Starbucks creeping in
For more than a year we have been waiting for the Starbucks at the Aeon Mall to open. It's been there, appearing ready for business but dark and locked and silent every time we have taken the thirty minute metro ride to get there.
When I have asked around at the mall itself and other Starbucks about the store opening, no one seemed to know when it was going to open. One person even said she had heard it was never going to open because of something related to the China-Japan situation (Aeon is a Japanese company), and as the months passed with no Starbucks I was beginning to believe it. The mall still advertised itself as being home to a Starbucks on their large sign advertising to passing traffic their marquee retailers. Still, though, the store and its inventory remained untouched.
more after the jump
After Mass on Sundays we normally stop at a Starbucks near the Seminary. It's become something of a running joke that I ask the barista about the Aeon Starbucks, and she laughs and tells me that it is still not open. Three weeks ago we walked in after Church, and the barista was hopping with news she was excited to share with me. The Starbucks was open; it was really open. She had no idea what had changed, but it was open. She made me promise that knowing this didn't mean we would never return to Wudaokou. I assured here that as long as we went to church there, we would be back most Sundays.
That week we verified it. There was at long last the Starbucks we were convinced was never to be.
Now if we need to run an errand at this mall, I now have an enticement to get it over with and a reward for the patient and well-behaved. (You decide if I am talking about the kids or myself).
Changping town is still without a Starbucks of its own. At one time I joked here that the still-developing area near our closest Metro stop in Nanshou will be the first one in our immediate area. It could still happen, though it appears this new commercial development located almost halfway between our old apartment and new apartment could have a Starbucks before that. We've watched this construction for a few years, and it has always amused us that this building which looks so out of place in Changping will, in a few years, feel like it has always been there. With a Starbucks (or maybe the competitor Costa), no doubt.
When I have asked around at the mall itself and other Starbucks about the store opening, no one seemed to know when it was going to open. One person even said she had heard it was never going to open because of something related to the China-Japan situation (Aeon is a Japanese company), and as the months passed with no Starbucks I was beginning to believe it. The mall still advertised itself as being home to a Starbucks on their large sign advertising to passing traffic their marquee retailers. Still, though, the store and its inventory remained untouched.
more after the jump
After Mass on Sundays we normally stop at a Starbucks near the Seminary. It's become something of a running joke that I ask the barista about the Aeon Starbucks, and she laughs and tells me that it is still not open. Three weeks ago we walked in after Church, and the barista was hopping with news she was excited to share with me. The Starbucks was open; it was really open. She had no idea what had changed, but it was open. She made me promise that knowing this didn't mean we would never return to Wudaokou. I assured here that as long as we went to church there, we would be back most Sundays.
That week we verified it. There was at long last the Starbucks we were convinced was never to be.
Now if we need to run an errand at this mall, I now have an enticement to get it over with and a reward for the patient and well-behaved. (You decide if I am talking about the kids or myself).
Changping town is still without a Starbucks of its own. At one time I joked here that the still-developing area near our closest Metro stop in Nanshou will be the first one in our immediate area. It could still happen, though it appears this new commercial development located almost halfway between our old apartment and new apartment could have a Starbucks before that. We've watched this construction for a few years, and it has always amused us that this building which looks so out of place in Changping will, in a few years, feel like it has always been there. With a Starbucks (or maybe the competitor Costa), no doubt.
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