maze of restaurants, cafes and grills as I step out the lift. The cab driver who had helped me ferry my luggage to my apartment had told me that eating was a popular Singaporean pass time and, whilst I still need more evidence to accept it as fact, I was more convinced.

I weaved my way past Turkish grills, pizza ovens, my first KFC and second soup spoon before arriving at the slick black panelling of the supermarket. And immediately regretting my choice not to go home and check google maps.

Some clarification before we go ahead. I am a student and so need to shop within my budget, which is a little bigger now given the settling allowance I'm receiving but still, caution is key. Cold Storage is not the shop for a stingy student on a slim budget such as myself (please don't sue me for deformation your store had the nicest layout of all the others and the least “this music is cute but if i worked here I’d hate it” music.)

I had been warned but I am also the type of person to put important notes in a variety of notebooks and files, so I don't remember till it’s too late. This will happen again.

So, I decided to shop here since I need food and appliances, if not for dinner, then at least breakfast the next day. I fill my basket and lament at the prices, but I hear my mother’s voice encourages me to do what I must and not regret looking after myself. It is in such a lament that I get stuck on the seasoning aisle most of which were smaller packages and or OXO veg cubes for $12 and no other veg variants. (They were disappearing in the UK :-(

At this aisle a lady called Mary was discussing the prices of soup cans with another elderly lady who seemed more in a rush to leave. I found my laments echoed and, despite myself, nodding in agreement. I don't know how we started talking, perhaps it was because I had received so much help in the past two days, I felt like helping this lady out too, or I was just being my people pleaser self to ignore the louder voice of self-loathing.

Regardless, Mary reminds me of online shopping, which wasn't an option (no data) and of the other supermarkets that had been recommended to me before my trip. I take them down in my notes (the one I will check) and she’s concerned about why my company wouldn't help me get mobile data or show me where the shops are.

Clarification 2: Despite the self-loathing I am also too proud/stubborn to ask for help from people I know I'll see again/frequently. I am sure if I asked my work placement/scholarship for help they would. And again, stores were recommended.

Then Mary surprises me, explaining that she had done this thing before with people who came to Shanghai to work at her company, she would take me, right now, to Giant, a store more within my range a few minutes away. I quickly dumped all my non-essential from my overloaded basket- I still feel pain for not being able to put everything back where I found it - and off we went.

It was at this point that Mary explained the purpose of her soup quest (a family member had just had their wisdom teeth removed) and I explained my student scholarship situation. Things made much more sense now since she was comparing it to her company who would give them a car and a tour of where the school and supermarkets are.

As we crossed a bridge over the road Mary pointed out a nearby bus stop below us further down the street beside a construction site and since I told her the name of the hotel near my house, Mary says I can easily take the bus home from there, two stops- remember that.

Down, down, down escalators and stairs we go, I scramble to catch as I stop to take pictures of the pharmacy and a food court and a Jollibee’s to sign post my way back and we finally make it to ... a boarded-up shop front. The name on the board for the store coming soon - Cold storage. Dun, dun, dun. (Fr pls this is not deformation I just thought it was a funny coincidence).

Luckily for us, the store wasn't completely closed, half was already boarded off and under construction, but the other half was still open and so this was where Mary and I parted ways. I thanked her for all her help and wished her luck finding soup and she soon disappeared into the aisle of the sparser, white and green supermarket aisle. The prices here were cheaper, except for jam but I started to see the fruits were particularly pricey regardless.

Still I scoop up some essentials - the kitchen rolls for $4.50 hurt - and lugged my basket to the self-checkout where I finally got to open up my HSBC present to its full glory and carry my heavy load back up the stairs and escalators, across the bridge and down to the bus stop that did not in fact have a direct two stop path to my home.

Instead, it was a quick one stop hop - whilst the third, very nice, helpful person of the day explained the route from the stop to the church near my house via google maps on his phone. Did I get lost? Of course. Did I get distracted by Haji Lane and its many photo booths and the small store selling the little bananas and chilli sauce and a family store where I buy a backpack? Definitely.

And so I ended my first day on this quest for groceries thinking about that song the edgy boy sings about 7-11 stores being his beacon of hope and returning to my local one for the third day in a row for a burger and chocolate oat milk - with bonus bananas and chilli sauce - and decided to sort of that data business and search for the other stores Mary recommended tomorrow.

