Big, bigger, biggest

South-Africa has a shopping mall culture. The malls are immense. You can spend days there without seeing the same shop twice. For people from the States this isn't something new, but for me as a Dutch girl it's quite an experience going there. The biggest malls in Holland consist of one shoe store, three clothing stores, a supermarket, a bakery and a butcher. Not here though...It starts when you arrive in your car and have to choose one of many entrances to the parking garage. If you choose poorly it means one or two kilometres of walking before you get past the supermarket and foodcourt to the nice little stores. I found this out the hard way. After you park, you MUST remember the number of the space you parked in, i.e. Dolphin D2 or Elephant W25. If you don't you will get lost and end up walking around for 30 minutes trying to find your car. I also found this out the hard way. Then in the elevator up to the stores. When get out of the elevator remember the stores around you, otherwise you will never find that particular elevator ever again. Guess how I found this out.
Then shop till you litterally drop. Make sure you wear comfy shoes and comfy clothes. If you want something cheap and basic go to Edgars, Truworths or Woolworths. Older women go to Milady's or Donna Claire. Young women go to Foschini or Queens Park. Guys (older and younger) go to the Cape Union Mart, Stuttafords or Truworths Man. All of these shops you will find in almost every mall in SA. The lack of variation sometimes is annoying.
SA people are like people in the rest of the world, which means that you see a lot of bored men waiting for their women outside the shops. In one mall I saw a special corner for these men, with leather couches and a big tv playing sports.
After the shopping you want a drink. You can choose between a Mugg and Bean, a Nino's or all the fastfood chains you can see in the picture on top of this post. It's the foodcourt in Canal Walk in Cape Town. It is huge. I think 500 people can sit there at once.
Sometimes it's nice and entertaining going to a mall, but I definitely prefer the sidewalk cafe's and little shops in Cape Towns Long street. Going by car to a mall and seeing no daylight at all seems like a waste in country with a climate like SA's. But I understand that it's safe, it's efficient and the only way, because a lot of cities in SA don't have an old city centre like a lot of cities in Europe do.