Shopping

I live a short distance away from one of the largest malls in Asia.  Here's an attempt to give you a feel for its scope.

1.  Imagine your local shopping mall with anchor stores like Macy's, Sears, and JCPenney along with dozens of smaller shops.  
2.  Now imagine that this mall is completely devoted to electronics. 
3.  Now imagine that this is one of four floors, each floor having a different emphasis.
4.  Now image that you've just visited the Annex to the main mall which is multiple times larger than than the annex. 
5.  Finally, imagine that every day this mall is packed like Christmas-time like shopping all the time!
                  I've gone twice and the two photos that show just how packed it is:



Shopping here is familiar:   The Philippines are where East meets West, so almost all brands available in the west are here (Gap, Toys-R-Us, KFC, etc.)

Shopping here is different:   Imagine one of the employees at the electronics store attracting customers (?) by belting out "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele during a karaoke session in the store.  Also, every store has a lot of employees standing throughout the store who all greet you and ask how you are doing.  Hello, sir.  How are you today, sir?  Can I help you with anything, sir?  For instance, if you went to the area in Macy's that sells men's dress shirts and suits, you might see two employees in America.  But here, there would be 10 all standing next to displays, asking how you are doing and if they can help you. 

Also, I tried buying a barong (Filipino dress shirt) the other day.  The largest size they had was XL.  It kind of fit (I thought).  I walked out to ask everyone what they thought.  Everybody laughed!  Too short (it's supposed to hang, untucked kind of lower).