Hey Hive!
I'm taking a pause from documenting international travels, as I just wrapped up my series on our 2023 trip to Tokyo - a trip that took over 10 months to write about! During this break, I'm excited to explore and share some of the hidden gems and vibrant spots we have right here in Singapore!
Back in November 2023, the shopping malls owned by CapitaLand here in Singapore were decorated with characters from LINE Friends!
The biggest mall in Singapore, Suntec City, had quite a few popups and decorations around the mall, including a huge Christmas tree and a mega ball pit!
Source: CNA Lifestyle
Since we're huge fans of the LINE Friends characters, especially Sally the duck, Sean and I went out on a date to go explore the mall and check out all the installations!
But first, we went to grab some lunch in the basement of the mall where a lot of food stalls and restaurants were located.
I've walked past this Turkish kebab restaurant called Turkish Lezzet House before and have always wanted to try it, so today was finally the day!
Their menu mainly features kebab with different meats and sides, either with fries, rice, pasta or vegetables. They also had kebab tombik (which looks like a burger) or roll like a burrito. Other types of dishes included BBQ platters, humus, baked rice, pide (Turkish pizza), and some dessert as well.
We've grown a liking for kebab since we spent 5 months in Finland for college some years back. But I've never actually seen a Tombik before so I was interested to try.
Since we weren't super hungry we decided to share it, and we could see the chef carving out the kebab meat from the vertical rotisserie and preparing the kebab tombik right in front of us!
It was so cool to see it prepared fresh and hot just for us! It was wrapped just like a burger and served with a roasted green chili, "hot and yummy"! The chef even kindly cut it in half for us.
When the chef asked if we wanted chili, I thought he was going to put chili sauce into the tombik to be honest. I did try the roasted green chili but I wasn't too keen on it.
The tombik itself was delicious and tasted so fresh! It was packed with the delicious kebab meat and had lettuce, tomatoes and their special sauce which had a unique flavour unlike those chain kebab places.
It was a very enjoyable meal and we were pretty satisfied after that snack. Since we had our fill, it was time to go for a walk around the mall!
I really liked this mural they had of all the LINE Friends characters in a Christmas house! It was such a cute artwork and I would've loved it if they sold a poster or a jigsaw puzzle of this. I feel like a lot of people who like these characters would totally buy it too.
There were a lot of kids playing in the ball pit, some with their parents. There was also staff on standby for safety reasons. The ball pit wasn't free either, as you had to spend a minimum of $50 in 2 receipts to get an event pass for the ball pit.
One side of the mall had the ball pit while the other side of the mall had these random stalls selling all kinds of lifestyle and home goods with more Christmas decorations hanging from the ceiling.
Other than the decorations there was also a LINE Friends pop-up store in the mall so we had to go check it out!
The whole store was also decorated with the Christmas-themed LINE Friends, just like the mural! It was so cute and it looked like we were stepping into a cartoon.
They had a lot of different LINE Friends merchandise, but most were similar to what we've seen in the official LINE Friends stores in Seoul and Japan.
They did have a collab or crossover with a Panda character though.
Turns out it was a collab with Kung Fu Panda! I think it might be because of the new movie that came out at the time?
The shop itself was actually quite small with just a few walls of plushies, lifestyle goods and stationery. They did have some cute plush keychains but none that I was very keen on.
Unfortunately there weren't any posters or jigsaw puzzles. I was quite bummed. These mirror stickers looked really cute too.
I thought this pop-up Christmas card looked so cute too! I actually really like cards and used to make them for my family's birthdays. But nowadays I don't see the point in buying them since everything is digital these days.
After we looked around the store, we went out into the mall once again to see what else we missed, and turns out we missed some big things!
There were these life-size statues of Cony, Brown, Sally and Choco that were so cute and shiny! What a great photo spot, especially with the Christmas backdrop.
There was also a huge Christmas tree outside the mall with the same statues sheltered under it.
I think there were extra character statues under the tree though since it was pretty huge. If I recall there was also a frog character named Leonard and Moon, who's just a kid with a round bald head.
Either way, we had a very nice time taking lots of photos with all the cute characters! It was a nice relaxing date right before the craziness that is Christmas and New Years.
Thanks for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
Gyudon and Gaming at Gamescom 🎮 - TacoCat’s Travels #294 (SG)
