Orchard Central Escapades
Posted by Ying Huang on October 5, 2009
I have always put off going to Orchard Central since it isn’t exactly in the heart of orchard road and at least a good 10 minutes walk in the sun from anywhere I would usually park my car. But after my dad watched a short introduction of the place on tv, it was only a matter of hours before we would all be hauled over there to nose-poke about.
Orchard Central is one of the new malls on the far end of Orchard Road, designed and constructed in collaboration with the National Arts Council. As such, the place is reeking with design, artistic whims, and installations of all sorts. We even got a little Art Trail map from this helpful girl on the first floor which takes you around all the 7 art pieces scattered on the different floors of the building. There are also performances going on, with a three person band playing the evening we were there.
One of the outstanding features of the place is the long convoys of escalators running on the outside of the building, reminiscent of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, just with no protective shell around you. It’s actually pretty terrifying. We couldn’t go all the way up, and some of us discovered our fears of heights on the journey.
This escalator was found on level 5 or 6 i think. It goes up to maybe the roof…
We headed to the bit of the building choc-a-block with food. One of them was this cute little Ben and Jerry’s place with a giant peace sign made from a metal frame and lots of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream tub lids. I thought it looked yummy…
This is the view from our restaurant. The grey jagged wall directly opposite us is in actual fact the rock climbing facility in the place. It’s TERRIFYING.
As you can see, the rock climbing place actually starts on level 3 or something. Adds to the whole freak out factor.
The wall outside Ben and Jerry’s was constructed from old VCR players stacked on top of one anther and spray painted in gold or silver. really really cool.
The lift doors were glass so you can see everything as the lift went up or down. Also made it possible for the people outside to see your fear stricken expression as the lift travels downwards at a freakish speed.
A really cool map of the place.
This is one of the art pieces in the mall. Functioning as an escalator from the outside to the second floor of the building, the piece was formed from a series of 294 pictures taken of the Istana gardens and composited on glass panels. Really pretty.
I like this shop. It’s got lots of cute little soft toys and sells alot of interesting nonsense. I like the little giraffes and hippos at the back of the store sewn from bits of patterned cloth…
They also sell poker chips, which led me to the discovery that I really want a set of those.
So, that was the end of our trip to Orchard Central yesterday. But…
Today, my mom and I both decided we didn’t have enough time to see all the shops yesterday and went back right after lunch. Shopping was horrendous fun! I bought 3 new blouses and a pair of jeans. All really really pretty. =D I LIKE THEM LOTS.
After lots and lots of shopping and viewing all the shops in the mall in 3.5 hours, we headed to this place on the 5th floor which seemed to sell some derivative of fruit. I assumed this was fruit juice and offered to treat ma to some watermelon juice to fuel our shopping weary limbs. However, we found out it was actually a fruit tart place. So we ended up with a pot of tea (with which came a little pink tea cosy) and a banana and chocolate tart. The tart was DELICIOUS. The tea was really fragrant.
food tends to taste better after a hearty day of shopping. =D
