Shopping

As is my usual practice, I sought out the electronics centre in Beijing the first chance I had. Actually, I tried to find time to take a look at the local electronics centre at the cities I visited. Here are the pics of two of these centres in Beijing.

These places are huge. And I really mean HUGE. I think one of these buildings can easily take two or three Sim Lim squares inside! And the number of shops inside? Astounding. When I was first told by the students that you could have almost a thousand shops inside, I was like 'huh?', thinking that he was just exaggerating. But no...

Here's a pic of Hai Long centre. The first place I visited.


Here's a pic of what goes on inside one of these buildings. It's a real marketplace! Many of these shops are just a small space of maybe 3m by 3m. The bigger ones have a actual shop space. The interesting thing is that there are just so many things to see. The bad thing is, there is no real order. So you can't really browse. The other thing I hate is how EVERYONE keeps harassing you to see their shop. I couldn't even just look around any shops. The moment you walk past one, you would be dragged in by the sales staff. I guess if you knew what you want, then you could easily get it. But this is really not a place to browse. This is pretty much the same in almost every electronics centre I visited.



This is the electronics just opposite Hai Long centre. Just within that area itself were about 4 to 5 such buildings. Each almost 2-3 times bigger than Sim Lim. Phew!