Back just in time for midnight, we kept a flight schedule that’d inspire a nod of approval from the grabbiest of grabber Singaporean travellers, I think: leaving in the morning and returning late, in order to maximise the time there.

And yet it wasn’t quite enough. Even though I daresay we’re more familiar with Causeway Bay now than I had imagined, there seemed to be a couple of things missing, a place or two that required a revisit. (No, perhaps not Causeway Bay, yes.)

Whilst checking in at the Singapore airport, the woman at the counter had said with a wink, “Happy shopping.” I thought it strange at first, but maybe her little cliché held a lot more weight than I realised; upon unpacking, I realised I had bought quite a number of (surprisingly similar-looking) clothing items for myself, and my baggage had almost doubled in weight from the time I left and returned.

The only thing is, all that supposedly glorious Hong Kong food had somehow passed us by. Or at least, my body went into shock after the first enormously enormous, scrumptious dinner we had of teppanyaki that I had to graze on junk and snacks for the remaining days. (Helloooo Krispy Kreme!)

And I went to famous-for-goose Yung Kee and had not-as-famous char siew. I hear cries of outrage boiling over but put it this way: if I don’t know what I’m missing, I’m not missing it, right?

Whilst shopping, I was thinking about people, and how resilient the human psyche is at rosying up a situation for one’s perception. From many a previous shopping outing with mother/sister/friends, I realised that people, when they’re at a sale and spot a good bargain, quickly pat themselves on the back for a good find—as if some intricate skill was involved in reading a price tag.

What’s more interesting is that when they’ve had the bad luck of picking out the most expensive and unsalesy item in a sale, there often ensues even more back-patting, as they tell themselves that they merely have “expensive taste”, while they resign themselves to the sweet tragedy of their classiness.

Without knowing it, I probably engaged in this little self-dialogue the entire time too. And I have double the luggage home to show for it.