Where good deals can be found...

Where where??

From: http://news.omy.sg/News/Local%2BNews/Story/OMYStory201101151600-215222.html

有上班族为省钱　特地到校园用餐

大学食堂的美食好吃又便宜，越来越多上班族为了省钱，特地到校园里去用餐！

南洋理工大学的第一食堂，去年7月间由本地的湾仔香港奶茶店集团接手经营，环境媲美冷气食阁。

湾仔香港奶茶店集团董事经理林鸿亨及他的生意伙伴林日安受访时说，该食堂的食物售价比同类型食阁便宜大约20％。

林鸿亨说：“现在的第一食堂和我们接手前相比，外来客增加了一倍。现在，这里的食客70％是学生，30％是外来客，包括了上班族、一家大小等等。”

售卖小笼包等中国美食的李彬（35岁）说，他们的小笼包价格比外面便宜30％左右，午餐时段吸引了来自大士工业区的上班族，晚餐还吸引了住在附近的居民。

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School is probably the only place where we can survive on a decent meal daily with $2 or less. Compared to outside food courts which charge about twice the price of school canteens, school meals are still very much value for money. Their prices have also seen little increase over the years, and are more resistant to changes in global food supply.

Eating in school regularly has made me feel that the prices set by outside stalls are too exorbitant to be worth it. No wonder university canteens are 'plagued' by working adults coming from nearby workplaces. While NTU is patronized by workers at the Tuas area, NUS often sees people from Science Park. The downside is having to deal with the crowd and long queues during peak hours. But other than that, eating at school canteens is pretty much a good choice.

Not sure if the listed prices do apply for non-student/staff, although some stalls make a distinction on their signboard. It seems like they don't really check however. I never had to flash my matric card or anything when buying from the stalls. Ok lah, because I look like a student mah haha. Then again, it is hard to tell between school staff and non-staff. Makes me wonder what would happen if my parents were to eat at the canteen. They would probably be amazed by the price.

Since universities are quite open, the public can just enter freely, even for lecture theatres and classrooms. That means I can just bring any friends or family members to watch lectures haha. Imagine parents who go "I want to know what kind of education my son/daughter receives." Non-students who are really free can just hang around crashing various lectures. For NUS, they can check the schedule in CORS and pick their favourite slot. These people are not paying tuition fees but they can attend lectures for free! What a good deal. Of course the lecture group must be big enough to avoid suspicion.

Wonder if there are really nothing-better-to-do outsiders who go out of their way to freeload the open facilities provided by universities.

Well, I (or rather we) admit that I'm freeloading the facilities of a certain university... oops! But it's really too good not to use it mah... (will there be a news report about it?)