Venting on Shopping and Dining Experience

So I have been to Washington State 3 times in last 3 weeks, twice to Seattle and once to Bellingham and I have come to the realization that Surrey sucks when it comes to shopping and dining selections. We are the second largest city in the province of BC and yet unless you are willing or financially able to spend hundreds of dollars on one outfit you are limited to Zellers and WalMart. As if that wasn't bad enough, try maneuvering around the jammed packed aisles that are crammed with displays let alone get a cart around the clothing racks!! Why can't we have a Target here? WalMart came here and they were a US based company what's the difference?

To buy women's shoes in size 11 again unless you want to pay hundreds of dollars on one pair (and I NEED way too many shoes to do that!)you are limited to shopping at Payless which of course means you have to follow the current fads of 5 inch wedges. Get real. I didn't like wedgies the first time they were in style in the 70's! So you have that or sneakers. Oh yes both of those will look real great with my suit and pantyhose.

Then you get the whole dining experience. Or lack of it. If you want to go for a steak dinner you get the choice of the Keg. If you want real seafood you go into Vancouver. There is one choice for a place to go for "coffee" and dessert at Death by Chocolate. Oh wait I lied.. there is also Tim Horton's I suppose. We stopped at a place called Old Country Buffet on Saturday in Bellingham on our way back from Seattle. They have a huge selection, everything was hot enough to burn your tongue, the trays were refilled before they were even half emptied, the dessert bar was almost as big and you had 3 main meat entrees, prime rib, baked ham and steak not counting the fried chicken, BBQ ribs etc.

We have one buffet in Surrey and yes it technically has a large selection but once you picked through the national dishes that are covered in sauces you can't name and anything deep fried, battered or breaded you come up having your token plate of limp green salad and potato salad swimming in what I assume is supposed to be mayo.

Why can't we have a open stall market like North Van or New West has where you can go along and get all your grocery items that are fresh? I was really excited at the beginning of this year when I found out a new strip mall featuring a "large" retail store, and restaurant was opening just a 5 minute walk from my front door. WOOOHOOO! That feeling of exhilaration was short lived when I found out this retail store was a Save on Foods grocery store and the restaurant was yet ANOTHER Tim Horton's. The grocery store is now flanked by a different supermarket withing a couple minutes of it and there is already a T.H. kitty corner!! There is now going to be a video rental store but there is one already at the end of that parking lot.

Puhlease! Come on city council!! Can you not limit the idiocy that some merchants have at requesting the same old same old? Do we not have quotas on how many donut places there can be in one square mile? Why can't we have real stores like Micheals or Linen's and Things or Ikea? Something useful? Why can't we have Red Lobster or Chili's or Outback if you are bent on allowing chains to open?

This city is so lucky that this is home to me otherwise I would be out of here! And as soon as I become President of the world and inheriting wealthy I am going to open up all those places. Stick that in your pocketbook where it hurts.