SPORTS SHOE SHOPPING – QUEENSWAY MALL

Moving to a new country requires you to recreate your training schedule and I figured I should treat myself to a new pair of running shoes to pound the streets with. I turned in my old Asics for the current model, it feels like I’m trading in my spouse for a younger model. The red-trim Asic 2030 runners had got me around a lot of the country, up a lot of hills and from A to B and back again quicker than the outbound. They’re still functionable, but not quite up to the job any more, the edges have gone soft, the support is lacking and, well, they’re just a bit drab.

I know you could pick up a pair of runners at any of the many sports shops in any of the many malls across the island, but to be sure of a better deal and to feel smug about your purchase, you’re better off venturing to Queensway Mall, an older outlet but one that harbours every athletic sporting good you might want. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling, front to back with runners, trainers, badminton, squash, tennis, football, rugby, rock-climbing, skateboarding, hiking, trekking, beach, high-street, racquets, t-shirts, shorts: anything you might want to get you back out into the sporting world.

It’s truly jaw dropping the range of choice you have here, at some good deals too compared to high street prices. Any shoe your foot might prefer or require is here, although you’ve got to know what you’re after as there’s none of the helpful customer service that puts you on a gait-measuring tool or an instep sensor and suggests a shoe. The only help you’re likely to find is someone to grab a size ten from the back room and lace it for you.

What I did find, though, was that a lot of the stores have exactly the same prices which saves you the dilemma of trying to find the same shoe at a lower price. It’s a good informal agreement, leaving the only separator as the notional customer service. So after two hours of circling the three floors, lacing and unlacing, I return to the original store and purchase a new pair of blue-trim Asics 2150s at S$50 off the normal high-street price. In between times, I found my impulse purchasing taking over and I was loaded with new shorts, quick-dry singlets, running visor, waist-belt and water bottle and even a new pair of street-runners which I bought while waiting for the afternoon’s deluge to clear.


All in all I had a good sporty afternoon in the confines of a compact mall. The only downside of the aging store was the pungent smell of bak kut teh (pigs organs) being stewed and boiled for lunch, so if you’re olfactory nerves are on the sensitive side, best make it a swift sporty selection!


Shovel