I tried looking for information on The Gardens website but that site is appalling. There is no information whatsoever to be found about parking facilities or parking charges.

I actually got my information from the Isetan Kuala Lumpur website. Here are the new premier parking rates at The Gardens Mid Valley :-

RM5 for 3 hours?

I did use to park at the Premier section because it was always easier to find parking spaces there. Otherwise, parking at MidValley is just hell.

With this new change in the parking charges, I might find myself not frequenting either MidValley Megamall or The Gardens very much anymore. Not only is it hard to find parking, they now want an arm and a leg from us… in these uncertain economic times, for a chance to park in their mall.

Go figure!

If you love eco-friendly products but find it hard to get them commercially, you might want to pop by the Tiny Tapir. The Tiny Tapir stocks a variety of products that are environmentally friendly and lots of products for babies even beanies toys in the Zoobies range… oh wait! they are plush toys!

Based in Malaysia, the Tiny Tapir ships internationally but the shipping costs depends on the weight of the product. I have recently shopped through the Tiny Tapir online site and I must say that its been a good experience.

The site is a little hard to navigate at first if you enter via the main page. e.g. House & Garden encompases soaps and various shampoos and lotions which I might have looked under Women for. Also, Out and About encompasses the environmentally friendly bags like the Envirosax or Roototes and Roo shoppers and I did not think of looking there for these.

For Women, there is a range of cloth sanitary pads and various related products. Nursery covers everything for baby from cloth diapers to wee caps. I personally thought that wee caps were such a brilliant idea!

If you have jumped on the Rootote bandwagon (and if you have not, why not?! These tote bags are awesome!) then you’d be happy to know that Tiny Tapir has a good selection of them. The more popular designs sell out very quickly once they go online so you must be fast. The prices vary according to the size and material and according to the shipping costs too. The prices have gone up a little since I first got my first Rootote, but its still affordable for a pretty nice tote bag.

Tiny Tapir offers shipping by courier, poslaju or registered post within Malaysia with free shipping on purchases above RM300 (so share with friends!). If you live in KL, you can opt for cash on delivery but this is only at the KLCC area. In the alternative, you can pop by the Tiny Tapir store which is near KLCC. Go to the map on the site to find out where it is. Be warned that you will need to bring your own bag because they do not provide plastic bags in the interests of the environment.

I placed on order online recently to test out their online services. It was above RM300 so I qualified for free shipping. I did not see the shipping costs included in any event prior to that, only a charge of RM1. I found that a little puzzling. Anyway, upon confirmation of your order, you will receive an email with the total and a follow up email on where to bank in payment. Presently, Tiny Tapir only accept bank in into their bank accounts, no credit cards. It might put some people off, but since most of us have a Maybank account, it shouldn’t be that hard to make payment.

You also receive confirmation of receipt of payment and thereafter notification of your package being sent out. I think that is good. It keeps the buyer informed every step of the way about when they can expect their item.

I had a good experience shopping with Tiny Tapir and I hope you will too.

I popped by the new Tropicana City Mall to check it out during the weekend. According to the newspapers, it was opened to the public on 18 December 2008 which I reckon is for purposes of the Christmas crowd. I was there on Sunday and did not notice much of a crowd.

In fact most people there were curious about the place or maybe people living around the Damansara Utama and Damansara Jaya area.

If you come from the Sprint Highway, it is easy to make a mistake and turn into Damansara Intan. So keep your eyes peeled for the signs and turn AFTER the Damansara Intan (San Francisco Steakhouse) turnoff. Parking for now is underground and is free. You still have to take a ticket, but its free parking for now.

The mall is still relatively untenanted. The main tenants are Carrefour and the GSC Cinema. However, neither are open for now. Carrefour has its signs up but shutters are closed. GSC on the top floor has no sign of activity.

I found that I nearly slipped and fell a few times because the tiles were very slippery with dust. I attribute it to the ongoing construction in and around the mall that is still going on despite the mall being opened to the public. The construction dust makes the tiles rather treacherous.

There is also no ATM up just yet and I noticed that none of the stores can accept credit cards just yet because their phone lines are not in. Due to that, I was unable to make a number of planned purchases.

I found the layout of the Tropicana City Mall rather haphazard. From where I parked, I had to walk the whole length of the mall before I could find an escalator to go to the main concourse area. There isn’t much available in terms of food just yet too.

