8 Places in The Recently Open Funan Mall You Got To Visit

Yes, we’re not done with Funan yet. We’ve been hyping this for months so you can be assured that there will be more Funan posts.

I doubt you really want to click on any of these, but here’s the list of Funan article’s we’ve already pooped out, chronologically:

• Funan Mall Opening in June 2019 with High-Tech Facilities (April 26, 2019)
• The New Funan Mall is Both IG-Worthy & High-Tech (May 23, 2019)
• Funan The High-Tech Mall To Open To Public On 28 Jun 2019 (June 4, 2019)
• Famous Japan Yuzu Ramen Opening First Outlet in S’pore At Funan Mall (June 8, 2019)
• Funan’s New Cinema Has VR Pods, USB Chargers & Even High-Tech Laser Projection (June 21, 2019)
• Funan Mall To House Taobao Store in S’pore As Well As Nikon School For… (June 26, 2019)
• 12 Facts About Funan Mall, The SLS-Turned-Hipster Mall That Everyone’s Going Now (June 30, 2019)

We’ve talked about GV VR Pods, Taobao store, Afuri Ramen, the Tree of Life, a little about the urban farm, that everything is new and it’s no longer an IT-centric mall but a hipster mall.

Considering how everybody’s going there and it’s basically Central Jewel, you probably already seen enough pics on Instagram to at least form some kind of opinion about it. Unless GoodyFeed is somehow your only news source since we didn’t write the listicle faster than the others.

If I’m trapped on an island and can bring only 1 app, I will bring Goody Feed for the best mix of news and entertainment!

Either way, here’s a spoiler: Funan isn’t super different than other malls. But here are 8 things that make Funan same-same but different that might incentivise you to visit.

1. Urban Farm by Edible Garden City

If there’s anything really special about Funan, it would be this 18,000sq ft Food Garden located on the seventh floor where you can learn how the greens are produced and harvested, and even eat them.

Here’s an interview by Capitaland with the founder of Edible Garden City.

There’s a catch though, I said you can eat them, but it’s not that you can just rip them straight off the garden and bite.

Which brings me to…

2. Noka

Warning: this place isn’t cheap.

And the name stands for ‘farmhouse’ (農家) in Japanese, which you should understand if you can read traditional Chinese.

View this post on Instagram

We welcome you to our Farmhouse. Head up to level 7 of the newly revamped @funansg and join us in celebrating the riches provided by nature of this beautiful garden city, married with produce from the bountiful waters of Niigata, Japan. #noka #nokasg

A post shared by Noka SG (@nokasg) on Jun 28, 2019 at 3:23am PDT

As this Instagram post would imply, they are located where the Urban Farm is and have partnered with them to produce dishes made with local (aka Urban Farm produce) and Japanese produce.

If you ever wondered how good vegetables grown in your own home or a building can taste, this is the place to go.

3. Daiso… Tripled in Price

TRIPLE in price? Then go DAISO for what??

Is what you might be thinking, but there’s a good reason for this.

Every DAISO shopper has had the thoughts “damn, this nubbad leh, but if only a bit more durable” or “damn, if only that can be found in DAISO, but it’s S$5 outside, how can they sell it for S$2?”

That’s where Threeppy, which opens 14 July 2019, comes in.

Instead of S$2 per item, it’s S$5.80 per item. Still cheap and good. Same same but different.

#B1-17

4. Tree of Life

The Tree of Life sounds stupid for a name, but it’s actually pretty cool in concept. It’s basically a space that encourages entrepreneurship by giving them a space to flourish, interacting with one another and their customers.

View this post on Instagram

Funan opens today to the public after three years of redevelopment. The mall is home to a rich variety of reasons retail stores, eateries, entertainment hubs and even co-working and co-living spaces. Plus, there's even an urban farm on it's rooftop 🌿

A post shared by Time Out Singapore (@timeoutsg) on Jun 27, 2019 at 11:43pm PDT

So it’s not exactly a fixed place since you will likely see the companies, events, and programs change here.

5. KopiTech

A case of same same but different. What we have here is basically the same as our food court Kopitiam. The difference? Payments.

Cashless payments are encouraged here, and you can even order your meals in advance. The biggest ‘special’ thing here is that they accept cryptocurrencies.

#B2-24

6. Courts

I said that Tree of Life is a space to encourage start-up culture, but it’s not the only place to do so. GT Robot Technology, a local company has developed AI Buddies known as WoBo that can converse in 13 different languages and will make special appearances at Courts to help at the store.

That’s right. We have robot shop assistants in Funan.

And did you… perhaps thought about bringing them home? You can! WoBo retails at S$2,288, and the first 50 sets are even discounted at S$1,288.

#03-01

7. Love, Bonito

On the surface, it looks like any other clothing shop. Which well, actually is. But like I said, same same but different. Because Love, Bonito is what a 21st-century clothing shop should be like; fun to be in the store, while not fussing too much about the online-offline divide.

At this space, they even encourage you to try their clothing offline and buy them online. Yes, there’s AR (augmented reality) for trying with clothes.

But there’s also an infinity mirror, and other ways to make shopping a little more exciting in the store which is too much to mention in this post.

#02-09

8. Robot arm shops for you

In case you’re wondering: no this isn’t a gimmick that’s meant to be just a shopping moving things.

Basically, you can chug your shopping items and leave it to Robo-chan to deliver you the stuff to the picking point at your desired time. Robo-chan doesn’t need to sleep, so it’s available even after 10 pm.

But here’s the sad thing: it’s expected to be functional at the end of the year.

Some of you might be disappointed this list doesn’t show any tech-related shop, but note that it isn’t that they don’t have them. It’s no longer a mall with tech shops. It’s now a high-tech mall.