Mallrats

Another showery Saturday. Since breakfast, rain was coming down in sheets, with sporadic lightning accompanied by the distant rumbling of thunder. The cats went into hiding, huddling under the bathroom sink. It all encouraged a languid sort of mood but we decided to spend the afternoon at the mega-mall.

We caught the sky train at Asok, heading toward Siam Paragon, the self-proclaimed Pride of Bangkok, with the Refined Vision of Entertainment Civilization. Eh he he...(dull chuckle).

A cavernous monstrosity, Paragon has three Starbucks outlets on different floors. The hundreds of stalls and stores literally stock everything, from salapao and manga to designer handbags and Ferraris. Convenient, yes, but also grossly excessive, an understatement. Don't think there's any mall quite like this one, with an aquarium and IMAX theater in the same complex.

Despite its vastness and the muted din of live marketing schemes blaring the attributes of some product or another, Paragon has nice bookstores, especially Kinokuniya. Many of the books are encased in plastic, making browsing a challenge. In the end, we picked up books on cheese and yoga (two separate titles).

We grabbed an early dinner at Spice Story in the Food Hall. Because of the ongoing vegetarian festival, all offerings consisted of gluten disguised as meat. As with past kin jay festivals, the food (mock duck noodle soup, mock kao mun gai) sounded better than it tasted. Having satiated our consumerist urges, we hopped back on train for a quiet evening at home. No more Siam Paragon for awhile.