Thanksgiving Traditions

Paul's trade (dept) came over to our place on Thanksgiving day for dinner. We had BBQ... otah, chicken wing, mussels, satay, fried fishball/sotong ball, onion rings, fried bee hoon and Bubur Chacha. Yummy....

Thanksgiving is a big thing over here in the US, kinda like CNY for us Chinese. Family comes together for dinner and gathering. In fact, it is bigger than Christmas. Majority of the stores and restaurants would not be open on Thanksgiving day. But the biggest day is "the day after Thanksgiving" (which always fall on a Friday) where all the stores will open early and the whole of US will have the biggest sale of the year. Singapore Sale? no fight at all.... the savings are legit, and not old stock or lousy stuff.

There were laptops going for $199!!! And memory sticks/cards selling for less than $20!!! Electrical/computer stuff are usually at very low prices... and people queue hours before the store opens. As you will see in the pictures, the guys were having big discussions on where/what/how to get the best/cheapest deals. This is one time that I see men so crazy about shopping... it's amazing!!

We have another Thanksgiving tradition here.... which is to shop at the Factory outlets. I remember that during my 1st trip to US, every year we'll set off Friday early morning at about 3am and start driving towards LA (where the nearest & best factory outlet is located-Cabazon). We'll reach Cabazon 4 hrs later and start shopping. Shops will open especially early on Friday, can be between 5am to 7am. Early birds, those who shop between 7 -10am will have extra 20% discount on total purchase. You can see stores like Polo Ralph, A/X, Tommy Hillfiger, Coach, DKNY all flocked with people. Unlike sales in Spore or Msia, savings are genuinely high. I've bought DKNY leather boots for only $20!! And Paul's got Timberland shoes for $40!! Where to find??!! :O)

This year, we skipped that. With this huge tummy of mine, how to wrestle with the crowd? So we decided to take things easy. Instead we went to queue for $20 gift vouchers given by the Military shopping mall, called BX. They didn't have such promotions during our 1st trip, and heard from friends here that BX gave out vouchers to the first 100 people and it was for 2 days. This year, they were giving the vouchers out again, but for 4 days!!!

So, on Thu, we went at 6am to queue when the store opens at 8am. Wanted to go on Fri at 3am to queue when store opens at 5am, but Paul wasn't feeling well, so we stayed at home. On Sat, we queued at 3am as the store opens at 5am again... nearly didn't get the voucher. Luckily BX were giving away 10 more vouchers... so we were in that 10%. Wanted to queue again on Sun, but we were already in Las Vegas. Anyways.... we got a total of $80 and we used it all on Valerie... except for Paul's ciggy.

Thats our Thanksgiving tradition.... shopping, crazily. Can't wait till next year!!!