02FBC: A Singapore LEGO Day

Most of my trips to Singapore can seem pretty mundane since (1) I still have to work most of the time and (2) I mostly spend time with my nephews. So these don't typically include very touristy things anymore, so my trips may not look like the sort of things you'd post about on Instagram a lot.

Today, I got to squeeze in at least one tourist-adjacent activity, and actually bought stuff while at Orchard. Believe me, this is not very common. Since there was a conference at a hotel along Orchard, I got to divert to visit the Lego Shophouse Experience at Design Orchard. I wasn't expecting too much - the photos already showed a lot of it, and a glance at the experience from the adjacent street helped to ground my expectations of the size of the exhibit as a whole. But I still wanted to go since I'm kind of back in a LEGO mindset because of things like the Keith Haring - Dancing Figures set, the LEGO version of Soundwave, the Star Trek Enterprise-D set, and, of course, the Project Hail Mary set.

On the whole, it was fun in its own way. At the very least, I got to see a lot of popular sets in person versus just on social media, so that's cool. And there were some original creations that were genuinely impressive.

Beyond that, I was kind of all over Orchard Road today while waiting for my sister and her husband to finish with the conference. Ironically, I still went to the official LEGO store at Ngee Ann City, and drooled over several sets that I'm quite tempted to get and were relatively cheaper there versus Manila (but not by much!) I may get them eventually, but it's still easier to buy them in Manila than here since I don't have to worry about luggage.

Sets I'm eyeballing:

• WALL-E and EVE
• Technic NASA Artemis Space Rocket Launch System Rocket
• Gameboy
• Arcade Machine
• PAC-MAN Arcade
• Optimus Prime

The last two are more because they're on their way out this year, so there's that. But I haven't even figured out where to put the Enterprise, so I haven't built it. Nor have I figured out where I'm going to stash the Tintin Moon Rocket, which is a bigger priority purchase versus any of these sets, so go figure. 

We also got to do a quick Books Kinokuniya run, and I actually picked up a number of actual physical books for a change. It started with me holding onto Super-Frog Saves Tokyo by Haruki Murakami, I got more and more tempted by various books on display. I could hold off on Strange Buildings, since I had read all the other Strange books on Kindle. But I encountered a number of books that were only available in print and had no accessible ebooks (so far). Thus, I ended up picking up more Japanese titles - two books from The Samurai Detectives and books 2-4 of the Murder Mansion books, but I didn't realize that I had missed out on the first book. I guess I'll have to keep a lookout for it now, or hope to get a copy during my next trip. Maybe I'll get lucky and find it at the airport bookstore or something.

Anyway, I have more O Bar videos to cram before bed. I hope you're all having a good holiday week.