Adam White

Neetu is in the market for new glasses. A friend gave her the idea that we should go to Pacific Mall to buy them. We (Neetu) decided to make the trek up the DVP to get “cheap glasses”. It was the first time either of us had been to this particular mall. It was a new experience. 

The Pacific Mall experience starts in the parking lot.  There are very few, if any, empty parking spaces. The only option is to sit in a row and wait for someone to leave.  This idea wasn’t that cool with me so I kept driving around looking for a spot. This isn’t such a bright idea since there is so much traffic - vehicle and pedestrian. In my frustration of driving around this huge freakin’ parking lot I went down a row that was a dead end.  As I turned around someone happened to be leaving so I slipped in their spot but not before someone from the other direction tried (and failed) to get in the spot.

The entrance of the mall is home to a variety of smells - some good and not so good. The first visual thing we noticed is the size of the stores. There are so many stores in such tight quarters. Most stores are no bigger than our bedroom. It’s an experience just walking down the aisle where you’ll find clothing stores next to food stores selling squid and other “exotic” munchies, next to stores selling bootleg DVDs.

It was quite easy to find the store we were looking for - Optic Zone - by following the “street signs”. The other sign was the 50% sale. People were packed in like sardines. One salesperson started showing Neetu  frames - the pile must have grown 30 deep at one point.  After picking out the top 3 we got it down to the pair that she would go with. I mentioned that one of the reasons that the frames are so cheap is that they are knock-offs. She didn’t agree so that proves they aren’t knock offs. I’ve learned that part quickly enough after getting married :).  

While shopping around we got hungry. When in a place you aren’t used to and given a wide range of choices what do you do? Go to the place with the biggest line up right? Well The Golden Regency had the biggest line-up so we figured it must be good. Well - the “Line equls good” heuristic is just that and heuristics are fallable. This being our first experience with an “authentic” Chinese food place we were pretty excited.

The person who seated us gave us 3 pieces of paper and a pencil and then walked away. Apparantley we are supposed to do something with this. The papers appeared to have checkboxes. Hey - I’ve played this game before! Finally someone comes over to the table to bring us green tea. We start to verbally tell her what we want. I guess this isn’t a good thing. She reluctantly picks up the card and starts to draw pictures on it.  Nobody ever picked up the paper but food got delivered to our table.

We ordered spring rolls, hot and sour soup, chicken fried rice, and beef noodles.  We were expecting very tasty and vibrant dishes. What we got was a sub-par meal. $40 and a huge disappointment later we were still hungry. It was neccessary to take the rest of the food so we didn’t “offend them”. We took the box to go but promptly dumped it in the first garbage can.

As we shopped around some more we found the heritage part of the mall. Really neat stuff in that area. Samurai swords, beautiful paintings, and some other speciality type stores. We wound up buying a gift for someone for Christmas. All-round amazing part of the mall. This is also where the food court is. I think we would have had better luck getting something quick from here.

As we walked through the heritage area a terrific smell kept hitting us. We couldn’t place it until we took one turn and found 3 Asian women in front of griddles. Turns out what we smelled was egg waffle. We bought one and scarfed it down. It was delicious!!!

As we left the mall the sweet smell of moth balls hit us in the face. Hoards of people were standing just outside the door. Part of me wondered - are they trying to get away from the moth balls?