spanking new mall

Robina and I went to the brand new Shin Kong Place mall near our part of town several times over the May 1st holidays. the parent company Shinkong Mitsukoshi was from Taipei and the new mall was very similar to Mitsukoshi in Taipei. of course in Beijing, the new joint is even bigger (all 18,000 sq metres!)

they have a decent food court in the place, plenty of ya-ya coffee joints and even has a BreadTalk outlet. several "proper" restaurants on the 6th level, we tried all of them over the holidays including Din Tai Feng, Bellagio and Matsushin.
we had been to the Japanese restuarant's main branch near our place. the food here was cheaper but the portions were huge. I had the Sukiyaki
we tried the tuna sashimi, which was quite good and reasonably priced (RMB76) for a generous serving.
There's a Snoopy restuarant, Charlie Brown, which was quite cute (note: for Peck Wai's benefit)
the decor was bright and cheerful. we will try their food once of these days.
there was a creative water feature on the 5th level, below the skylight. the shower of water from the roof helped to cool down the place and add some humidity to the dry Beijing air!