Carpet Auction

Travis and I spent the first day of the 2 day Chinese New Year holiday at the carpet auction. If you come to visit us in Singapore and have any interest in buying a Persian, Russian, Indian, Pakistani, etc. carpet this would be the place to make your purchase. They have the auction every 2 weeks at the Grand Hyatt and it has become a social event for many of the regulars. First you attend the viewing from 1o-noon, where you can touch and walk on the carpets, then you break for lunch and come back around 1:30 for the auction. I must say it is not like any other auction I have been to, for example, some items don't sell and most that do sell have no opposing bidder! The bidders actually yell out an offer when the auctioneer is about to take the unsold carpet away, then the auctioneer tries to convince them to come up higher and they barter back and forth in front of the rest of the audience. It is strange but very entertaining! He had 150 carpets to auction and about 25 sold; two of which were bought by us. We bought 2 Persian carpets and we were pleased with the prices because it really pained the auctioneer to let them go. As the auctioneer tried to convince Travis to increase his bid, Travis threw in visitation rights but would not budge on his offer. After the auctioneer stared at his notes for awhile, he finally let the carpet go at our offer price. They are beautiful but we have not decided if the one we bought for the living room is the right size. It is 7'x10', can you believe that this size is too small? When your entire 1200 square foot apartment is marble wall to wall, you definitely want to cover as much as possible! We had a great time and now have an appreciation for carpets that we never expected to have. We are even looking into classes! Be sure to plan your trip around the auction if you are interested, he said they have folding techniques to fit even the 12x14 in a large suitcase!