Canadian Mall – Installment 3: Coquitlam Centre
Things I’m good at:
– Missing the bus
– Tripping over my own feet
– Doing both simultaneously
– Cursing profusely
Anyway.
Getting to this mall involved taking the bus downtown, walking east to Burnaby, walking halfway across Burnaby, missing the bus by about 30 seconds, freezing my butt off on a bench waiting for half an hour for the next bus, then taking said bus on an hour long ride to the center.
Long day.
Pros:
– H&M!
– The best layout of any mall I’ve seen
– There are more restaurants/stands in the food court than there are restaurants in Moscow. I’m not kidding.
– I finally found a store that had a copy of Mass Effect
Cons:
– SO freaking far away
– If you’re going to close at 6 PM, don’t be so freaking far away (yes, this is a legitimate con—everything closes so early up here on the weekend)
– The parking lot is a deathtrap for pedestrians
Wee!
Canadian Mall – Installment 2: Metropolis at Metrotown
Holy crap, what a big mall.
It doesn’t have a University attached to it, but it’s pretty impressive nonetheless. Three floors, lots of escalators, and a Chapters.
Not the easiest place to get to, though, especially if you’re walking. I kept seeing these signs for “Metrotown” but I couldn’t see the mall at all until I was right on top of it. Low profile little bugger. The only thing that really guided me there was the Skytrain tracks.
Anyway.
Pros:
– The Real Canadian Superstore. I guess if you’re really Canadian, you take superstores very seriously. It’s Walmart on crack up here.
– There was an HMV, which prompted the purchase of the fifth season of Futurama. I’m watching it now; it’s excellent so far.
– Horrible layout, but copious amounts of “YOU ARE HERE” maps, which people like me appreciate greatly.
Cons:
– Mike Rowe needs to come up here for a Dirty Jobs episode to just clean the Zellers bathrooms.
– Actually, the whole Zellers was gross. It was like nobody had cleaned or restocked anything in months.
– So. Many. People.
So yeah. Pretty good overall, and right next to the Skytrain. And Burnaby > Surrey.
Canadian Mall – Installment 1: Central City
In this the first installment of “Claudia Walks Vancouver via Malls,” I went down to the ghetto Surrey to visit Central City which, to my great surprise, had Simon Fraser University Surrey attached to it.
I’ve neither seen nor heard of a university attached to a mall.
Anyway.
Aside from higher education you can also purchase alcohol, stuff from the Canadian version of Walmart, pitas that are supposedly extreme, and waffle irons (there’s a Bed Bath & Beyond) at this cool little mall.
Pros:
– Did I mention waffle irons?
– Not a maze from hell
– The Asian grocery store, in which I could identify about 30% of the items, but which carried Aspartame-free gum!
– DOLLAR STORE
Cons:
– It’s in Surrey
– No good bookstore
– I got lost on SE Marine Drive on the way there and got pretty cold. That was pretty sucky.
Woo! Not sure where I’ll go next week, but probably not south.
Surrey. Erugh.
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