...that's right on the loose, and nothing could be more clearer to the point then the mob of shoppers I experienced this weekend at Westfield Mall in Shepard's Bush, London. Weither or not the shopping complex is the biggest among mega shopping malls is irrelivant. The point is that 99.9% of the punters decided that Westfield was the place to be all afternoon along with every member of their familes. I saw every clothing trend known to man, both in the shops and on the shoppers. Build-a-Bear-workshop looked like You'll-be-lucky-to-pay-for-a-Bear workshop as mobs kids ran around in circles.
My only interest was Soaps. I just wanted to find nice smelling soaps in beautifully presented wrapping. The illusion of Westfield mall was a place that would be filled with megastores. This was not true. It was more like miles and miles of mini branches of semi posh brand names. In other words, there were tons of stores but none of them could boast tons of product in their spaces provided. Only certain retailers got the honor of taking up prominent chunks of all levels in the mall that actually did have both a back and front end.
Back to my Soap interest, due to the previously mentioned "mini branches" I could not find a huge section of the brand names I had interests in. The choices were standard from the stores I could squeeze into. One kiosk was actually called Soap and Co. yet they only had 1 bar of soap which was black and grey. "It's dead sea soap, it will do bla bla bla bla wonderful things...1 bar for £7, 2 for £21!!!" I decided to move back slowly and then successfully get lost in a crowd.
Finding a crowd was the easiest thing to do. I found at least 2,000 maybe more that day. Finally, it was time to pick a restaurant to que outside of for at least 20 mins. This was the reason I sat down for dinner at 4pm. There was no guarantee I'd be able to get served when all lines were out the door at times when people were commonly hungry.
It turned out to be a pizza restaurant. The food was good and nicely presented. I had nearly eatten all my vegetarian pizza when I saw something pink under an olive. "What's that?" I asked
"Is that chicken?" Well, no, it turned out to be fish and the management was proper and did not charge for the error. The free me culpa latte made up for the incident. At the very least, no one was rushed to finish their meals. But, this was obvious as it took awhile to get seated.
Oh, i've complained enough....but at least I know that live English shopping is a sport to be best enjoyed in smaller venues.
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