Celeste
Dunmanian; 6C22'12
"When I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew."
Friday, January 20, 2012
So as some of you have already known, I won a dress from Seventeen magazine. I was pretty shocked cause they only notified me 2 months from the draw, and besides, WHAT ARE THE ODDS? SPH sent me a letter that said I’d won a Boxy Flare dress, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember how that dress looked like. So, with anticipation building and fingers crossed, I headed down to SPH yesterday to pick up my dress.
Took the bloody long way there. Walked all the way to Circle Line, took the train to Serangoon (with train delays, damn ye SMRT), changed train at Boon Keng. If you haven’t been to Boon Keng, it has a hell lot of exits and I didn’t have the foggiest idea where the bus stops were located at. Only with sheer luck did I manage to find my way there.
The traffic was absolutely terrible. Traffic at Boon Keng on a normal Thursday afternoon is like traffic at Orchard Road on Christmas Eve. I took >20 mins to travel 1.9km to the bus stop. Okay seriously we can cover 2.4km in < 15 mins… if I had jogged to the bus stop in the first place, I would have reached there in record time!
Apparently, you can’t trust StreetDirectory.Com because the bus stop was NOWHERE near SPH. I found myself in a god-forsaken place surrounded by industrial buildings. Not a single soul in sight except for the occasional construction worker. Not a place for any girl to be at, especially when she's alone.
The address of the SPH building was 82 Genting Lane, and the inaccurate asshole StreetDirectory.Com told me it was a “3 minutes walk” from the bus stop. BULLSHIT. The bus stop was located at 39 Genting Lane. Guess who walked all the way from unit 39 to unit 82? FML
After countless minutes of trudging under the merciless Singapore sun, I finally FINALLY saw the SPH building. Pretty big, but plain. And at such an inaccessible location with extremely tight security. Had to exchange my student pass for an access card which I used multiple times. You need it to enter the building, to enter into the lift lobby, to enter the rooms... What have they got to hide? Scared that the people whom journalists have insulted would want to burn the place down??
Took the lift to the seventh floor, where SPH Magazines is located. It’s a little bit of Mode from Ugly Betty, a little of Alette from Confessions of a Shopaholic. A corridor leading you to the main receptionist desk showed framed glamour shots/ magazine covers on the wall. I was absolutely starstruck and mindblown. It seemed so… high fashion, even though we know Singapore ain’t pretty high up on the fashion scale.
The reception desk proved my generalisations wrong though. No pretty, young girl greeted me- only women in their 40s-50s were behind the desk.
I chatted with the receptionist for awhile, but she seemed nonchalant to all the praises I showered the office with. I guess she’s used to newcomers/ visitors having slack jaws the moment they entered the office. She passed me the dress, and to my horror, I realised it was a lump of green. Emerald green (to make it sound more classy), but green nonetheless. The hideous kind that only people who command a high level of respect like Kate Middleton can pull off, without people labelling her a fashion disaster.
But since I've beat other gals from Singapore and won this dress, it must mean something somehow. So I'm not selling it away! Besides, I don't think anyone else would be willing to buy it.
Took the bloody long way there. Walked all the way to Circle Line, took the train to Serangoon (with train delays, damn ye SMRT), changed train at Boon Keng. If you haven’t been to Boon Keng, it has a hell lot of exits and I didn’t have the foggiest idea where the bus stops were located at. Only with sheer luck did I manage to find my way there.
The traffic was absolutely terrible. Traffic at Boon Keng on a normal Thursday afternoon is like traffic at Orchard Road on Christmas Eve. I took >20 mins to travel 1.9km to the bus stop. Okay seriously we can cover 2.4km in < 15 mins… if I had jogged to the bus stop in the first place, I would have reached there in record time!
Apparently, you can’t trust StreetDirectory.Com because the bus stop was NOWHERE near SPH. I found myself in a god-forsaken place surrounded by industrial buildings. Not a single soul in sight except for the occasional construction worker. Not a place for any girl to be at, especially when she's alone.
The address of the SPH building was 82 Genting Lane, and the inaccurate asshole StreetDirectory.Com told me it was a “3 minutes walk” from the bus stop. BULLSHIT. The bus stop was located at 39 Genting Lane. Guess who walked all the way from unit 39 to unit 82? FML
After countless minutes of trudging under the merciless Singapore sun, I finally FINALLY saw the SPH building. Pretty big, but plain. And at such an inaccessible location with extremely tight security. Had to exchange my student pass for an access card which I used multiple times. You need it to enter the building, to enter into the lift lobby, to enter the rooms... What have they got to hide? Scared that the people whom journalists have insulted would want to burn the place down??
Took the lift to the seventh floor, where SPH Magazines is located. It’s a little bit of Mode from Ugly Betty, a little of Alette from Confessions of a Shopaholic. A corridor leading you to the main receptionist desk showed framed glamour shots/ magazine covers on the wall. I was absolutely starstruck and mindblown. It seemed so… high fashion, even though we know Singapore ain’t pretty high up on the fashion scale.
The reception desk proved my generalisations wrong though. No pretty, young girl greeted me- only women in their 40s-50s were behind the desk.
I chatted with the receptionist for awhile, but she seemed nonchalant to all the praises I showered the office with. I guess she’s used to newcomers/ visitors having slack jaws the moment they entered the office. She passed me the dress, and to my horror, I realised it was a lump of green. Emerald green (to make it sound more classy), but green nonetheless. The hideous kind that only people who command a high level of respect like Kate Middleton can pull off, without people labelling her a fashion disaster.
But since I've beat other gals from Singapore and won this dress, it must mean something somehow. So I'm not selling it away! Besides, I don't think anyone else would be willing to buy it.