I didn't want to pre-order my book coz I wasn't really very attracted by the pre-order gifts. I was quite amused with the article in LIFE on Friday about the different incentives the bookshops were offering to get people to go to their shops at 7.01am in the morning to get the book. Most shops were offering T-shirts, vouchers, free gifts, etc, etc. This one shop (I can't remember the name) was offering..... the chance to open the box and get your picture taken with the first book from the box!!! WOW! ROFL.
Anyway, I decided that Carrefour was giving the best offer... a $20 carrefour voucher, free vcd and a goody bag. My friends and I then decided, what the heck, let's go blow our Saturday morning by waking up at unearthly hours (for a Saturday morning) to queue up for the book.
Woke up at 5.30am on Saturday morning and took a bus and MRT to Plaza Singapura. The usual entrance from the MRT was closed... mildy irritating... so we exited by main MRT exit and entered Plaza Sing to find that the book launch was at basement 2.... kinda stupid, considering the entrance at B2 from the mRT was closed. It was already 6.40am so we were kinda wondering if we would get our voucher coz it was onli for the first 200 customers. When we reached the entrance.. we found to our amusement, that there were onli about 20 customers ahead of us. lolz.
So, we waited patiently in line for abt 20mins, and they promptly opened at 7am with no fanfare and started selling the books. I was mildly disappointed at the lack of any event... I mean.. no music.. no atmosphere... no effort. Quite lame. The goodie bags were piled in a carrefour cart, and the whole place was just quite YAWN. But, nevermind lor, my purpose was to get the voucher and the book. And I achieved both happily! When we left, there were about 50 people in the queue. I thought it was a little sad until I went to Suntec...
My frenz and I decided to go to the Burger King at Suntec for breakfast. We remembered Harris (the upmarket version of Popular) was having their launch at Suntec so we decided to pop by for a look. It was even SADDER than Suntec. They had two people dressed up in what appeared to be Hagrid and Dumbledore, but it was seriously pathetic. They looked like they hadn't eaten in months. And we found out from a salesperson that they had less than 10 people there when the doors opened. lolz.
I guess Harry Potter is popular, but not much that Singaporeans will go head over heels to buy the book. I wonder how good were the first day sales.
Well, it was fun queuing up with my friends and having breakfast at BK. And the book... well.. that will be my next post!
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