Shopping days

Shopping in the UK is interesting. I don't know how to explain it, but it's just different from shopping in Singapore or in the US or anywhere else. I just feel so... English here. The clothes and accessories and stuff they sell here is similar and yet different from what I'm used to. British people dress in a stylish and impractical manner - kind of like what you see in runways at fashion shows. It's freezing cold outside and girls are strolling around in miniskirts and shorts and tank tops like it's summer or something. I don't get it. They must be super-humanly strong or clinically insane. Their fashion style is very... aristocratic. Like high fashion and classy, but at times very... revealing too.

So I've been resisting the urge to splurge for a while now. We went shopping in Worcester 2 weeks ago, and I didn't spend a single cent, not even on food or transport.

This sweet little old lady from church drove us there and we spent the day with her. She was so nice, and she showed us around the shopping streets, waited while we shopped, brought us to a beautiful cathedral, and paid for our lunch at a pub. I had Indian curry - it was so refreshing to eat something other than bland British food. Seriously, people here need to learn how to eat spices or sauces or something.

Anyway, Worcester was a really quaint little town (and I just found out my friend is from there). Where we walked, there was a beautiful lake with little cruise boats, cute little shopping streets, and a horse race track.

Yesterday, I went with a friend to Birmingham, and we spent 5 hours walking around the Bullring shopping area and browsing through shops.

Can I just say, I love H&M and Primark - cheap and pretty clothes - what more could you ask for? Also, a huge 3-level Forever 21 just opened this week, so it was swarming with people when we entered. The lines for the fitting room were ridiculous; there were people everywhere. But I didn't buy much, because the thing about shopping in countries with 4 seasons is that they have lots of fall and winter clothes (which I have no use for in Singapore). So that was kind of sad, but also good, because I saved money, even though I really wanted about 10 new coats and 20 new jackets and scarfs because winter stuff is so adorable.

In the evening, there was a Christmas parade along the streets, and the entire area was packed with hundreds of people so much so that we moved at the snail speed of one step per minute. It was awful. I thought we would be stuck there forever. But we finally got out, and walked to a way less crowded area to watch the parade, which turned out to be pretty lame. It consisted of Santa and his reindeer (seeing live reindeer was the only cool part), walking Christmas tree decorations, random Chinese lion dancers (I have absolutely no idea why they were there), a marching band, and other Christmas-y stuff. And it lasted a whole of 5 minutes. But it was cool and we had fun.