You can take a girl out of the library but…

Today Kevin took me on a Mystery Tour to a shopping mall on the other side of Chengdu. I know that I have bemoaned the lack of decent shopping experiences in Shanghai but I was slightly surprised at his desire to visit another one on our holiday (particularly as our hotel was right next to one) Anyway, I went along. After the stress of a new job I was happy to just tag along wherever and not have to think too much. And in fact the pollution levels jacked the AQI up to 166 so it was pretty nasty outside & I figured that an indoor experience was just the thing on a day like this.

What I hadn’t expected was that Kevin had done some research and discovered what is allegedly China’s most beautiful book shop.

I have never seen anything quite like it.

There are mirrored ceilings everywhere which expands the space. This one is the auditorium where author talks happen.

I loved the craziness of the children’s area with its books and crannies and beautiful toadstool features

I guess shelving on curvy shelves is hard though…

Apparently the shop is owned by a former teacher who has a few of these now. He always gets a designer in and the results speak for themselves.

Then we moved across town on heaving subways to our second bookshop destination.

This was in the basement of a shopping mall and was HUGE. It was on three levels with books on both Chinese and English (yay) with an excellent collection of children’s stock. I might have been a little tempted at that point…

Anyway it had lots of stalls with non book items just like Open House in Bangkok but bigger! I was in seventh heaven. I notched up 10k of steps very easily.

And they even had some bookish art in the middle of the mall! Niiice