Phuket Revisited 2010: When We Shop, The World Gets Better

...At least, for us.

And what's there to shop in Phuket? The souvenir t-shirts? The beer branded tank tops?

One reason to shop overseas is to get stuff we can't find back here in Bolehland. And off-hand, two things comes to mind when it's Thailand: foodstuff, and Boots (it's amazing, there isn't a Boots in Sporeland too!).

During this trip we'd two malls to cover: Jungceylon at Patong and Central Festival in town.

It's a bit odd to see this on the chairs around Central Festival. Makes us wonder if kids go missing...

Jungceylon being the nearest, it was our first stop after lunch on the day we arrived. The main reason? To stock up on drinks and snacks that you don't find back here. This included a brand of mixed fruit yoghurt drinks, packets of soya milk mixed with honey and bottled water (the two bottles the hotel provide daily sometimes just isn't enough). Oddly enough this time we weren't interested in buying junk food to snack on when in the hotel, though...normally we'd jump at the sight of those little packets of Twisties or some other flavours you can't find back here.

Guess we were rather focused more on the eateries, then.

And Boots (and Watsons), also for stuff you can't find here. Both have their range of products, like Boots with their Body Wash with a watermelon and mango scent, or Watsons with their Classic Pooh creams and lotions, packaged very nicely (only recently has Guardian's packaging taken a turn for the better with their own stuff). Also not to mention we get Decolgen there cheap, and we still tend to get shocked to find contraceptives available off the shelf, along with other stuff that's considered Pharmacy Only or Prescription Only back here.

Anyways seeing how we've not used the stuff we've gotten from Boots since last year we refrained from buying more, even if they were on offer.

However, we did get this from Carrefour in Jungceylon.

Assorted pork-flavoured instant noodles and crispy pork slices snacks. Because you don't find pork flavoured instant noodles here, and the crispy pork slices go oh-so-well with the instant noodles! Supper takes a whole new turn of satisfaction.

And in Central Festival, we'd not find much in Tops but we did come across this.

Hersheys in a tin box. The Hersheys were good, and it wasn't long before we'd finished one box. Now, if only we have any idea what to do with the box...

Our best buy considered from Central Festival and for this trip, was this iPhone cover.

The Q-Pot Loves iPhone chocolate case.

We'll blame a YKLS member for our looking around at iPhone cases. While we may not be singing with them this year, we still drop by once in a while to say hello. And one day when we were visiting, we'd recently bought the SwitchEasy Capsule Rebel case (aka 'The Watermelon' as it was in two tones of green) and we were dressed in a green t-shirt and in green shorts.

So this fellow, he asks us, did we buy the case to match what we wore? No, we answered, we just like the colour green. But that got us thinking along the lines of getting more iPhone covers, although probably not the ones you can get from Machines or Mac City as those can easily cost over RM100. But even those sold outside tend to be somewhere RM35 or more, and we've not come across any other casing we'd fancy.

Until the Q-Pot. Left upside down and in the box that comes with it, it could really pass off as a box of chocolates. And while this casing is much more bulkier, we can actually stand it upright without needing a stand! Makes it easy watching Sailormoon sometimes!

And as far as we know, there's no such cover here in Bolehland yet! We've a totally unique cover! We're chuffed up over that, haha. To our shame, otousan has also asked if we could get him a Q-Pot cover too, but we're declining to do so for now (well not to mention that we aren't going back to Thailand anytime soon).

As for the Chief's best buy, it would be when we walked into McThai. With football fever going on at the moment and McDonald's having this Coke Footbal Glass collection going on, the Chief has so far three of the glasses. And when we walked into McThai, we saw this.

All the glasses, in a special collector's box, at a rather attractive price of 199 baht. It's at times like these that we feel justified in bringing a rather large and sturdy luggage even for a trip that doesn't require much in terms of clothes or shopping. So naturally we bought the entire thing!

Oh, and since the Chief's already halfway through collecting a set of glasses, the Chief's still going to finish that set. Which means we've got at least three days of large McValue meals with sundaes as we've to help complete that set. We'll get the glasses when we have a craving for fried chicken, then.

Next up, island hopping!