GSSE ’10: The Singapore Shopping Race!
As shortly mentioned earlier, I was invited by Singapore Tourism Board to participate in The Great Singapore Shopping Experience (GSSE),
which is a competition aimed at media personalities & celebrities, revolving around, well – shopping!
Me: “A competition about shopping? I’M SO THERE!”
Goes well in line with my haggling superpowers i was telling you not long ago, during my trip to Bali 
But of course it is near impossible to haggle prices at these established mega-stores at Singapore’s shopping malls,
but even with that said, we did manage to get 1 store to give us extra discounts during the competition 
HEEHEE.
Ok im getting way ahead of myself, let’s back up a little bit.
Pre-Race
Also fondly known as “The Shopping Challenge”, or “The Shopping Race”, here are some official stuff you should know:
Rules of the game: We operate in teams of two. Each team is given SGD$1000 spending money and $50 for transportation. Purchase anything we want – the goal is to achieve the greatest dollar savings. Savings = Original price – Sale price.
Venue: Teams must cover 3 precincts (ie. Orchard Road, Marina Bay, and Southern Waterfront) at selected participating malls. Minimum 3 items must be purchased from each precinct.
In addition to that, 1 challenge (out of 2 choices) must be completed at each precinct. Total time to complete the whole race is 4 hours!
Prizes:
1st prize: $10,000 plus all items purchased
2nd prize: $4,000 plus all items purchased
3rd prize: $2,000 plus all items purchased
All consolation prizes: All items purchased
Malaysia representin’!
Team Msia 2: Karen@TiC, & Syats@TiC contest winner
Team Msia 1: Nasa@The Star Newspaper, & I
Basically, STB assigned us our team partners, so all 4 of us representing Malaysia pretty much had just met each other like, a couple of days before the competition
Nasa & I! Team Msia 1 woohoo
Despite that fact, I couldn’t have asked for a better partner 
Nasa’s a real trooper, and just like me, hell bent on bringing home a prize. I mean, we really could have just spent the $1000 to buy ourselves a nice designer handbag each, no?
(which we heard, some of the other teams did! tsktsk)
And not to mention, SHE’S A RIOT! :D
We were devising our strategy before the Race and one problem came up.
“Just so you know, Cynthia, i drink 3 litres of water per day, which also means i have to pee quite often. I hope that won’t slow us down during the race……”
“……I’ll bring along empty water bottles, just let me know when you need to go.”
All teams were given a bit of time before the race to recce the sites. This was especially crucial as this was when we could conduct proper on-ground research, like roughly which shops to hit, which to miss, plan our routes strategically, etc.
Although, recce-ing time given was a measly couple of hours to cover over 7 giant malls, spread over 3 disperse precincts. Ergo, not a whole lot of recce-ing time -_-
But we worked with what we had! With our trusty notebooks and calculators in hand, we scribbled furiously any useful information & prices we needed.
The Race!
Had a bit of time right before the flag-off. Took some pictures and mingled around with the other teams from all around the world! Some from neighboring countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines; others hailing all the way from China, Dubai and UK!
Team Msia 2 & their chaperon; Team China’s outfit is so cute!
Oh right, and each team is assigned a chaperon, who will handle our money, hold our receipts, and pretty much make sure everything’s alright.
I handed my camera to our chaperon to take candid pictures of us throughout the race – my god, the pics he took turned out to be some pretty random pot of gold!
Was laughing myself silly studying the pictures after the race If i can’t manage to post all pics here, I might do a separate “outtakes” post just on silly pictures.
Starting line frenzy! Hahaha that guy at the back damn kiut
…aaand WE’RE OFF!
You don’t see us at the front of the line, because we were right at the back ;) along with a few other teams, which we noticed was part of all our strategies. The first shop we wanted to hit was behind us.
And here comes the 1 and only mistake we made, because while our target shop was behind us, we were concerned whether we MUST pass through the starting line in front of us? Or just dash backwards straight to our target shop.
The whistle blew, and for a good 2 seconds Nasa and I were hand-in-hand, yoyo-ing back and forth towards the starting line and backwards DAMN BODOH!!
2 precious seconds later we saw other teams dashing backwards so we snapped out of our seesaw-ing stupor and dashed straight to our target shop. Haiyoh, epic fail moment.
When we got to our target shop, we were the 2nd to reach – Team UK had beaten us to it.
Followed closely by Team Indonesia behind us, all of us 3 teams scoured the shop like kids (on crack) in a candy shop.
I think all of us knew that this “magic” shop was our winning ticket. Selling brands like Anne Klein dresses & blazers marked down from $980 to $70. Thus, the name “magic”, in a good way because of the crazy savings! Say if we bought 10 of those dresses, we’d have spent $700 out of our $1000 budget, and already managed to save a whopping $9100.
But the name “magic” in a bad way, too, which is a story for another day.
Whut!
Like a hurricane, we swept through the shop, leaving the racks empty and everything else in a total disarray.
That’s Diana of Team Indonesia on the right :) RAWR!
Nasa: Tired! Me: i seriously dont remember doing that but yea ok sure at some point i was randomly huddled in the corner
Lining up at the counter behind the UK Team; Nasa, whom I’ve never heard speak a word of Malay before this, turned to me and suddenly spoke in (formal & slightly fail) Malay.
