Mustafa-Little India

No trip to Singapore or Little India is complete without a visit to Mustafa's.  It is a department store where you can buy anything-maybe like a cheap Walmart but bigger and better.  If  you need something you go there first. I forgot my cable to charge my IPad keyboard.  Anne Margaret checked online and found me an apple store miles away...then Luis said it was a typical cable, and I thought Mustafa's.   I went and found the electronics section in the basement, showed them my issue and they found the cable in 5 minutes.  Then they wrote up the ticket and sent me to a pay station where I paid and was subjected to the Mustafa high security system:  they put your stuff in a plastic bag and put a zip cable on the bag and voila!!  you can't steal anything.  They do not waste money on high  security cameras or anything like that. ( The zip cables are clear.   If you  come in the store from outside you check in at the outside kiosks and get a black zip cable put on your previously bought packages.)  This is all very good and a great low-tech solution if you can get past the plastic  that has nowhere to go but landfills...Singapore has not really gotten on the recycle bandwagon yet.   Many Indians stop by there on the way to Changi Airport and shop.  The same kiosks check your baggage for you so you can shop, pick up your bags, and head to the airport.

Anyway, this store is 3  blocks long and  has many floors.  You really need a map.   We joked a lot about what a new employee must go thru to memorize the place and what would happen when you ask a new employee where something is and they would just freeze and  not be  able to answer.  

Really, anything you need is going  to be there somewhere.  Its also where you go to get a cell phone SIM card (for which you have to show  your  passport  and get it scanned and registered with the government). Mustafa's is open  24 hours, but when we got there looking for SIM cards, no one  was there to do it-it was the famous Singapore shift change-we had to come back in 40 minutes.  There were people working at the counter but they were not in charge of SIM cards.  Luckily, we could get our other purchases done and then go back.

The amazing entrance.   You can exit out to the street to go back in another entrance-often much quicker than winding your way through long narrow packed aisles.  

This is what it looks like inside.

There are a million varieties of everything in many sizes.  The tea section alone is several aisles wide with shelf after shelf of any kind of tea from many countries.  Margie and I stood there for a very long time trying to choose-and that was with her prior knowledge of two six-month stints in the neighborhood.  Mom wanted chocolates for Robert at her apartment building.  Margie said Singapore is not well-known for chocolates and to get something else.  Mustafa's did not get that memo-there were hundreds of Singapore chocolates, in lion shapes, no less, to choose from.

They also do a rocking money changing business.  The volume is so great that their rates are fantastic and you lose very little on the transaction.

And here is a picture of the very famous high tech Mustafa security system.

Mustafa's-a most interesting Singapore and LIttle India cultural phenomenon.  Keep and eye on the EXIT signs; you could easily spend days in there.