MegaBox, The Big Red Mall

Last week we crossed over into Kowloon to go to MegaBox, a mall that houses a giant home improvement store called B & Q. We bought our second dehumidifer there, as well as some supplies for my little balcony garden.

It turns out that MegaBox is a worthy destination in its own right, regardless of whether you need to buy anything. Just picture how this building looks on the Kowloon skyline... completely red and sporting an enormous porthole window over six stories high:

There's plenty of parking at MegaBox, but for those of us on public transport, one way to get there is on a free shuttle bus from the Kowloon Bay MTR station. It's ironic that you have to cross through another giant mall (Telford Plaza) to get to the bus stop.

No surprise, the queue for the bus is long. Fortunately, the buses come around every five minutes or so.

After a short ride through what looks like an industrial and warehouse area, the bus drops you off at the entrance. Inside, the red color theme continues, accented with bright spotlights and lots of shiny surfaces.

You can climb the floors one at a time via an escalator on each floor, or skip several floors by using one of these express escalators. They zoom up and down at rather alarming speeds, three or four stories at a time. It sort of feels like being in a Jetsons cartoon.

This light sculpture in the middle of the mall has animated graphics that change colors as they drift down to the floor. You can see a little of the network of escalators surrounding it.

One of the architectural highlights is this giant round video screen, ten meters wide. It faces out toward the porthole window (see the first photo above) and plays commercials for the shops in the mall. It's very Blade Runner, isn't it?

In addition to the all the shops and restaurants, MegaBox also has an IMAX theatre and an Olympic-sized ice rink.

I never thought I'd feature a shopping mall in this blog, but since shopping is practically a national sport in this country, it's only fair that I describe one of its more eye-popping arenas. Plus, I find that I end up spending more time in malls here than in America. For one thing, they're in my path, everywhere I go, as they're directly connected to many MTR stations and office buildings. They aren't set off in remote suburbs, surrounded by acres of parking lots.

In addition, I've discovered that some of my favorite grocery stores are located in malls. Whenever I need expat food supplies or treats, all I need to do is hit one of the major malls on my MTR line. Fancy produce, canned goods, bread, Japanese and Korean ingredients -- I can get almost everything I need for my kitchen at the mall.