London photos: space station Westfield Stratford

Almost five years in London, and it was only this past Saturday that I finally made the pilgrimage to the American-style shopping mall in Stratford, the Westfield. (I kid about pilgrimaging. I hate shopping. Some people call it retail therapy. I call it retail torture. But sometimes you simply need stuff that it is not practical to get any other way.)

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This mall is in the shadow of the Olympic stadium. You can also see the big Orbital scuplture, to the left of the stadium:

That was taken from the mall’s “viewing platform,” so you know this place is intended as a destination. The mall was busier than any shopping mall I’d ever been in before, including huge Long Island retail meccas at Christmastime.

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I fear this is what our space stations and moonbases are going to look like:

You just know there will be, like, three Starbuckses, a Body Shop, and an H&M on that giant wheel in orbit, about five minutes after it opens for tourists.

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Oh, and be warned, my NYC friends: there’s a Westfield opening soon at the new World Trade Center site…