Blackmandarin

things you thought you knew…

well, i’m back just a day and i’ve started to feel nostalgic about china.  why?  well, here i am up in westchester, going to a ‘restaurant’ which should really be called a diner, having lunch, and the bill for 2, w/o drinks is $62.  what?  yep, that’s what we paid for a small piece of salmon on greens, which included of an overcooked, dried out piece of cheeseless cardboard someone called an omelette, on some little greens, and a small bowl of calamari.

perhaps its the latitude that has made me grumpy but in tianjin i recently ate a 5 star buffet at a 5 star hotel, which included all the tsingtao beer i could drink, sauteed snapper and salmon, a wild assortment of meats, fruits, fresh vegetables and desserts for less than $45.

food in china is so cheap, that i know i’m gonna suffer multiple sticker shocks for the next 2 months, just eating some basic dishes.  like even the salmon we got, was minute compared to what i get at ‘seasons 52’ in sofla, overcooked, and more expensive.  a great dining experience it was not.

anyway, this blog is not about westchester, but catching up on my journeys in china.

this blog can go under the heading of ‘things you thought you knew about china but have to get rid of immediately’.

i’m not sure if one can measure a country by the number of millionaires and how fast that number is growing.  and i’m not sure if you can judge a country’s growth by the amount of luxury malls.  but if those were measures, then china would be right up there with the top.

how would i describe a luxury mall?  hmm. well, not being in the luxury circles from any perspective, i could only guess that it would be a mall that carries primarily expensive luxury items, stuff that most people can only look at with envy. GEDSC DIGITAL CAMERA

 

in tianjin, there are several of those malls, amongst them hisense and galaxy.   going to any one of them is like an ‘ohhhh’ moment.  its like, if you have to ask where these malls are, you can’t afford it… and well, i did ask where they were….

 

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the one above is galaxy and to the left is hisense.     hisense is named after the chinese company which manufactures tvs, refrigerators and a/cs.

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while hisense is basically in the business and shopping center of town, galaxy is located next to the museums.   i could not help but be impressed by the architecture.  from the outside, it looks like a massive carrier from a star wars movie.

 

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is there the money to support these malls?  apparently.  again, refer to the rising numbers of millionaires.

you name the high-end product, you can get it in china.

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we found this jamaican product at galaxy mall.   hmmm.

 

 

galaxy mall at night

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-loui, from westchester, new york

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