Part 2: The Fair

Dawn comes with a motivational speech from my mother and after some proper memorising of routes and a temporary data fix, I was off bright and early on my quest, foods, a frying pan and chopping board- especially after I bought the apples the other day. No, I can't bite it, I had an overbite for years and even NHS braces did not fully solve the issue. Also, I like bite sized chunks - oranges and grapes are superior.

Where was I headed you ask. Fairprice, a store with a blue aesthetic and cheaper fruits hooray, I mean the apples at the entrance were on sale so perhaps I was biased. The prices were in my budget and whilst some stuffs were still pricey, the jam was lower, so I brought enough groceries, a good chopping board, to make a decent dinner for the next few days. I also finally realized that they put the price tag for bread on the plastic tag that ties the top, very cool and sneaky.

It is safe to say I was feeling confident, I had also checked into the hospital for my health check results (needed for a long-term visa) and I was confident when the group chats buzzed. Replies to yesterday's laments and my still unfilled quest for a frying pan. They said they had been to Mustafa and that I would find one there, but to be careful as it was a crazy place.

I shall place my stubbornness aside and admit my arrogance at these moments, having mastered what can't be more than a 2km radius of the city, I thought pffft, it can't be that bad and I really need that pan to make chapati tonight, I'm going right now with my small bag.

Part 3: The Fantastical

The Mustafa Centre is easy to get to. Just follow any signs to Jalan Basar MRT station then walk straight down the road away from it towards a gym and keep going you won't miss it. Honestly, Singapore is a hard place to get lost in if you look up all the names of buildings or block numbers screaming down at you from their tall towers. Mustafa wasn't that tall with its strange bent/wavy metal scaffolds, I remember thinking it looked smaller than expected.

I was wrong, this place is huge (900 square ft each) with a pair of central lifts on the left and right and every shelf packed with products around it. Light pouring in from the glass roof and lifts all the way up the floors and down to the basement. There is one brand - Diamond - that I saw a few products of in other stores. Here the brand had its own dedicated side, top to bottom, with every kind of cling film and foil they have. I knew if I did not lock in on my frying pan I would end up like the Percy Jackson gang in Las Vegas, I head to what the sign says is the floor for household supplies and get told to go to the other building, see this link for more.

Now reader, I have been paying close attention recently, as I've said signposts are important. So, I can say with full confidence there was no other building ahead of me with the name sign that I saw. There was another building across the road but then that wouldn't be The Mustafa Centre. Did the group chat lie or confuse the two? This isn't like Bugis Junction vs Bugis Plus to massive malls across from each other.

I head downstairs to wander the streets again before deciding no, further suppressing my native Londoner and ask for direct help instead. My directions were to go to the second floor, left out of the lift and just keep going till I get to rice. Strange but alright.

Reader, I fear the day that store closes, because empty it must be the biggest liminal horror construct in the world, I went past a curving dairy aisle (with dairy free alternative YAY!), seafood, at least one cashier, cereals and a bakery with sad looking pizza slices, and down a ramp before reaching the second curving aisle with shelves and shelves of rice. I only know basmati, thai, brown and wholegrain, here there was every variety imaginable.

Still, I was not distracted, I found a stair with kitchen appliance signposted at the top and after a little wander into the pressure cooker aisle, I finally found a long row of a frying pan with even more further past it. So, I bought a pressure cooker, a frying pan and a grater and my quest was complete. HUZZAH!

In such a celebratory state I started to notice more things on the long way back to my lift (I passed many others but did not dare). The pizza slices were not so sad even if my mild allergies forbade me from eating them this week, instead i redirected my attention to something more practical like the endless froze in the frozen aisle to find the mixed veg, a trusty student companion during my undergrad for some extra colour and nutrition.

Then I bought one of the big red lid tubs of Kuih Rose. Just now, as I checked the spelling, I had to resist the urge to munch on another one of those pretty roses. I'm not usually a snack person but there is always one I'm hooked on for a few months and then never again. Flapjacks, Belgian waffles, the vegan chocolate coconut macaroons from Tesco that kept having an on and off again relationship with the Clubcard. Now I fear its roses.

There were some later adventures to the fourth and final store Sheng Siong which was just the perfect sweet spot both price wise and products wise between everything else I've described - a supermarket extra if you will - but I believe I should end the quest here. I now know how to get food and can cook for myself and feel settled in. (enough at least to catch up on work that I forgot about). The next quest…Restaurants for Friday dinners - of which there are MANY!