Shopping malls and pandas and gargoyles...

Yesterday I went on a bit of an adventure (with all my past exploits, I would never have thought of finding a shopping mall as an adventure!) anyway, I needed some more stuffing for dolls and a friend mentioned that this mall had a new craft store. The mall has been open for about 6 years, we went when it first opened and I haven't been back since! Anyway, I found it OK, got there just as it opened for the day, had a good mooch around. Katy was doing a series of 'little differences' when she was living in Luxembourg and yesterday I was thinking about the little differences here, here are a few shopping differences...

1. When a mall/department store opens in the morning, the staff stand by their station and bow to you as you go in.
2. When you buy something from the convenience store the clerk puts it in a bag the twists the handles together and passes it to you in way that you can just slip your fingers into the handles.
3. In the supermarket, the check out staff don't talk to you, no chit-chat about the weather or how the price of bacon has gone up, they just tell you how much everything costs as they scan it.
4. In restaurants child seats are usually available but they very rarely have safety straps but they are always clean, I can't ever remember getting a dirty child seat here but I can when we were in the UK, it was manky but had straps!
5. The legal drinking/smoking age here is 20, I have never seen any kids trying to buy things under age and being ID'd or seen kids hanging out at the conbini trying to get someone older to buy it for them. I am sure it must go on but certainly not as much as at home, of course they could just go to the vending machine and buy the beer there, cigarette vending machine require an ID card that you can only get when you are 20 so that is more difficult. I can only ever recall seeing one group of school boys in uniform smoking, the whole time I have been here.

And that brings us onto panda's... I saw these adorable mugs, his and hers and they hook arms ahhhhhh...

And this sign next to a big road crossing just made me laugh  :o)

small panda's should assists old goats with crossing the road

Just before I left I popped into Book Off (sister company is Hard Off!) they are recycle shops, and I found this book, The Gargoyle on the Roof by Jack Prelutsky, it is a poetry book about vampires, gargoyles, werewolves and the such like, perfect for Halloween and complements his poetry basket perfectly.