k r i s a n d r o

Apart from the fact that the National Geographic is on channel 11, Starhub Cable TV; my knowledge on National Geographic was poor to say the least. It was with great excitement that I was invited by Pat Law of Ogilvy PR to the exclusive preview of Asia’s first National Geographic Store in Singapore!

 

Never have I ever thought that the National Geographic would have a physical store and much less open one in Singapore.

The bloggers were told to meet at Newton Food Centre and were chauffeured by a grand convoy of 17 SUVs from the great volunteers at www.suvec.org. A personal SUV for every blogger! How cool is that? The royal treatment was only marred by the traffic jam at the town area, but we arrived safely at Vivocity, where the store is located.

 

Stepping through the boarded doors of the National Geographic Store was like stepping into another dimension in Vivocity. The mood of the store mirrors that of an art exhibition but with the promise that one can actually afford the cool ‘exhibits’ that the store showcases.

 

The National Geographic Store provides a ‘one stop’ experience for shoppers that sells stuffs ranging from books to the likes of apparel and photography equipment. Even if you don’t fancy the stuffs that are sold there, one can always be reminded of what to buy for your trip by walking through the store. One of the interesting facts about the store is that almost anything can be bought, even the furniture! The sold furniture and items like the photographs are replaced and it gives the store a different look and feel from time to time. Just note that I said, ‘almost anything can be bought’ and not ‘everything can be bought’. The cute store attendants cannot be bought (amongst other things), so do ask nicely if you fancy anything from the store.

 

Asia’s 1st National Geographic Store is located at Vivocity 1st level. Visit it if you haven’t already!

Thanks to Ahjay of Porter Novelli for the pic above!

 

KuKuNehNeh (KKNN) and myself were invited by Estee Teo for a Bloggers Event by Gillette. First up was a nice brunch spread from Serenity and were given a goodie bag each that consisted of a Gillette Power Fusion Atom, Gillette Fusion Hydra Gel and a media kit. To top it all off, we were given a pair of tickets to watch the latest James Bond flick with Gold Class tickets from Golden Village @ Vivocity.

KKNN and I are not fans of Bond but who would pass up on tickets to watch a blockbuster in $30 seats?

Many bloggers have already covered their experience on the event of the brunch and the movie but I will like to touch on something else. After attending quite a bit of blogger events so far, I am most impressed and most intrigued by this particular one. Not because Xiaxue was there, not because of the good food and not because of the freebies. Er… okay. I do admit that I love the Gillette Power Fusion Phantom to death and it is THAT GOOD even though I cannot grow any form of respectable facial hair.

I remember reading about Uniquefrequency’s post titled “Don’t Be The Insurance Salesman At The Party – Doing It Right“, which was on a Samsung event in which I had the privilege to attend. The article that Uniquefrequency wrote is about Daniel Goh who ‘did it right’ by working on relations with the bloggers for some time before organizing an event which in itself, was very nicely organized with no ‘in-your-face’ branding that one might expect.

Now, if the Samsung event was being mild on the branding, the Gillette event’s branding was almost non-existant!

There was no presentation. No contest and nothing to be won. Besides the media kit that is sitting in the goodie bag and the Gillette commercials that were running on TVs during the brunch, there was no mention of Gillette at all by the people from P&G and Porter Novelli! In fact, the ONLY time when Gillette was brought up during the event was when I was conversing with Edwin from P&G and it was me who brought up the topic of the differences between the battery powered Gillette Fusion and the non battery ones.

I really appreciate the team from P&G and Porter Novelli for organizing such a non-pushy event. If there are looking to work long term with the bloggers, this is definitely a great start to a good blogger-brand relationship.

Gillette is also holding an exciting contest! Details below!

 

Oh! As for the picture of me and Xiaxue..

Here it is….

