Factory Outlet Outing

Winnie says:

Today is a Saturday morning. We have an appointment outing with the SSA (Singapore Student Association) mates. We have an appointment to go to the factory outlet at Desert Hill, Palm Spring. It is going to be a very fun day, i tell myself.

After eating our breakfast and prepared everything, we set out towards the USC campus as we appointed to meet at the entrance of Leavey Library at 9.30am. On the way to Leavey, we see a cute squirrel climbing up on a tree, and banging itself on the window panel... most probably have not heard of windows before. So we quickly take photos of this cute squirrel.

Upon reaching there, we spot a girl named Sina who is also part of our outing team. We sit down at a table and bench outside the library and start to chat away. Soon after, some of the other SSA students also arrive. After all have arrived, Eileen, our group leader cum the SSA president starts to lead the way towards the carpark where their cars are parked. She allocates us almost equally to the cars, where those who are driving will drive all of us to the Desert Hill factory outlet.

Eileen will be driving my hubby and me there. Together in the car with us, is Joelyn. Both she and me sits at the back of the car, with my hubby sitting at the front. Then off we go towards our destination.

Along the one and a half hour journey, we travel mostly on freeways and pass by quite a number of scenic surroundings. We also pass by some ranches, Wilshire's shopping districts, restaurants and a lot of houses and apartments. Along the journey, Eileen and my hubby chat about a lot of things regarding USC as well as lifestyle in US. Joelyn and I also chat about other things like how she spends her past few days, which places she goes to. After some time, we start to doze off in the car as that day is a sweltering summer day.

Soon after we doze off, we reach our destination. The whole place is a desert with a lot of hills acting as a backdrop for the outlet. The outlet itself is a very large shopping alley with a lot of large boutiques of famous brands arranged in a few straight rows. We first go to the food court to have our lunch. I have a bowl of chow mein, Brownie has a plate of western food of burger, fries and soft drinks while Joelyn has a bowl of udon. The serving for the udon and chow mein is quite small, but still it fills our stomach. After some chatting away and off we go shopping.

Joelyn, Brownie and I shop around at some of the boutiques for some time before we break up to shop individually. There is the east wing and west wing of the factory outlet. We start off with the east wing. We walk along the boutiques and enter any one that we fancy to shop in. In the first half of our shopping, I buy a long-sleeved shirt from the Levis while Brownie buys a pair of jeans from there. After some time of walking, Brownie and I sit down on one of the benches outside the boutiques to rest our legs. Subsequently, we also take some photographs along the corridor.

That's Levi Outlet...

The desert and mountain as the backdrop...

Godiva doggie dog,

& Godiva raspberry dark chocolate drink.

Then we start off again this time to the west wing. There are a few boutiques in the west wing that sell household products like the popcorn seeds, popcorn cooker and the coffee-maker. We shop around and I buy a watch from the Fossils boutique. After some time of shopping, we then go towards the east wing again for the gathering point so as to go for our dinner.

After waiting for some time for all the students to gather together, we finally head towards the carpark to head for our final destination, the Penang Malaysian restaurant. This time is a one hour drive there. When we reach there, we immediately order for our foods. Foods ordered include chicken rice, chicken satays, fried eggplants with chillies and fried kang kong with sambal chillies. They taste very much like the Singaporean-style grilled bbq-style foods, much to our delight.

After our dinner, Eileen then drives us home. After around forty minutes of car journey, we reach Joelyn's apartment house at Portland Drive, before we finally reach our destination. We bid Eileen goodbye before she drives off. Today is indeed a very fulfilling day for both of us.