Friday, June 1, 2007

Shop, shop till you drop...

Do you know where the largest Mall in the World is? Clue...somewhere in Asia.

I think Malls are finding it hard to be distinct - there are so many malls in Asia that a "Unique Selling Point" is important. Most of the Malls today, have customer service and their level of services are very high - some distinct themselves by call it "Concierge" but basically means the same thing. To attract customers back over and over again is tough - there must a certain awe to going shopping, dinning or be entertained there.

Asian countries are touted to house many of the world's most unique malls and the largest in the World. The malls are known to provide "shoppertainment" with a variety of popular retailers to an array of in-house entertainment such as indoor skiing to theme parks.

Asia is also home to some of the top shopping destinations in the world - Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok. Other countries like Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur are working hard to be in that shoppers leaque. In Singapore, an annual event "Great Singapore Sale" held around mid May and end in July is a place where you shop, shop till you drop...

Singapore - we have the mega shopping distict the "Orchard Road" - it is a long road with many shopping centres and megamalls lining the two sides of Orchard road. The most popular is Ngee Ann City which houses Takashimaya. Good bargains can be found during the Great Singapore Sale. The latest Mall to come onto the Singapore shopping scene is ViVo City located near the harbour front and opposite Sentosa. This is the largest Mall in Singapore.


Bangkok - The luxurious and famous mall is The Siam Paragon but MBK shopping centre (near National Stadium station) is my favourite because it houses over 2,000 retailers in an eight storey mall. Bangkok megamalls are Central World and Seacon Square (was a target of Bangkok bombing on 31 Dec 2006)

Kuala Lumpur - KL have their huge and massive malls with theme parks like Berjaya Times Square . The Cosmo's World located at Berjaya Times Square is the largest in-door theme park in SE Asia. My family spent the whole day at this Theme Park and it was fun - the most exciting station was "Robo Crash" - the electric bum cars which was really fun. Would guess that they might have taken this about 8-9 times. The most scariest was "Space Attack" - which both my wife and my eldest son went was gravity defying. On the whole we had a good time.

The Berjaya Times Square is KL largest shopping mall and has Asia's largest indoor theme park. The Midvalley Megamall (the Golden Screen Cinema @ Midvalley is the largest in Asia with a 18-screens Cineplex). Starhill Gallery and Suria KLCC are well-known Luxury Malls.

KL shopping district is Bintang Walk (stretches from Mariott Hotel to Lot 10 Shopping Centre) where you can find many shopping centres with a leisure concept of alfresco cafe and entertainment outlets. The famous night market is @ Petaling Street (located at Maharajalela monorail station) commonly called "Chinatown" closes at 2am in the morning. I like to walk around this place to experience the colour, sights, sound - people from all walks of life bargaining or just being spectators of this night-life. Just a caution to beware of pick-pockets.

Hong Kong - the most popular is Pacifc Place.

Largest Mall in the World - three of the world's largest mall are in Asia
South China Mall, in Dongguan, China is the largest mall in the world. It has leasable space for over 1,500 stores in approximately 6.5 million square-feet (600,000 square metres) of total floor area.

Golden Resources Shopping Mall, in Beijing, China is the 2nd largest mall in the world. It is 1.5 times the size of Mall of America.

Central World in Bangkok, 3rd largest mall in the world and the largest mall in South East Asia.

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