The Great Wall Shopping Mall
Trip Start
Dec 08, 2008
1
5
27
Trip End
Dec 24, 2008
Kent,
Washington,
United States
Monday, December 8, 2008
After breakfast, we both wanted to get a little activity in before sitting on a plane for 9 hours. We thought we might hit a park, but after walking from breakfast to the car, be both agreed it was too cold for that to be enjoyable. So we decided we'd head over to southcenter mall and just walk around for a couple of hours. I saw a couple of signs I thought might get me over there, so I decided to take a path I'd never taken before. We kinda got lost, but that was fine because we were exploring, and didn't really need to be anywhere until the end of the day. Rebecca says "Lets just wander around until something striked us."
Then, as we were driving down a street somewhere in the vicinity of Renton, we pass "The Great Wall Shopping Mall". This is a whole strip-mall done up in chinese great-wall motif. We both had a good laugh and Rebecca says "that's defenitely striking me." So we stopped and went inside.
It was as if we'd just stepped out of Seattle directly into some big Beijing market, only cleaner and the air was breathable (strongly smelling of fish, but no pollution). There were cell phone dealers, and tiny video stores selling anime VHS tapes, a video arcade, some place selling big chinese vases and other types of pottery, but the main focus of the place was a giant grocery market for all types of asian food. Giant tanks of live seafood, a chinese bakery, and a butcher with big rosted pig and duck carcases hanging in front of his little stall. The fruit section was really quite rich with things you don't always find, like ugli fruit and 5 types of asian pear. And we found a whole section of pocky sticks, including these yummy ones crusted with almonds.
But the big surprise was that right down the hall, next to the pottery place, was a big glass box with a mini Taj Mahal inside. We thought that was just too funny considering we are going to the real Taj in just a couple of days.
Ha! I just discovered they even have a web site: http://greatwallmall.com