“CYNTHIA, awak pergi ke sana dan ambil barang lagi”
(CYNTHIA, go over there and get more stuff)
I nodded and ran off, understanding her motive was to make sure Team UK didn’t understand what she was saying–
It was only AFTER the race that we both realized WADAHECK, Team Indonesia could VERY WELL understand everything we were saying, HAHAHAHAH FAIL MOMENT STRIKE #2
Now i only wish before i nodded and ran off, i should have replied, “BAIKLAH”
This competition is nicknamed a “Race” for a reason: We were practically running in a rushed frenzy EVERYWHERE!
Maneuvering our way through the solid weekend shopping crowd, holding our tags up high calling out, “EXCUSE ME SORRY WE’RE IN A RACE MAKE WAY MAKE WAY!”
The only times we weren’t running was in the MRT train, and in elevators. Where we could thankfully gasp for air and analyze our strategies again.
Southern Waterfront checkpoint: jigsaw puzzle! Was fairly easy, this one :)
More shopping & bargain-hunting ensued.
Marina Bay checkpoint: Find the Merlion!
xx
Our sweaty faces, & our chaperon, Han!
I like this picture and how we’re out of breath & sweating bullets but Han’s all like, “no sweat yo”
Orchard Road checkpoint: Decorate a cake, lol :)
Steadyyy hands, now
Success :) now we’re home bound!
And after this we shall consider a career in cake-decorating because WE ROCKED IT OH YEAH
We made it to the Finish Line with about 1.5 hours to spare! Not too shabby eh! ;)
I didn’t manage to get an accurate count on our savings, but it was definitely well within the range of $8000-9000++
At the tabulation counter
The Race took place from 2.30-6.30pm. The winners would only be announced much later at 8.30pm, so Karen, Syats, Nasa and I killed time by resting, mingling with other teams, finding food, chilling out, and even managed to do a bit of shopping at nearby malls 
we is hardcore shoppers yo
Post-Race
The winners were announced,
3rd prize went to Team Indonesia with savings of $10,000+
2nd prize went to Team Vietnam with savings of $12,000+
and 1st prize went to Team UK with savings of $24,000+!!! that’s doubled the 2nd prize winner’s savings!
Team UK overjoyed!
Cheering for the deserving winners. Hey we’re no sore losers ok! :)
Oh btw my cheeks are extra rosy here because we had just gotten back from (proper) shopping and clearly i had just gotten out of Sephora.
Group picture!
The Controversy
Basically, even before the Race began, a lot of teams caught wind that last year’s participant and grand prize winner (Amanda Zuydervelt of Team UK) is also competing in this year’s Race. This in itself already presents an unfair advantage for them, as the rest of us are first-timers having to develop our own strategies from scratch.
To make matters more complicated, there are further suspicions regarding UK Team’s receipts in the “magic” shop. In that their receipts were found to be crossed out in pen ink, thus overstating their savings. Although, STB has confirmed that written receipts (instead of printed) is allowed…
This is just the gist of the controversy, we have our side of the story too (only Team UK, Indonesia, and Malaysia1 were in the “magic” shop) but we feel we shouldn’t publicly disclose our side of the story yet, until the matter is resolved with the authorities.
But for now, you can read (Team Indo) Hanzky’s story here, rather lengthy but worth the read,
check out the comments too, as Amanda Zuydervelt replies with her say as well.
All controversies aside, it really was an amazing experience
But like i said earlier, Team Malaysia was in it to win it!
And that meant not buying anything pretty for ourselves (pretty = expensive). So all we had at the end of the day were fugly, weird-sized items on a mad sale, and hideous dresses not even worthy to be made into curtains.
We went back to our hotel room and analyzed what we could salvage for ourselves, and the rest we decided to give to charity. :)
I swear i nearly fell backwards (actually i did fall sideways) laughing my backside off when Nasa put on our best dress. Priceless ROFLMAO moment!
Let’s wear this to Zouk tonight
It was a fun, wild ride around Singapore. Not just the shopping part, but the challenges ensured that we all had a Uniquely Singapore experience. My favourite was definitely visiting the Merlion, outdoors and away from the hustle and bustle of the hectic malls. The view was breathtaking, and surely we needed that breath of fresh air :)
We got to keep all our junk stuff purchased, but this souvenir is surely my favourite one :)
June 7th, 2010 at 10:37 am
Hhahahahha!!!! so funneh!!! especially the pic of me in that damn dress LOL. shoulda just brought one back for the fun of it kekeke.. :D
LOVE the pics:D
June 7th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
omg the competition looks SUPER fun! where do i sign up for next year’s race? XD
June 7th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Finally you’ve posted it up! Wow glad u girls had fun despite some issues going on. Eventho’ u girls didnt managed to get a placing in that race, still u all are a winner in our heart! ;)
June 10th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
nasa: totally should have, i have a mannequin in my room and she’s dying to wear that dress. LOL.
emily: haha… we were all invited bt STB for the race, but hey if they ever open it to the public i’ll letchu know!
eudora: yea it was mad fun despite everything :) aww thanks for your kind words…!
August 8th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
[...] label’s store in Singapore last year, with Nasa, Syats & Karen when we were there for the Great Singapore Race ‘10. Loved what i saw back then, so you can imagine my delight when i found out they’re finally [...]