I reckon it will be a mall to serve the neighbourhood, much like Bangsar Village or Bangsar Shopping Centre. If you live outside of the area, it is pretty much just another mall unless you plan to visit some of the specialty boutiques or stores in the mall.

I will pop by from time to time because I have a friend who has set up shop there. However, other than that, I cannot see myself using it as a hangout place unless you live in the area.

Since expressing my horror at the high parking rates at the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur, I’ve since worked out how NOT to incur that sort of wallet crippling parking charges. There was once when I went for a movie and ended up paying something like RM9 for parking alone. That’s nearly the cost of a movie ticket! Worst of all, you need some high powered eyeglasses to see the parking rates because you will zoom by so fast when you pick up your ticket at the machine as you enter.

So, these days, when I plan to visit the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur, I don’t park there, but at Starhill Gallery right across the street. Starhill Gallery might house some of the most high end upmarket brands in Malaysia, but their parking is so much more affordable compared to the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur, especially if you go in the evening.

Starhill Gallery parking rates are RM5 flat rate after 6pm on weekdays and flat rate of RM5 on Saturdays and Sundays. I think that a short walk across the road is no inconvenience at all for a savings in parking charges!

I previously highlighted Adambeauty.com as an online cosmetics retailer of mainly Japanese beauty products. At that time, I had not bought anything from the site so did not have first hand experience.

However, I recently purchased something from the site and I must say, the experience has been reasonably good.

I decided that waiting for Kanebo’s new Coffret D’or collection to hit our shores was going to take too long. So, I hopped over to Adambeauty.com and purchased a palette from them.

The problem with shopping on Adambeauty, as I have pointed out before, is the fact that the site is predominantly in Chinese. So, if you can read Chinese characters, it’ll be easy for you. For someone like me who cannot, I have to rely on whatever little English is available, and intuition. It might be useful for Adambeauty to get someone to write copy of their site in English, at least for the shipping and payment terms. The rest of it is quite easy to guess.

If you are English language based and are wondering how to shop on Adambeauty.com I have prepared a simple tutorial here:-

1. When you go to Adambeauty.com you will see a list of brands on the right. Click on whichever brand catches your fancy.

2. For our purposes I have used Kanebo as an example and here is the page you will be taken to. Click on any of the sub-brands of Kanebo along the right side to be taken to a list of items for sale under that brand. For my purposes I have left it at Coffret D’or which is Kanebo’s newest launch.

3. Scroll down the product list to the item you want. In our case, it is the Coffret D’or 3D Highlighting Eyes eyeshadow palette, and click on it. You will be shown a list of colour shades in this product range at the bottom of the screen. If an item is sold out for the time being, it will say so, but they restock often so check back later if you want it.

4. The prices are displayed in Hong Kong Dollars but if you click on the blue BUY button you will be taken to your shopping cart. There, you will see the quantity of your order and prices in HKD, USD and RMB. Note that the USD price includes the shipping and packaging cost. However, US$2 will be added to your order at checkout for registered post. This is a PER ORDER charge not per item.

5. You can click on “RETURN TO SHOPPING” to continue shopping or if you have completed your purchase, click on OVERSEAS. You will then be taken to Checkout. NOTE: For overseas (outside of HONG KONG AND CHINA) shipping only PAYPAL is accepted.

6. Click on CASHIER and you will be taken to your order confirmation page. If everything is in order (check your item and price. The US$2 is added for registered shipping which is compulsory) click on the PAYPAL button right at the bottom. You will then be taken to your paypal sign in page for you to complete payment of your order.

7. After payment is made, you will receive an email confirmation of payment to your email address registered with paypal, and Adambeauty will also email you your registered post tracking number. This enables you to track the package from the time it leaves Hong Kong (and if your country’s postal service permits it) to the time it reaches your country. I managed to track mine up to the time it said “Despatched” and I received it not long after I checked!

My package took about 1 week to get here from the time I made my order. However, Malaysia is relatively near to Hong Kong. If you are in Europe or USA I’m not sure if it’ll take a little bit longer. I’ll definitely be doing my Japanese makeup shopping on Adambeauty.com for Japan exclusive and hard to get items!

Ships Internationally: Yes
Accepts Paypal: Yes
Etailer [rating:4/5]

I went over to browse Chicwear.com.my after reading Giddy Tiger’s post about it and she has since updated with her recent order experience and some tips on how they might improve.

