Today

We went to a mall at Novena. Uppity mall specialising in children's needs.

All the pretty children's clothing outlets, toys r us, customised cup, mug, tshirt services, aircon children's playground, and a baking school for children.

The mall is running a promotion of Alice in the Wonderland theme. Where the whole atrium is dressed up in colourful and fancy balloons.



Common for mall promotion these days. We were happy to find out there is a show starting at 1pm. But, to our disappointment, the show was replaced by a tea party for a small group of children from a childcare centre.




We then went and walk around toys r us instead.

When we came out, we saw that there were many activities lined up for the kids to play at the tea party. A few stations with activities like face painting, nail painting, scrap booking, and other crafts. About six characters fully made up and dressed in Alice in the Wonderland characters were there to entertain the children with games and songs and dances.

Like for about 20 kids.

So, while these kids were having fun, people gathered by and watched. As you can see in the second picture, about as many adults were entertaining those few kids. Everything about it screamed uppity, extravagance and exclusiveness.

If this had been for a private party, I wouldn't have seen it, wouldn't know and wouldn't have cared. As a shopper however, the exclusiveness of the tea party made me feel very distanced. They could have opened up more places to, say the customers who spent more than $50 that day, and included more children.
At least, today I know. This ain't my type of mall. I am reminded of the children education carnival we attended at the National Library last week. Handmade games, many different stations, freebies abound, fair crowd of school children. That is our kind of party.