I'm not much into shopping and too have a problem that is the insanity of Orchard Road. I feel precisely the same way about Oxford Street in London; where despite living within a 15min bus ride of this touted 'shopping mecca', I would avoid it like the plague, to the point of essentially not frequenting it
at all.
I believe the shopping malls in Singapore have internal floorplans intentionally designed to confuse. It's fact that department stores plan their layout so as to get potential customers through the maximum display aisles possible. The next level (in the UK) is the likes of M+S who will rotate aisles, and product areas once or twice a year, so that just when you've figured out where to get your routine weekend chicken curry + a bottle of vino, suddenly that aisle is now granma-knickers and tins of biscuits. It is to disorientate the customer, and again, get them though as much of the shop a possible. And yes, it used to drive me absolutely mad as it is so gratuitous and customer-unfriendly.
Next level? Maybe the likes of Plaza Singapura? Where to say walk in at ground floor and go to the top floor, you need to walk down the entire level at each floor, to get the next escalator up. Cynical.
And finally then we have Ion Orchard. Surely designed ('''organically architected''') to cause maximum disorientation. Escalators randomly all over, but very few going where you actually want to go. I recall last time there I was trying to figure out how to get from Jones the Grocer (basement) to the MRT. I figured out from a floorplan where the lifts were, but when I got to that point, they weren't there (behind hoardings IIRC). It was silly! I ended up going around and around, before giving up, exiting to the street and walking down the road, entering via Ngee Ann, and locating the MRT that way.
Alternatives, if you must. Harbourfront?
http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com.sg/st ... Name=A+-+C
Big, quite airy and spacious, not entirely the zoo Orchard tends to be.
According to this, I have the tastes of both a tai tai and an ah lian, but I should start checking out Wisma Atria.