Chicwear being a lingerie boutique, their selection tends towards the sexy and sensuous. Don’t expect to find flannel pyjamas here, or even shorts sets (though some variety would be nice – even Victoria’s Secret and La Senza stock regular comfy but humdrum pjs). What you should expect are nighties with lace and satin – very feminine stuff. Some designs even tend towards looking a bit risque so don’t enter if you are prudish!

Chicwear presently carries designs from 4 lines – Coemi, Miran, Fantasy and Dreamgirl. I’d never heard of them before, but then I’m not that much into fancy lingerie before this. Browsing the site is easy because although its quite picture intensive, the pictures load quickly, which is useful. You don’t want to have to wait forever before the photos load.

I do have some comments for improvement though:

• I failed to notice that there was more than one page of products because the drop down page number was quite unnoticeable. It might help to have it say Page 1, 2, 3 at the top and bottom of the selection rather than having a drop down box which is easy to miss.
• The sizes available aren’t very updated and its frustrating to click to order a size only to have a pop up box tell you that its not available. They seem to have fixed it a bit since my order though.
• It would have for each item to have measurements of length because nightgowns do come in different lengths and from the pictures it sometimes isn’t clear how long it is supposed to be.
• Having pictures of the back and front of the product will help customers decide whether it is suitable for them or whether they like the look.
• Oh and the pictures of some of the models on the site are quite scary even if the products they are modelling are nice. e.g. this one below. Nightie looks adorable but model scares me.

For Malaysians, shipping is free by courier, which is awesome. I had my order arrive within a week of my order, in a lovely red gift box and wrapped in tissue. It was very elegantly packed.

Its nice that Chicwear ships internationally for those outside of Malaysia but it would be better for international commerce, I feel, if Chicwear accepts Paypal for such transactions.

Size-wise, I’m happy to report that the sizing chart provided on the site is very useful and quite accurate. I ordered the size which corresponded to the measurements shown on the sizing chart and the nightie fit like a charm, which made me happy. The colour however was a little off. On the site it looked peach although was described as “ruddy” but when I received it, it was a burnt orange shade which wasn’t ugly, just not what I was expecting.

Ordering and checking out was easy. You must sign up as a member in order to purchase an item but signing up is free anyway. When you have selected your items and are going to pay you will be redirected to the Worldpay site, where you make your credit card payments. You will receive confirmation emails to your registered address with your sales order information. I found it easy and pain-free. You can also pay through Maybank or CIMB Bank or even by cheque if you’d prefer not to transact online. The payment methods are here.

Chicwear also operates an exchange and refund policy but I haven’t used it because my item came exactly as expected and in the correct size.

All in all, I’d say it was a positive experience shopping with this online lingerie retailer. Its my first time dealing with a local online company and I’m happy to report that it was as painfree as it was dealing with an international company with the additional benefit of being able to contact them in person should a problem arise. Guys would benefit most from this online service – it saves them the embarrassment of having to walk into a lingerie store and it arrives as a beautiful gift although I’m unsure if they allow you to include a message with the gift. But make sure you know your lady’s size before ordering to avoid embarassment and hassle eh?

Ships Internationally: Yes
Accepts Paypal: No
Etailer [rating:4/5]

Ah yes, that is a timely reminder indeed!

I used to be a member of Golden Screen Cinemas (GSC) though i could never really understand why, when they did not have online bookings previously. I recall that you could make some sort of booking online but you would be given a reservation number to take to the counter to collect your ticket.

Well, in recent weeks, I have been going to the movies again, and this time, I just realised that you can actually buy your tickets and pay for them online! This makes life so much easier especially when you are too busy to queue. There is an additional cost of RM1 but its a small price to pay for convenience.

What I actually liked was the payment through credit card facility. When you purchase a ticket online and pay using your credit card, you simply have to feed the same credit card into the ticketing kiosk at the cinema, key in your reservation number or IC number and have your ticket printed out! Easy as that.

Here are the steps:

1. Sign up for a free account and log into www.gsc.com.my
2. Click on Showtimes and Ticketing -> E-ticketing
3. Select your cinema, movie and time
4. Select the number of tickets required
5. Choose your seating (I loved this the most! The idea of being able to choose your seats!)
6. Confirm reservation and make payment.

