Friday, May 2, 2008

The Jusco Store and the Pedestrian Mall

I mentioned the Jusco store in a previous post. It has become our favorite store! You can buy just about anything there, from food to household goods to clothes. The upstairs part of the store is much like a small mall, with small stores and restaurants. We found a favorite restaurant there---it is a Korean-owned one called Chalon. Every day there is a special of the day for 38 yuan, or about $6. It is enough for Ron and I to share. It includes a plate lunch, soup, salad, fruit, and hot tea or coffee. There is also a McDonald's and a Starbucks at Jusco. (Not far away is a KFC.)

To get to Jusco from our apartment or from Dr. Paul's, you go down a "pedestrian mall" or walkway. On rain-free days there are many vendors selling merchandise on the walkway.





We bought small jewelry boxes for Lauren and Katelyn from the young man in the following photo. After that, every time we passed by him, he recognized us and spoke.
The next photo shows an exercise area. There is a large area for skating, and along the sides, there is exercise equipment, such as swings, bars to walk on or hang from, etc. Some of the equipment is designed for grandparent-age people. That works out well, because it is common that the grandparents live with their children and are the caretakers for the grandchildren while the parents work. So grandparents can take their grandchildren to the exercise areas and get their own exercise at the same time!
On the Labor Day holidays there were booths set up for advertising English schools (there are seven or more in the pedestrian mall area!), private schools, and other businesses.


In the next photo the students were advertising the Wall Street English School, which is an Australian-owned company. The students were chanting, "We speak English. Why don't you?" over and over! Micky Mouse is extremely popular. His image is on all kinds of products and t-shirts, and stores have big displays of "Micky stuff". The t-shirts are worn by all ages, even teens and university students.


At the end of the pedestrian walkway is a major street that has an underground walkway that leads to Jusco and other stores. The underground walkway is lined with small shops.

2 comments:

Steve and Joan said...

I didn't know Unicorns could skate! ;-)

Steve

Staci said...

The exercise place looks neat!

I was surprised to see that all ages love Mickey stuff over there!