Christmas Shopping in Orchard Road, Singapore

Took these photos before Christmas. Surprised to see lots of people during a weekday. I guess December is the time where everyone supposed to travel for holiday but due to the current covid pandemic, lots of countries closed the borders or were in lock down, so most locals who need to clear their annual leaves took this opportunity to shop for Christmas in Singapore  and be local tourists in Singapore.

The crowd in Orchard were huge as if it is pre covid period but everyone (yes , 100%) are wearing masks as it is mandatory to wear indoor or outdoors except when dining or exercise or in our own homes.

Just love the christmas atmosphere in Orchard Road with all the christmas trees and decorations.

Shopping in Paragon Orchard, and yes we need to scan our identity before entering any malls or buildings etc for contact tracing incase of a positive covid case. So far Singapore is experiencing low or zero local community cases, mostly are imported cases.

2020 is really a bad year for most of us, let's hope 2021 will be a better year and let's say bye bye to the virus.

 

Singapore Trace Together Token to be use in Singapore in 2021

Finally, I collected my Tokens after queuing for one hour. It is the latest big thing in Singapore. 

The token is a physical device that exchanges bluetooth signals with other trace together tokens or trace together mobile apps nearby,  to aid digital contact tracing efforts due to the Covid Pandemic.

The token was originally meant for people without smart phone or wifi but many would like to have the tokens as the apps might drain the phone battery. 

From next year, we need to have the tokens to be able to enter huge venues like cinema, malls, buildings, etc 

We will be entering Phase 3 on December 28, means we can now gather in groups of 8 instead of 5 but masks is still mandatory. 

Public venues such as museums are currently open but subject to a capacity limit, while events like wedding receptions can be held in two zones of 50 persons. In Phase Three, these capacity limits could be increased, with events having multiple zones of 50 persons. (Source)  

The queue at a local community club to collect the tokens.

I managed to have the latest design of the token which is slimmer and can fit into my key pouch.

My friends had the earlier design which is thicker.