Acquiring furniture, pots, pans, flatware, dishes and pretty much what you normally take for granted, is a process. The most logical way is to shop online, especially since I have no car. Except that requires a credit card and there are stringent rules for non-permanent residents and non-Canadian citizens to get one. I currently don’t meet those rules.
Next option: malls.
Back home, malls fall into one of two categories: outdoor, like Oak Brook or Northrbook Court, or indoor, like Gurnee Mills or Water Tower. Usually take up some kind of square or oddly rectangular space and are fairly easy to meander and find stuff. There are big retail anchors at each corner, or each end, to help you navigate your way around and remember where you parked.
In Vancouver, the malls are indoors and do not always have a big retail anchor. Pacific Center, for example, is indoors. And underground.
Yes, underground. It might run the length of downtown Vancouver, and I have no idea of its width, but it is quite impressive. You can get to it from a variety of access points, which are easily mistaken for merely entrances to office buildings or public transit. But once you figure that out, you dip down into a consumer-driven world of stuff. Clothes. Shoes. Gadgets. Odds and ends. Think of Water Tower, turned on its side and buried beneath Chicago.
And then there is Metrotown.
Think of Water Tower, except stretch it across, oh, say eight city blocks in each direction.
Metrotown is so big, its customer service team moves around on roller blades. Roller blades! I did a double take on that one. Roller blading is forbidden in Chicago malls. And then it was explained to me that it was a customer service rep going to aid a shopper. Metrotown is so big, it’s the fastest way to reach shoppers in need.
I thought of Gurnee Mills, and the mall cops on Segways. Usually two mall cops, though sometimes just one, riding on a Segway, patrolling the mall. At Metrotown, there weren’t cops. They were customer service reps, who looked like customer service reps, too.
I grew a bit envious of them after walking around Metrotown. Only saw about a quarter of the place, maybe. The mall is so big that even its directory is a pamphlet that folds out like a city map.
Vancouver malls have a thing for natural light. Skylights aren’t just slivers, but take up whole sections of the ceiling, sometimes from end to end. Makes for a more pleasurable shopping experience. Feels less like a cave, less like a place to escape if not completely avoid.