Shopping

One of my most favourite words is 'shopping' (the closely-related favourite word being 'money'). And I have to say myself, I'm a pretty darned great shopper. I know where to go, to bargain, how to choose and best of all which item is best value-for-money. I personally think an item bought is worthwhile when:

• It is cheap relative to one's love for it (adore the item to pieces!)
• It's bought on sale (anything bought on ridiculous sale of around ~50-80% discount is worthy!)
• It is very useful or very beautiful to look at or a great present to someone dear.
• It has a very sentimental value (personal emotional attachment item) like your first favourite boyband album or the album from an artist your grandmother loves.

So, this is an essay of the difference I found in the shopping environment (and in lesser extent the items themselves) in between Malaysia and New Zealand:

I found New Zealand overall a better place to shop. For one thing, shopping in autumn, winter and spring is great since I can walk for hours along the shops on Queen Street and High Street with no apparent sweating. This is extremely important since I HATE SWEATING IN PUBLIC. That means body ordour and that's another issue that I just cannot tolerate on. 

Secondly, New Zealand has myriads of great quality items that is sold at a fraction of its price in Malaysia at their retail outlet stores like Dress Smart. As for now, other than Factory Outlet and Reject Shop (which actually sells rejected stuff instead of normal items), Malaysia has yet to have a retail outlet store that operates everyday through out the year. It means I can buy great boutique clothes (I love boutique clothes in New Zealand, they are classy, trendy, beautiful and of high quality material! One of my favourite boutiques is Max and Jacqui E  ^^) for really cheap prices. I bought a great brown dress for NZ$20 which is about RM50. It's original price is NZ$150, if I remember it correctly. I found an almost exact same dress in Zara here in Malaysia for more than RM200.

Thirdly, the size. I found it easier to find a great fit for clothing, shoes and accessories in New Zealand. Basically, they have my size stocked well. And another most important thing regarding size is length. Malaysian clothing, I found, is lacking in length. The tops, pants and skirts are unusually short for big-sized clothing. I mean, it logical right? The bigger the clothes you make, please make allowances for length too. Extra length can be modified by cutting but shorter length? No can do anything about it -_-


Malaysia has it plus points to in shopping :) I can buy shoes for cheap sometimes at Vincci (I love some of their designs if not the cut -_-). I know now that many major retail accept debit card.....I can't think of any more advantages (perfumes are very expensive, I can buy RM300-RM400 perfumes in New Zealand for around RM100 and the perfume sale is like 3 times a year, 2 times at Smith & Caughey and one time before Christmas almost everywhere). Tell me a place where I can buy Hugo Boss XX 100mL for RM100 (which is another purchase that I never regretted) in KL then I can put KL in the list of a great shopping mecca.