Monday 2 February 2009

Welcome Home Jeff!

after 3 or so weeks snowed in, Jeff returned from the States, he said the snow was over 3 feet deep in places so he is glad to be back in the sun, Da had not seen the new fish before, Diana and Da were laughing and pointing to one of the fish in particular, it appears that Jeff has put on a little weight in his absence and Da had noticed it, so she is joking with Diana that one of the fish with a big stomach should be called Jeff! well this is the fish now known as "Jeff" in the middle of the picture,
Jeff and myself had a few afternoon cocktails on the roof, then after Da and Jeff left we went to the pharmacy store on Pattaya North, if you drive along Third Road turn left into Pattaya North and it is about 300 meters down on the left hand side, it is called Fascino, they have got everything there from aspirin to mobility scooters,
the place is huge,
well as it was still early we decided to go to the new Central store, so down to the Dolphin roundabout, straight across and along Beach Road, we then went to turn left into the car park following a car but were turned away, we were told go along Beach Road turn left at Soi 12 then turn left again on Second Road and left again into Central, the annoying thing was that you can see the motorcycle park from where we were on Beach Road, so several minuets later we were in Central, minus one for no entrance for motorcycles on Beach Road!
inside everything was bright and spacious, with lots of things going on for kids, this I think will be the new family store for most people out here, it appears you can drop the kids in some areas and do your shopping in peace (though if you want to do that why have kids in the first place?)
the shows put on were really nice with something for everyone,
and shops everywhere, I expected to see some empty places but everything was fully booked, but one thing I did notice was that so many stores had already got 5% - 30% off or even more, even the electrical giants were doing it, LG was 10% to a staggering 60% off, amazing!
Diana declined to have her picture taken with Blue Mouse!
there are loads of escalators in the mall, so long as you do not look down all is well!
next floor and it is even longer down,
nearly at the top, when you get to the 5th. floor it is all restaurants, from everywhere in the world but mostly Asian, well we felt a bit hungry so we went downstairs to the basement for the Foodcourt, huge place, you buy coupons order the food hand the coupons over and cash in any coupons you do not use at the end of the meal, sounds great? not really there was not a single place where the signs were in English, now I know I am in Thailand, but I would have thought that as they are trying for International tourist they would have put some English on the signs, minus another point!
one of the places you can leave the ankle bitters and go shopping in peace!
we then went to the information desk and asked where the McDonald's is, and were very politely told "Royal Garden!" final nail in the coffin for Central! you may know that Diana loves McDonald's and for them not to have one is a bit strange to say the least, especially as they have a KFC, only a small thing I know, but if we have got to park we might as well continue going to Royal Garden which we can get to from Beach Road as well as Second, the reason for using Beach road is that we only go to that end of town if we have gone to Naklua, so we drive home via Beach Road, so Central is a great place to visit, visually stunning, with so many shops and a proper supermarket, but for us Friendship and Royal Garden has all that we need, would we go back? I can not think of a single reason to return,
Diana with her hero!
proper food at last! I am sure Central will do well, but with the next "super mall" coming in a couple of years I think unless there is a huge influx of tourists one or more of the mall's will find it hard going, in case you do not know I have heard the new mall is going where Tops is, from Second down to Beach Road, the hotel next to Tops is also being pulled down to make way for it, allegedly, the mall will have a condo on the top of it, 66 square meters for 3 million baht so the rumour has it, work starting end 2010/early 2011.

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