Social Distancing Log: Day 5 - Groceries

I was out of coffee - that's essential right?

I also hadn't been able to snag a grocery delivery spot for the last 5 days.

The current Singapore directive says to stay home other than for school or work and only head to malls for essentials. I headed to the grocery store alone and felt very uncomfortable doing it.

For reference, it was Sunday March 29, 2020. Sunday is the only day that most people have off, so it is usually the busiest day of the week in Singapore. I hit the main road and noticed, it was devoid of people walking. Any day of the week you pass people every 10 feet or so on the sidewalk shown above. I did pass people, but only a few. There were not many people waiting at the bus stop. Tons and tons of cars passing as usual though.

The plaza in front of HarbourFront Centre (the mall) usually has a number of groups hanging out front and a steady stream of people going in. There were a few people, but no one sitting around.

Inside there centre was empty where the PopUp Markets are always found. No "close quarters" bargain shopping to happen anytime soon here. Those escalator would normally have 3 times as many people on it.

The escalator down to the MRT and the short cut to the grocery store in VivoCity Mall's basement was where I got the real shock. I've never seen this escalator empty. It's usually a super busy corridor. I'm sure you can imagine how many people these spaces are made for.

When I got to the MRT entrance a train had obviously just let out, so I let the crowd pass before I continued. It took only a minute or 2. Normally this is just a solid stream of people leaving the MRT station and entering the largest mall in Singapore.

The mall had some people. There were one or two tables seated in each restaurant I peeked into. The social spacing lines of 1 metre have been added for queues at every restaurant, stall, and store in the mall. I noticed a number of people in bright orange shirts that said "Keep Vivo Safe"; I'm assuming these are the Social Spacing Monitors that places are putting in place to help people follow the new rules.

At the grocery store, I found a new sign indicating there's a Priority Shopping Hour for seniors, those with disabilities and the pregnant from 8-9 am now. I'll need to remember to tell our new Helper.

Inside the store, was a lot more crowded than the mall corridors, but still this was very quiet for this grocery store. You could tell some people were being aware of the 1 metre social distancing waiting back from a display while one or 2 other selected their items, stepping aside when passing to allow more space, waiting to go down an aisle. Other were oblivious, crowding in close to pick apples, standing 6 inches behind the person picking out meat.  

This was even more evident on the "flat escalator" that you take with your buggy to the second floor of the grocery store. There was about 6 foot space between myself and the person in front of and behind me, but the down escalator had people bunched together it's whole length. I think some social spacing signs will be needed for escalators, but who knows.

The most surprising part of this whole adventure was there were no queues. Usually Self Check out has a long line waiting because it goes quickly. The tellers had no more than one person in line, and there were tons with no customers. I guess this why I can't get an online shopping delivery window.

The queue at Self Check out did pick up a bit before I was done. The people totally disregarded the yellow lines and were standing the typical 6 inches apart. I was surprised that the clerks didn't explain the spacing law, because there were a few in this area. You can now be fined $10,000 for not standing 1 metre apart in a queue. Although, it sounds like these first days are more about raising awareness.

There were more people on the main floor of the mall, but still very very quiet for this giant mall. I was so relived to be done and out where there were no people, that I stopped for a second to catch my breath and almost got caught by the fountain. I was actually standing over the fountain spouts, but thankfully the water started at the other end!

I would have been some upset to have soaked my jumbo pack of toilet paper, but the girls would have thought it was hilarious. They would have sworn I'd been playing in the fountain.

Despite the cart and bags being heavy, I walked. I had $100 of groceries, including a large bag of rice, 20 apples, pineapples, vegetables, cans of condensed milk for my coffee, etc. I kind of regretted my decision to walk about 1/2 way home - the buses passing looked to have only one or two people on them.