slosh down the pepper!

Took a walk around Beach Road today. I finally visited the coveted army market! It's not exactly a very big area, but filled with rows of shops organized in a manner I won't consider as neat or systematic.

Most of the shops were manned by uncles and aunties in their forties to fifties. I had originally thought that the owners will be mostly Malays or Indians in their twenties or thirties. The merchandise are similar everywhere and look a little old and dirty to me. Lots of items in dirty green color. I didn't think that the army packs are so complicated! What I found interesting was also the fact that most of the shop-owners don't really offer their help even if you stand there fiddling with their stuffs. Or maybe they knew from the start that I was only interested in browsing!

Not that I despised such a setting, but I found myself more absorbed in environments that exudes at least a sense of cleanliness. It's nice walking through the narrow aisles, rubbing shoulders with fellow shoppers, seeing 'exotic' stuffs and smelling a weird scent once in a while here and there. For window shopping, perfect. For serious shopping, maybe not so much.