Shopping Centre overload
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2004
1
67
77
Trip End
Ongoing
Bangkok,
Thailand
Sunday, January 27, 2008
We started off in the Discovery Centre, with a huge bowl of soup and the world's best ever iced coffee. The stores were glossy and glitzy- all 5 floors of them. Music started; we'd managed to time our visit to coincide with some kind of cosplay exhibition. People were in costume- monsters, aliens, vampires, school girls, miming to songs and acting out short skits. It was bizarre and amusing, my favourite was the group of breakdancing monsters who were also pretty good at drumming.
Outside was a catwalk, with a modelling contest in full flow
Cosplay contest- the dancing monsters
. The models happily posed for my camera, before heading off to strut their stuff. We crossed a bridge to the MBK centre, staring down at the 8 lanes of traffic below us. Then it came- shopping centre sensory overload. The MBK centre had 7 floors, one large enough to house a multiscreen cinema and many restaurants. Each floor was so long it was generally impossible to see the ends. There were shops, with groups of stalls crammed in between, grouped by type- textiles, clothes, gizmos, phones, DVDs, computer games, ipods... Most of it fake. I found it overwhelming; too much stuff, consumerism gone rampant, and even at bargain basement prices found myself soon urging Rick to come away. He bought a lighter, I left empty handed. It was just too much stuff!
Outside, the modelling contest was still in full swing, with the girls now bedecked in traditional Thai costumes. We found a cab and headed for the airport. Our month of globe trotting was at an end, and it was time to go home.
