12 June 2026 Friday 🌧
I took a half-day leave from work and accompanied my daughter, Rayne, to a hair appointment at Oasis Salon in Tiong Bahru.
Several hours, we made our way to Jurong East for the main mission of the day — the official launch of the highly anticipated Hirono Mist Walker series.
My daughter had her heart set on two particular characters — “The Wingless Follower” and “The Soul Corroder.”
At around 4:15 PM, we arrived at Pop Mart in Westgate. After spending nearly 10 minutes carefully examining and debating which blind box to choose, Rayne finally picked one and confidently declared, “I have a feeling it’s this one.”
With hopes high and excitement levels through the roof, we paid for the box and immediately rushed outside the store to open it.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans.
Out of all the characters in the collection, she unboxed the one she liked the least — “The Backlit Messenger.”
The irony was almost impressive.
Concerned that buying another box might simply result in a duplicate disappointment, we decided to hold off and continue with the rest of our shopping trip.
We wandered through Challenger, Uniqlo, and even Don Don Donki before eventually settling down for dinner at Shake Shack.
During dinner, Rayne was scrolling through TikTok and discovered something surprising — apparently, many collectors actually love “The Backlit Messenger.” She took another look at the figure, poked fun at its messy hairstyle, and even found posts showing how people style its hair differently.
We had a good laugh, and she jokingly admitted that she was starting to like it a little.
After dinner, we returned to Pop Mart, tempted to try our luck again.
There we were, standing among fellow collectors, shaking box after box despite having absolutely no confidence that we knew what we were doing. It was quite amusing watching everyone enthusiastically shaking blind boxes as if they possessed some secret X-ray vision capable of revealing the contents inside.
Then came an unexpected twist.
We overheard a lady saying that she was specifically looking for “The Backlit Messenger.”
Without hesitation, I approached her and asked whether she would be interested in buying ours, since it wasn’t the character we were hoping for.
To our surprise, she happily agreed.
A quick PayNow transfer of $27 later, and our unwanted messenger had found a new and appreciative home.
As we chatted, she casually mentioned that there was a gentleman inside the shop who had just unboxed “The Wingless Follower.”
Naturally, our ears perked up.
When we asked which gentleman she was referring to, fate decided to make things easy — he happened to turn around at that exact moment.
We waved him over, explained our situation, and politely asked whether he would be willing to sell it to us at retail price.
Thankfully, he agreed.
Another PayNow transaction later, and the much-coveted “Wingless Follower” was officially ours.
Not bad for a Friday evening.
The lesson of the day?
Sometimes the blind box isn’t the real surprise — the people you meet along the way are. 😃
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