san francisco part four, the shopping loot

3.1 Phillip Lim leather tote, Jil Sander v-neck, T by Alexander Wang and Marc Jacobs tee.

san francisco part three, the shopping loot

One good thing about shopping in a multilabel boutique is that you get to see all kind of brands. To be precise, Barneys, Nordstroms, Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus, Macy's Men are more like a multi-label boutique "mall" rather than just a "boutique" which sounds a little small in scale. Among all these, Barneys has got the most and best collection of all. When you are inside, your rationality will give way to impulsiveness.

Thom Browne, Alexander McQueen, Victor & Rolf tees, Gucci rubber iPhone4 casing

san francisco part two, pier 39 the tourist trap

In San Francisco, you cannot escape Pier 39 at the bay area. The Fisherman's Wharf at Pier 39 is a must-see place and well, as I said before, this is a tourist trap but hey, everyone is so willing to be trapped there including me. I love seeing the indolent sea lions basking under the sun on the floating raft. They make a lot of noise and gestures. They sure know how to catch people's attention.

san francisco part one

Thanks to a business trip, I have had a chance to travel to San Francisco, California USA. I would say that other than the uncomfortable feeling of long hours flying and the changing time zones, I think I still enjoy the whole trip overall. As the work part which was actually not so taxing afterall, I have planned my visits to many 'touristy' places of interests in the beautiful city. I mean, come one, which idiot would wanna miss seeing the famous Pier 39 and the Golden Gate Bridge right?

Shopping is great in San Francisco too, with most of the labels available in astounding collections. But the 9.5% tax thing is a turn off. The price tags do not include the tax for all, unlike our GST-included price system. Anyway, to me it is such a colossal 'achievement' to eventually have my feet stepped into those legendary multilabel boutiques, namely Barneys, Nordstom, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales and Macy's. As these are the branches in SF, the merchandise collections may be not as amazing as in New York stores. One bad thing about shopping in SF is the operating hours of most boutiques. They open early at 10am, and close early too at 7pm. Only Bloomingdales and Macy's open till 9pm. On Sundays, the shops close even earlier at 6pm. So the tip is, shopping is best done early in the city while sight seeing can be done later. Anyway, almost all sales assistants I have encounters with are extremely polite and enthusiastic in their service. This is what Singapore lacks.

And there are many homeless people on the street who ask you for money or make weird noise, and they can be very persistent too - a very ironical scenario to such an advanced, clean and modern city.

More to come, the tourist trap...