The buying power this Christmas is really really strong.

People are buying everything anything under the sun, day and night.

Some maybe flushed from the big bonus from civil service, some 3 to 6 months bonus from the petrochemical industry, but I observed that some shoppers are too young to be in the work force.

Once the Christmas lights are up, I would avoid Orchard Road in the evenings. It was such a nightmare getting home, when I worked on Orchard Road several years ago. It took 45 minutes to walk from Takashimaya to Orchard MRT, trying hard not to get mugged, get molested, to avoid wheelchairs, cursing at stupid parents bringing their infants in strollers and their 80 year old grandmothers on walking frames, hoping that a bomb would not go off.

It is all very depressing.

One year I had a holiday in Busselton with Sister P and her family. It was more like my idea of Christmas. Seaside town, quiet in dusk, waves, Christmas trees in big houses. Freezing cold. Families stroliing.