That’s all there is to it! Remember though that you must bring along the same credit card that you used to make payment and you must key in the IC number of the person who owns the GSC account not the person who owns the credit card.

They also accept payment through www.maybank2u.com.my as well, but I have not tried that as it requires you to pick up your tickets from the reservation counter. For the e-ticketing, currently only certain cinemas are supported:

• Penang – Gurney Plaza
• Penang – Queensbay Mall
• Penang – Sunway Carnival
• Kuala Lumpur – Mid Valley
• Kuala Lumpur – Berjaya Times Square
• Petaling Jaya – 1 Utama New Wing

The new cinema at Pavilion Kuala Lumpur is coming soon so it is likely to be supported too. This online service has just taken buying movie tickets to new heights. The next thing they can do is allow online purchases of refreshments! That way we won’t have to join the long queues for popcorn and coke!

Etailer overall [rating:4/5]

I was at 2 different Jusco department stores where I observed this thing called a Priority Cashier Lane at the supermarket section:-

I was impressed because what this lane does is give priority to people who are disabled, pregnant women and senior citizens. I think it is very commendable of Jusco to recognise that these category of people should not have to wait in queue and that they should get priority service.

I have not seen how it works. At both times, there were no people from these 3 categories present and so the cashier counter was serving “normal” customers. I would like to know though, if it works and if they implement it i.e. whether if a pregnant lady was to join the queue with 2 trolley loads of groceries, will they give her preferential treatment to allow her to jump queue even though there are 3 people with 2 items each in hand? Technically they should but I wonder what it’ll be like in practice.

Cynicism aside, kudos to Jusco!

I snapped this picture of the parking rates for the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur shopping centre. I thought the rates were steep. But no more steep than say, Suria KLCC or Lot 10. The autopay machines could be more conspicuous though. I parked in B2 and could not find a single autopay machine on the floor.

I was hoping that since it was Pavilion’s opening day, they would waive the parking fee for starters. It was too good to hope for because parking charges start today itself. There is no flat rate parking fee on weekends though, which is a pity. I’m a bit of a skinflint so I balk at having to pay lots of money for parking – money I could spend better on shopping!

Anyone who is anyone in Kuala Lumpur would be aware of the large monstrosity coming up just opposite The Westin Hotel and Starhill Gallery. I’d been watching it with interest for a while, just to see what stores will be moving into this new mall.

Today was the soft opening of The Pavilion Kuala Lumpur, a new shopping mall right in the shopping belt of Kuala Lumpur – Bukit Bintang.

I decided to pop by to take a look at what they had to offer, not really expecting anything very much. However, I was pleasantly surprised at the mix of stores they have in the mall. Right next to the usual high street stores like Giordano and Padini, you find higher end stores like Banana Republic and the Gap. Then, look harder and you’ll see the truly high end stores – Burberry, Hermes, Coach and Marc by Marc Jacobs just to name a few.

The anchor tenants are Parkson Pavilion, Tangs and Mercato. The Parkson here is unlike any other grubby Parkson store. This is a more distinguished looking one, and has a good vibe about it. I am happy to  note that Tangs is making its come back to Kuala Lumpur. I liked shopping there when they were in Starhill because they had some brands not found else where. Their sales too were quite awesome. Mercato is a supermarket that manages to look classy and sophisticated – it looks like something a New Yorker would shop at. I love it!

For now, not all the stores are open and there is still a lot of renovation going on. I did find that the walkways weren’t as large or as wide as that in say, Midvalley Megamall or 1 Utama High Street. In fact, there was a bit of a Suria KLCC feel about the place. Fitting because I can see Pavilion giving Suria KLCC a run for their money.

Pavilion is smack in the middle of Bukit Bintang and with its mix of mid-high end stores, it is exactly like KLCC. In fact, just looking around, a shopper won’t have to leave the Bukit Bintang area anymore because the existing malls + Pavilion are more than sufficient to cover most if not all the brands available to the consumers, and then some.

Some brands like Khiel’s and RMK can only be found here at the Pavilion, so I can see it being the focal hub of many in time. The malls that should watch out will be Times Square and Suria KLCC. Midvalley Megamall, with the introduction of the Gardens and Isetan and Robinsons seem to be holding their own in the mid-range market.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about how to get there and the parking so stay tuned!