Vegas – Shop, Learn, Watch – Living for Experiences

Another new financial year has begun. It means two things for salespeople like myself – sales achievement is reset to zero and time to fly to Vegas for our annual sales conference.

This year, I flew a day earlier for shopping and recovery from jet lag. US Premium Outlet is one of the best places to shop as one can find all the brands in one big compound. To top it off, the prices are highly discounted compared to prices in Singapore which in general high mark-up. Of course, I do know they are past season’s which doesn’t bother me.

This trip was a fruitful trip for me, both professional and personal front. Let’s talk about the personal front which is more interesting.

A couple of months ago, I simplified my wardrobe and realised that most of my clothes are worn out and need to be refreshed. Therefore, my plan for this trip was to shop and buy clothes and shoes to revamp my wardrobe for both work and casual wear.

As always, I packed my luggage the night before I caught the flight out to Vegas. As the plan was to shop and buy clothing and shoes, I packed minimally with half luggage filled, leaving the other half for my new love. 👗👠👟🎒

Upon arrival in Vegas, we rented a car for our shopping spree. By the time we checked-in at the hotel, it was about four in the afternoon. I made sure I did not lie down on the bed as I know I will fall into deep sleep, especially after being on the road for almost 24 hours. After dropping my luggage in the hotel room, I freshened up and met my colleagues in the hotel lobby.

We took it easy, drove to Fashion Show mall for some light shopping to adjust our body clock to the US time zone. Upon reaching the Fashion Show mall, first thing first was to get ourselves hydrated and also some snacks as we were hungry. Had green apples lemonade drink, a very refreshing drink, and mini dogs before we split our ways for our shopping spree.

I bummed around the mall, not looking for anything specific, but just to stay awake. Having said that, I managed to buy three tops from Super Dry at very good prices as they were offering up to 50% discount. In Singapore, that would have easily cost more than double. Mission partially accomplished – revamping of my casual wear, at least the tops. I checked out a few more shops, met my colleagues for dinner before calling it a day.

We had dinner at Ellis Island Hotel & Casino, a family-owned hotel. Glad we shared the main course among the ladies as the portion was super huge. I have never seen such huge and thick steak.

The next day was outlet shopping day. We set off early for breakfast at IHOP then to the Premium Outlet at North to shop, shop, shop.

Within one morning, I bought seven dresses from Elie Tahari, with excellent help from the shop assistant. First, she helped me with the dress size. After I put on one to get her opinion, she saw and knew what suited me. She brought another ten more dresses of different cuts and colours that are further marked down for me to try on.

I intended to purchase three pieces of dresses from here and buy a few from Boss and Calvin Klein. Instead, I bought seven dresses all from Elie Tahari. All thanks to the amazing shop assistant. She gave great recommendations. The dresses fit well on me and the prices were also very good. On average, the dresses I bought were marked down at > 60%. With that, my wardrobe for work has been revamped.

Next, I bought two pairs of sneakers from Skechers and a pair of flats from Cole Haan. Then I saw my colleagues at Adidas, where I bought a cap and t-shirts for exercise.

We had lunch at Shake Shack where we talked about what we bought and where were the good deals. Shortly after lunch, we headed back to the hotel to drop our stuff and registered ourselves for the sales conference. We are all set for our sales conference.

I thought I would have time to catch a thirty minutes power nap before my next batch of colleagues arrived at Vegas. Little do I know, when I arrived at the hotel lobby, I saw them checking in at the hotel reception. Similarly, they were all ready for outlet shopping to fight off jet lag. Typical Singaporeans, wide awake when we go shopping, especially at US Outlets where almost everything is half the price compared to back home.

There goes my power nap and now for my part two of outlet shopping before our team dinner. We went back to the same outlet and I visited the shops that I didn’t manage to check out.

First, I head over to the Nike store, bought a pair of running shoes. Then to Gap, and bought a few tank tops. Popped into Polo Ralph and Banana Republic stores, nothing caught my eyes which I was glad. Popped into the Coach and Tory Burch stores, once again I was glad nothing caught my eyes. Guess I have enough bags, shoes and casual wears.

Having bought casual tops, time to get some jeans. Headed over to 7 For All Mankind for their Skinny Boyfriend jeans. After trying on the sizes, I bought two pairs of the same cut, one in black and another in blue. Love the fabric and fit. I usually have difficulty looking for the right fit, 7FAM offers the perfect fit for me.

Final stop, Tumi. I bought a blue backpack to replace my worn out green backpack that I have been using for more than five years.

I am so glad I bought what I planned to buy and now my wardrobe has been revamped. Time to offload my old clothes, shoes and bags to Salvation Army which I will share more in my next post.

Besides shopping, Singaporeans’ favourite pastime, is to watch performances. We booked our tickets to watch Zumanity by Cirque du Soleil at New York New York. The performance was interactive and entertaining, the audience were super sporting. Initially we wanted to watch Michael Jackson ONE at Mandalay Bay, unfortunately, tickets were sold out.

On the last evening of the conference, we attended the concert by Chain Smokers and One Republic. We had a great time. Music was good that I was high on music without consuming any alcohol.