The movie Wallstreet: Money Never Sleeps was the center upon which all our other activities revolved around last Saturday. Since we already made plans to head to town to watch that, we decided to make the most out of being there. We roommates started early by heading to Lucky Plaza for a late lunch at Cafe Pilipino which offers a really good deal – 2 viands, unlimited rice and a drink in can all for the price of S$5. While we were on our way there, I received a text from Ivy who asked if I wanted to meet after lunch to go window shopping or whatever. I told her about my plans and invited her along. She said she couldn’t make it to lunch but would go to the movie.
Once in Cafe Pilipino, we all ordered lechon kawali and the cashier laughed when we all blurted out “sinigang” for our soup choice at the same time. After eating, we walked around Orchard for a bit of shopping. Cate picked up some S$2 stainless steel rings from Taka and I snapped up a S$5 pair of sandals at Cotton On.
It was raining hard, so instead of walking to Somerset, we decided to take the MRT. We headed to Cathay Cineleisure to buy our tickets over the counter and get discounts with Cate’s NTUC card. We saw a movie poster with a spot for an actual person to fill in for a photo op.
We saw Cate’s favorite DJ on one of the walls so I told her to pose for a picture.
The movie was still at 4:40 pm, so we headed to 313 Somerset to look for a birthday gift for Tatsie’s friend. When we stepped into Zara, I tried on the booties that I had fallen in love with since the first time I saw them but didn’t buy because I only buy shoes below the S$50 range. “They look really nice, don’t they?” I asked Cate when I had managed to find her and Tatsie at the far end of the store. “Go buy!” she said. It was the exact same thing she told me about these same booties when I first pointed them out to her weeks ago. I still couldn’t, though, so I took them off and put them back, but not before snapping a picture.
We walked out of Zara and into Forever 21. There were rows of boots inside, much cheaper at S$45, but I didn’t like their color or design. I moved on to the accessories and was fishing through a bowl of rings when I heard someone calling my name – it turned out to be Cate, who had spotted black booties among the necklaces. “They’re only S$25!” she told me. I felt my heart beat faster. “OMG! But they don’t have my size,” I complained when I saw that they only came in 2 sizes. “Why don’t you try these 38’s on? I’m sure they’ll fit you,” Cate said. I took the booties out of her hands and wiggled my foot into one. “Oh please let them fit, let them fit, let them fit,” I chanted, remembering that time so many years ago when I found the perfect jeans in Kamiseta during a sale but they only came in the small size, obviously something I would never fit into. I had tried the pair on anyway, telling myself that if they fit, then they were meant for me. Just like then, my coveted item did fit. Yay! So I went off to the cashier, grinning like a cat who just ate a canary.
We walked into other stores and I bought a couple of trinkets – antique-looking earrings from New Look, a ring made entirely of crystals from Osmose. Ivy and Gay eventually found their way to us and together we headed to Cathay Cineleisure. It was Ivy’s first time to be inside a cinema in Singapore.
Wallstreet: Money Never Sleeps is a sequel to Wallstreet, a movie none of us had seen. Still, we didn’t really need to see the first movie because the director made the sequel such that it could be a standalone. I doubt that watching the first movie would have made much of a difference, though, because W:MNS is cerebral in a financial way and it made our heads ache even though four of us are accountants with two of us actually in the hedge fund industry. I even smiled and nudged Ivy each time words like position, forwards, margin, Dow Jones, and trades were mentioned because these are words we encounter everyday at work. Even though I was slightly confused, though, the movie still entertained me. I clapped my hands over my mouth and tears spilled at a shocking scene and my heart accelerated with excitement during others. Still, by the time the movie ended, we were all left with the question: “so what is the moral lesson of the movie?” I suppose, this: “Greed is good.”
After the movie, the sisters and Gay had events to run off to, so Ivy and I decided to have dinner. I wanted to bring her to Marche but there was a long queue so since she was craving pasta, I suggested Trattoria Italian Kitchen which I had always been curious about. We ordered a seafood spaghetti and a capricciosa pizza for sharing and contemplated ordering dessert, but Ivy thought maybe it would be better if we went elsewhere for that. When our orders arrived, we were pleasantly surprised at the huge proportion. I initially thought that we wouldn’t be able to finish them because on normal office days, Ivy and I usually halve the meals we order for lunch and eat them in two parts – lunch and dinner. I underestimated us though, because we polished off everything. So yes, the food was good, like greed. (Err…)
Maya arrived just as we were finishing the last strings of pasta and we gave her the last slice of pizza. We collected our bill and left to look for a dessert place. There was no queue anymore at Marche, so I suggested going there for sweet crepes. The moment we walked in and they saw the adorable decor, their faces lit up with awe and I knew that coming here was the right decision. We were handed our cards and led to our table and they were so excited that they just plonked their stuff on the table and whizzed around. Maya ordered a Caesar salad and the three of us split my favorite – crepe with strawberries and swiss chocolate ice cream. We happily finished the sweet in two shakes of a lamb’s tail but stayed for hours after just talking even though I had a migraine coming on and Maya was clearly sleepy. We only left because we wanted to be able to catch the last trains home.
So the moral lesson? Gluttony is good when the food is. (Err… again)
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