Today I caught a bus to the largest shopping mall in North America, the West Edmonton Mall. It is also the 10^th largest in the world, and between 1999, when its 4^th stage was completed, and 2004, it was the largest in the world. Initial construction commenced in 1981.

It doesn’t look much from one side, but it is quite long and deep.

I went for a wander around and got to see one and a half of the two floors in the period from 11am until 4.45pm when it was time to leave to catch the bus back to the hotel.

The mall has a lot of different entertainment attractions, including:

Galaxyland – an indoor amusement park with at least 3 rollercoasters and a number of other rides, entertainment machines and even a Ghost House, like the haunted house at the showgrounds. It also has a number of food stall and a small train. I took some action photos of the rides at speed (quarter second and half second), when gave some streaks of colour and also made sure I didn’t get any identifiable people, given Galaxyland was full of parents with kids. Some of these came out well, especially without a tripod.

A food street of a number of different restaurants, which is only 1 of 3 food halls. I’ve left this photo dark as that is the atmosphere on the “street”.

An ice rink called an Ice Palace, which is a reduced size ice hockey rink. It is used for hockey and other tournaments, as well as for the public to skate on, as today.

An 18 hole putt putt course. I played and came in 14 over par, though at least I got a hole in one!

There is also the World Waterpark. I didn’t bring any swimming gear so I didn’t pay to go in, but went to the observation deck. It has a beach and a large pool with a wave machine, and well as a number of waterslides and a small café and seating area.

There is also the Sea Life Cavern and Rock, with an indoor lagoon with sea lions and a replica of the Santa Marie (the ship on which Christopher Columbus sailed in on his first voyage in 1492).

One of the smaller commercial businesses is what is called 9D Virtual Reality. There are 7 pods (3 in one circular grouping and 2 lots of 2 side by side) which you can sit in, strap yourself in the seatbelt, put on Virtual Reality goggles and go on one of 8 different rides. I chose the roller coaster, as I decided not to go on a real one in Galaxyland, having just had breakfast. It went for 7 minutes and was well worth the $15. The pod rocked when rocks came down in front of the roller, and the feeling when the roller went straight up or straight down felt quite realistic. There were a number of other rides especially for kids, as well as a haunted house. Most of the rides also had demons or devils that you could use the joysticks that you held to play. It was great fun, and I can see this rolling out quickly in Australia, unless it is already there.

There was also a $550,000 Ferrari Aventador being raffled off for $20 per ticket. I would have bought one if it wasn’t left hand drive.

It was pretty good fun and I racked up about 9 kilometres walking through the mall. It was time then to head back to the hotel so I walked to the bus stop, on the other side of the mall from where I entered. Herewith a photo of this side as it got dark, where the large skylight for the World Waterpark is situated.

The bus took about 25 minutes to come, so luckily I was rugged up. I then went to Wendy’s across the road for dinner (it wasn’t that great), and went back to the hotel to bed. I took a couple of vitamin C tablets given the number of people at the mall and about with colds, just so I don’t get it.