Case File 045 - The Shop (Part 1)

Photo credit: Christian DeKnock @cdeknock

“Dreams are guidance messages from our subconscious mind. Sometimes you'll be surprised by the way the messages are related to our physical world."

David and I planned to open a shop for almost a year; we stocked up our crystals and even chose a date we are supposed to open our new shop, which would be one year from July 2017. My brother bought an industrial park unit located in Tampines Retail Park (located at the furthest east side of Singapore). He offered us half the unit so that we could finally have a shop front and the project was due to complete by the mid of August 2018.

When 2018 approached, we were all excited about the up and coming new shop that would be available to us soon. So came the fateful day when we took a look at the new shop’s location and layout, and to our disappointment it was not as ideal as we thought it would be.

We went from excited to almost totally giving up on our plan to have a shop. That was  until we decided that we needed to get out of our comfort zone and started to search for suitable retail shops for rent. But in Singapore the retail rental rates were so high that most new businesses would not have a chance to grow, as they were merely making enough to pay rent.

But still we decided to give it a try, and we budgeted our rent at a comfortable range for the both of us. Well, trust me it was not easy to find a good shop frontage with enough space for retail and, at the same time, spacious and quiet enough to hold a meditation class at night. Either the space is too small or too expensive to rent.

Both of us have been looking for a suitable shop space since August 2018. It took us a month to find the ideal one that we were looking for.

Initially, we decided on a shop front in an old, quiet shopping mall, Adelphi Shopping Centre, we thought it would be ideal because of its central location, large full window shop frontage and quiet enough for meditation classes.

And all things came to a halt when we decided to call up the landlord to place a deposit for the shop.

The Dream…

The night before, we decided to commit to the shop, I told David

“I think the shop in Adelphi would seem to be the best shop so far we saw.”

And David agreed.

So that night, I had a strange dream, I dreamt that I was trying to show my mother my new shop. But she could not get to my shop, as she was on the escalator moving downwards while I was on an upper floor waiting for her. And she complained,

“Do you know how difficult it is for me to get to your shop?”

After those words, the scenario changed to me being at my new shop with a couple of friends that I could not recognise, and they told me to go for a lunch break with me. And they mentioned that,

“Hey! You know your shop is near to a very famous Yong Tau Foo* stall? Let go and eat at the store.”

*Yong Tau Foo – a famous local dish that is served with self-picked tofu and vegetables with a side of sweet and chilli sauce.

So my friends in my dream led me to the famous food stall that was within the vicinity of my new shop. The strange thing was that I had to walk up some stairs and then walk down again to get to the food stall.

I woke up from my dream feeling weird about the Yong Tau Foo stall to begin with, as it was never my favourite dish, and of course the warning from my mother (my subconscious mind, my Higher Self) not to proceed with taking up the shop in Adelphi Shopping Centre.

I told David about my dream and he urged,

“I think we better heed your subconscious’ advice about the shop.”

I agreed, and so both David and I  resumed our search for the new shop space. This time round, we tried our luck at somewhere near Haji Lane (a famous tourist attraction in Singapore) but to no avail, as the rental was still way off our budget. So we proceeded to the HDB shophouse in Crawford Lane to try and see if the shop in that area is suitable for our trade.

We managed to find a shop on the second floor, the space was big enough for our centre cum retail outlet, but the rental was too much for us. The condition of the shop was ideal, just that it was too quiet for retail business. So we asked the agent to negotiate for us to a comfortable range for us. And the agent told us that he would and get back to us soon.

And since we were in town, we went to the next building that was nearby Adelphi Shopping Centre, but still the rental was too high. We took a walk to Adelphi Shopping Centre and took a peek at that shop we sighted before, and found that it was already under renovation. Well, one thing for sure there was no going back to Adelphi.

I told David that there were other locations that would be like the one we saw in Crawford Lane and Tanjong Pagar Plaza was one of them. So both of us decided to take a look at Tanjong Pagar Plaza area the next day.

to be continued...