Fidelis, Me & Xiaxue

 

=P

On workday mornings, either KuKuNehNeh (KKNN) or myself will send a morning greeting to the other via email. Since she cannot use tools such as WLM to communicate, the emails are our way of keeping in touch with each other during work hours and gossip about the latest happenings in the world, Singapore, the blogosphere and you.

YA…. YOU!

 

On the 2nd of October, she sent me an email like any other workday except that the content made me as guilty as a kid who broke his mum’s favourite dinning glasses.

 

I COMPLETELY FORGOT that it was our 14th monthsary! And I had already promised to attend the Samsung event that day at Vivocity and we decided to not celebrate it. KKNN went to hang out with her friends after work at Deborah’s place and I headed down to the event as promised.

I am not much of a romantic and I decided to do something spontaneous to hopefully make up for my forgetfulness. After the event, I decided to travel to her place at Ang Mo Kio (AMK) to surprise her and spend some time together. KKNN is not much of a flowers person and so I bought beer and 3 of the fried chicken wings that she digs at the coffee shop nearby. In order to ascertain if she was already home, I text her along the way to AMK but she failed to reply me. As it was already 10+ in the night, I assumed that she had pigged out in her own bed and so I went ahead to buy the stuffs at the coffeeshop.

While waiting for the chicken wings, I got a call from her.

“Hello?” KKNN said groggily.

“Hi Dear! Where are you?”

“I just woke up. Still at Deborah’s place. I fell asleep while they were playing poker.”

“Ah? It’s late already and you got work tomorrow. Why don’t you go home to rest early?”

“I still waiting for Huiwen leh~”

“Huh~~~ Go home earlier lar!”

“Never mind lar. I will wait.”

“Okay lor. Text me when you reach home hor?”

“Okay!”

 

Failing to convince her to go home and not wanting to spoil the surprise or pressure KKNN to go back early because I am heading for her place, I decided to wait it out at her void deck. It was about 10.45pm when I reached the void deck and little that I know that she would only come back at around 11.40pm. So I spent 1 hr sitting at the bench, accompanied by a foreign worker who was sleeping soundly two benches away with the cold beer turning warm and the piping hot fried chicken wings turning into soggy remains of a cooked chicken’s body part.

I was to keep myself entertained and finally got a text from her that she was heading home. The sounds of a taxi greeted me as I hid behind a wall and I appeared in the open once I heard footsteps approaching the lift landing.

Well, the lady whom alighted from the cab and saw me grinning from ear to ear at the lift landing near the stroke of midnight that day wasn’t KKNN. WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA!!! It was just a stranger who was probably prepared to kick me in the nuts if I followed her into the lift. The moment of awkwardness was simultaneously greeted with the sounds of 2nd taxi stopping at the corner and a bewildered KKNN coming out of the cab and seeing her bf who was supposed to be at home but was waiting for her at the lift landing.

“DEAR! WHY ARE YOU HERE?”

A smile formed on my lips and I said,

“Happy 14th monthsary my Dear~”

The nice and ‘not-afraid-to-make-balding-jokes-at-himself’ Daniel Goh of youngupstarts invited me for a Samsung event for the new INNOV8 phone. It is a really cool phone and I would really consider it if not for the fact that I own a great phone already. Do read all about the INNOV8 here.

Daniel who looks like he was pointing his middle finger at the TV (but was not. Really.)

 

 

After a tour of the Samsung flagship store at Vivocity and some introduction to the INNOV8 specifications and functions, the bloggers were introduced to a contest where 3 of us could walk away with a spanking new INNOV8 phone! All of us were given 30 mins to take 3 pictures on what inspires us about the INNOV8.

Of course I didn’t win. If I had, I would be boasting about it by the 2nd paragraph in this post.

Anyway, I realized at the end of the 30mins that I was the most used ‘model’ in the contest. No less than 3 pictures were of me!

Molemole‘s entry

Nadnut‘s entry

Sylvia‘s entry

 

I know you all will think that those who used my pics all didn’t win but ONE OF THEM WON HOKAY! Congrats to Rinaz, Esther and Nadnut who won!