managing group tours

My girl friend was in town from overseas just this past week. I’d been wanting to take her shopping but her schedule is so packed with visits with relatives and friends that we never actually got around to it.

She doesn’t mind not going shopping with me though. She plans to go to New York with her friends this Christmas so she’ll probably do her shopping there.

In previous years, they’ve taken the Bus Charter NYC and she says they love it. It’s so convenient and economical because you deal direct with the company and not through some third-party agent which is where things can get sticky sometimes.

When she’s on holiday, she wants fuss-free so one of the ladies always does the arrangements for the bus to customize their tours for them.

If I were going to New York with a group of friends, I’d do the same. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to arrange for transport if you have quite a big group?

In my travels so far, I’ve been lucky that a designated organizing committee has always taken care of the tour arrangements so the rest of us can just sit back and enjoy the trip, and the shopping .

don’t like shopping? duh!

My friend was here last week visiting from the States. Of course, I had my big plans to take her shopping.

But her sister was also here from overseas and they hadn’t seen each other in years and obviously they had lots of catching up to do.

Besides my friend is not much of a shopaholic, unlike me . She wasn’t keen to go out much because of the heat and humidity.

No fear of ever needing an electric blanket here, not even in that freezing hotel room of hers, she kept saying.

I’m completely the opposite. Whenever I travel, rain or shine, first thing I do is go shopping. In fact, I spend most of my time (and money) shopping. You won’t find me cooped up in my hotel room.

It’s a shame she couldn’t have stayed longer because I’m sure she would’ve loved the bargains I was going to show her. Well, maybe next time!

incorrect price tag

I went to the Jusco Member’s Day sale last Wednesday. How could I resist? It’s one of the best sales in town and it only comes around like maybe once or twice a year.

I was there bright and early and managed to grab 3 pairs of jeans, some underwear and cosmetics. Then I went to the grocery section and grabbed some lamb chops and chicken drumsticks.

I normally just assume the prices are correct. It was a good thing that my daughter had a look at the lamb chops and suspected something was wrong.

She went around looking for one of those wall-mounted barcode scanners to check and true enough, the guy had tagged them at the normal price for us.

Can you imagine if we’d gone home having paid the retail price instead of the sale price? I can’t imagine trying to get back into the store to get my money back. The place was just a parking nightmare!

spoils from the book sale

The girls and I went to the MPH book sale and came home with these. It’s a small stack compared to what we usually hoard back from other warehouse sales.

We normally get books really cheap at warehouse sales but these were only about 30% off retail price, so we didn’t buy as many as we wanted.

Yeah, the girls were disappointed. They go through books like vacuum cleaners and they’ll be done reading these in no time.

comfy shoes for shopping

For me, it’s very important to have on comfortable shoes when I go shopping, especially when I travel and go on my marathon shopping sprees which sometimes lasts for a whole day before I return to the hotel.

Sometimes comfy shoes are hard to come by. So if and when I do come across a site that sells comfort shoes, I always bookmark them.

I came across these Asgi shoes are ergonomically designed to be kind to your feet. I want flats but I don’t want my toes to show, so these would be perfect.

boss buys them a toy to play?

You’ve all heard about the recent Playstation 3 launch at 1 Utama where folks camped out for two whole days to get in line to be the first to buy.

Yes, well, a friend told me that someone bought a unit for his office staff to play during their lunch break and after work.

Now that’s what I call knowing how to make your staff happy and valuing them, and I thought this sort of thing only happens in Googleland.

Apparently not. The staff were elated, to say the least, that they’ve even been given a budget to go out and buy more PS3 games to play. Gosh, I’d sure like to work there. I wonder if they have any vacancies.