Friday at the Mall.

Today is Friday, and as usual I hit the town after school was done. I have dropped my pizza habit though, in order to save money. Instead, I browsed the mall. It's not that I like malling, but rather that I need to fill up my evening somehow. The malls usually have interesting things to see, and a mall sure beats my appartment. I made sure to bring my camera.

Here are pictures from my evening.



Haha! How embarassing! This girl has been stuck with an advertising sticker. These stickers are everywhere...stuck on bus stops, sidewalks, walls, and hydro poles. I figure they're the same thing as the "Make $2000/wk, from home!" signs that you see at traffic lights back home. This area was recently stickered, and this lucky girl didn't escape the sticker-er's attention. Very funny. At least to me.



This is Tee Mall. It has seven levels, which you can count. I think I got them all in the picture. While at first I wasn't used to these MegaMalls, now I am. And to think I used to consider the Eaton Centre in Toronto big!



On one of the top floors, there is an arcade. It has video games, carnival games like ring-toss, darts, and this water gun game. The game spits out tickets if you do well. This girl is doing well, and seems to have been playing for quite some time. Look at her haul!





And then there's this guy. He's playing a game where he slips his token in, and a vibrating table makes the coin dance all over. He's trying to aim the token into different holes on the board, without it going into the gutter. Some holes are worth more points than others. The gutter isn't worth any points. Points mean tickets, and look at all his tickets. He's not seven years old either...he's probably thirty. I hope I'm not spending hours at the arcade when I turn thirty!



And here's another thirty year-old, playing some sort of Dance Dance Revolution game. The screen shows you which dance moves to make, and you must dance the correct moves by stepping on the coloured pads of light. If you do it right, you get points. I think you can win tickets in this game too. He's holding the railing for support.



This is taken in the store where you can cash in your tickets. They have the usual little trinkets and key fobs, but also some bigger ticket items. This Sony PSP is maybe what the ticket guy is going for. It costs 320 000 tickets. I hope he has a goal in mind, and isn't just spending hours and hours at the same game because he thinks it's fun. Even I get bored of playing online hearts or Windows Tetris!

I barely saw any teenagers in the mall...it was all people my age or older hanging out. I find it interesting that malling is a more mature hobby in China than it is in Canada. I wonder what Chinese teenagers do. Probably their homework, all the time.



Once you're done in the arcade, you can come down to the ground level and buy a Rolex. Yep, there's a Rolex store in the mall. There's a Tudor store a few metres away, as well as an Omega boutique across the hall. In Canada, I don't even know where you'd go if you wanted to buy an expensive watch. In Guangzhou, you just go to the mall.





If you're in the mood for something a bit more spendy than a Rolex, you can always check out the Maserati Quattroporte, on display just inside the front doors. This is the car that Bono drives (or used to drive) so you know it's good. These are two GT Executive models. They have a 4.2L, eight-cylinder engine that drives the rear wheels and puts out 400HP @ 7000RPM. And, Yahoo Autos Canada lists its MSRP at $120 600.

Who knew...Rolex watches and Maseratis. At the mall.





If the Maserati is a bit too up-market for you, there is a Toyota Yaris display on one of the middle floors. I always wondered how they get cars into dealership showrooms and mall foyers. Now, I get to wonder how they get the cars into the elevators that bring them up to the fourth floor. Notice the Yaris banners. HUGE!

The posters and banners in the mall, along with a lot of other Chinese advertising, like to depict white people. There are more white people featured in the mall than Asians, for sure. I don't mind this, as a trip to the mall allows me to look at attractive female whiteys. When I see millions of Asians every day, it's nice to see some forigners for a change, even if they're only two-dimensional.





Some of the posters feature attractive women wearing designer clothes, while others show dorky dudes in dorky clothes, being dorks. Like the guys playing pool, and the guy with his horse.



A closer look at the dorky horse guy poster gives us insight into Baleno, the brand being advertised. It's a brand that I see a lot of here in China. Let's familiarize ourselves with the brand's history, shall we?

"Great Sir of BALENO, established this brand of BALENO in 1883,experience the smoked pottery of the history of more than 100 years, spread to accept England expensive room classic, provide the superior quality for the highly respectable customer of, the exquisite article of the good tasty."

Ok, then.

I should find the BALENO head office, and ask them to pay me to edit all their slogans and advertising literature. At least then they'd stop embarrassing themselves.

That was my trip to the mall. It was quite a success...my trip accomplished my primary goal of eating up my evening, and also provided me with excellent blog fodder.