ByGD
I’ve already shared how a birthday party created a figure skating monster. The monster was fed the following spring when we traveled to China and visited Qingdao’s brand new MixC Mall, which housed an Olympic size rink. While part of the rink was blocked off for a dancing walrus, my daughter taught herself to skate in a pair of rental skates and summer capris. It was her second skate, and my first inkling that figure skating would become a major part of our lives.
ByGD
I once thought anime is full of unrealistic mascot pets, but I have discovered that some of them are based on real animals.
There really is a rodent called a pika. That weird little rodent with tufted ears that showed up all over the place in early 90s anime is a Hokkaido squirrel. Remember the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion? If you’re an otaku, of course you do. But do you remember Pen Pen, Misato’s pet warm-water penguin that lived in her freezer?
So I guess I wasn’t really that surprised to see penguins hanging out on the ice rink in Qingdao’s MixC Mall. Pet penguins.
ByGD
Stupid gimmicks are not a purely American invention. As evidence, take the Ice Bar. It took me a while to figure it out, even after an attendant explained it to me.
In celebration of Qingdao’s MixC Mall grand opening, this big box was set up in one of the mall lobbies. Any customer who met the minimum spend – I think it was something like $100 – could gain entry into the exclusive “Ice Bar.”
The Ice Bar did not actually serve drinks inside. It was just a refrigerated room, kept below freezing. Once you proved you had spent enough money in the mall, they gave you a big blue coat. Then they let you go stand in the freezer for something like ten minutes.
I know air conditioning is not as common in other countries as the U.S., and in late May it was already hot in Qingdao. So I could see the cold room as a refreshing break from excessive heat. But the Ice Bar was inside the mall, which was air conditioned to a lovely, comfortable temperature.
ByGD
I’ve mentioned the over-the-top MixC mall in Qingdao before. We ate lunch inside that mall one day, and let’s just say it was no Orange Julius. This trendy little restaurant whose name I couldn’t read had a 45-minute wait for seating. Inside, the menu consisted of elevated izakaya-style small plates. I wasn’t in China long enough to bother setting up a Weibo account. But I’m willing to bet there’s a lot of IG-worthy food photos on it.
ByGD
I’ve mentioned before that animal care standards in China are not quite the same as in the U.S.
And I’ve mentioned their shopping malls that put ours to shame.
These two facts collided on the third day that my daughter and I returned to the brand-new MixC mall in Qingdao. She wanted to go ice skating. The mall had only been open for a couple of weeks, and on this Sunday it was celebrating the new ice rink. So, while she and dozens of others skated, a corner of the Olympic-sized rink was walled off from the skaters. Shoppers piled up along the rink wall to watch the show. First some penguins were trotted out on the ice to run around. Then a trained walrus from one of the city’s multiple aquariums was brought out. Among the walrus’ many tricks, he was trained to dance to the then-top hit “Gangnam Style.”
My daughter and hundreds of local shoppers were charmed. I was so shocked I didn’t even think to complain that it should have been the Lobster Quadrille.