America's Cathedral to Commerce

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I was supposed to be in the Philippines today. Or at least, flying over the Arctic circle on my way to the Philippines, via Tokyo. But instead, my plane in Boston was delayed by mechanical problems and weather, and I was stranded in Minneapolis. Better here than NWA's other hub - Detroit. NWA provided lodging at the Days Inn in Bloomington and a few meal vouchers. I had 24 hours to kill until the next flight to Manila. It wasn't long before I learned that a very famous place was right here in Bloomington - the Mall of America.

America is really the mother of malls. I do think they must have been invented here first, and they are particularly popular in colder areas of the country where outdoor marketplaces never really worked. Now, I know there are some amazing malls in Dubai now where you can waterski indoors. And I've been to the 8 story mega-malls of Bangkok. However, the Mall of America is known to all of america's children. Why? Because it is fabled for its indoor amusement park. Mom & Dad can be shopping their hearts and wouldn't it just be so cool to go to an amusement park while they're shopping, we'd think. Yes, it's that place - the mall of america. And it's the biggest mall in America, I think - bigger even than King of Prussia in Pennsylvania.

My dad is a connoisseur of malls, so of course I had to call him from the airport. "Hi Dad, I'm stranded in Minneapolis, but don't worry, my hotel is next to the Mall of America." Even my boss was excited for me, although concerned that I wasn't going to make it to the Philippines in time for my training class to commence. (And I'm the trainer).

Now, this part of the world looks a lot like other parts of America. It is a wasteland of highways and stripmalls and big box stores and the same chains, over and over again, so you're not sure if you're in Utah, Minnesota, Washington, or Massachusetts. In fact, as the free airport shuttle brought us to our hotel, we drove past the mall of America but you'd never distinguish it amongst the other giant structures here, including some interesting modern office buildings. There was an older German couple, similarly stranded, and I felt sad that this is what they were seeing of America. Hopefully this isn't all they were seeing in America! And yet, I could hear them repeating the names of stores to eachother the same way that my spouse and I do on vacation. Maybe these names sounded exotic to them: REI, IKEA, Target, Walmart. The Walmart had a McDonalds in it, I noted. Whatta slice of America!

Anyway, back to the mall. After checking into my free room, I freshened up and headed out to the mall. Tons of hotels were pulling up. The mall is near the airport, which is a great location, so it's hard to tell if all the nearby hotels are for the airport...or the mall. The mall seems to be its own vacation destination! Inside it features three levels of shopping, four anchor stores including Nordstroms, an amusement park with two rollercoasters and a flume ride, an adventure golf course, and an aquarium. Did you get all that? I wasn't really in the mood to shop, so mostly I wandered around taking pictures - which I'll post here when I get home.

I did however convince myself to pay the 20$ to go into the aquarium. I said "I only have an hour and a half, is it worth going in?" She explained that it would only take twenty minutes to see it. That's one dollar a minute - no bargain. Apparently this is the famous aquarium where Jesse the giant tiger shark devoured a smaller shark in front of all comers, and the place capitalizes on that! I know all aquariums have to do something to make their exhibits exciting, but this place did it to an extreme that made you feel a little queasy. Movies like the Titanic, Goonies, and Finding Nemo were all used to get people interested in the fish themselves. Finding Nemo, I get, but the Goonies exhibit was a stretch. There was a part featuring the freshwater fish of Minnesota's rivers & lakes, like trout, salmon, and turtles. From the southeast, the exhibit showed off gators. Then, there was the shark tank, one of those underground tube areas. It was pretty similar to the aquarium in Barcelona, but I still really enjoyed it - checking out the sharks, the 'rays, and the giant sea turtles. I didn't get to see any sharks eating other sharks, but after reading about that, I had some doubts about the shark-feeding "activity". Baby sharks, called pups, are really really cute. Yes, all baby animals are cute, even sharks. They have a soft roundness to them as babies that they lose as adults, and some really interesting color variations.

After the aquarium, I visited Barnes & Noble, and also got a hot steamed milk from Caribou coffee, seemingly the equivalent to Starbucks (there were three outlets in the mall that I saw alone). Then I took a walk around the entire perimeter, which took me about 15 minutes. Then it was time to head back to the hotel. Which brings me to here.

My next post will be from the Philippines, God willing.

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