Sunday, February 1, 2009

The Consumer Experience

So I've talked much about buying food, but there are other neat things here as well. We live within a 10 minute walk from 3 major malls, MBK, Siam Discovery, and Siam Paragon. MBK contains a bunch of stalls selling t-shirts, many little restaurants and snack shops, half a floor full of cell phones, and a great food court. Paragon has Jimmy Choo, Prada, Lamborghini, and an expensive food court where you can buy any food from around the world. As college students, we've probably bought more stuff from MBK...

The most interesting place we've been to, shopping-wise, is the Chatuchak Weekend Market - 35 acres of small stalls crammed into the side of a corner of a huge park, where you can buy anything from shoes to pets to tropical fruit. Haggling is definately the norm here, and negotiations class definately helped out with that. The street food here is amazing (see the coconut taco video!) and you can spend hours here, getting lost and buying souvenirs.

One of the issues we have encountered is the language problem - we know basic Thai and shopkeepers know basic English but beyond the numbers its hard to communicate. Sometimes, we're lucky enough to have Thai students accompany us. Sometimes, we gesture and use sign language to signal what we want. Sometimes, it doesn't work out and you just move on.

1 comment:

  1. the foods from stall are the best ones! Enjoy your great time in Thailand!

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