As a Starbucks fan, I “collect” stores wherever I go. This one’s at the corner of Nathan Road, in Hong Kong.
There was a branch inside The Venetian hotel in Macau.
At New Town Mall in the New Territories, Hong Kong, I took a picture of the Starbucks signage as I spotted it from afar. I went inside and had a Raspberry Mocha (skim, no whip) while waiting for friends to finish looking around the mall.
I didn’t take a shot of the interior because Starbucks stores look the same inside wherever you go – Hong Kong, Manila, Dubai, New York, Pasadena. They all have the brown tables and tan, chocolate, or olive sofas, the warm orange lights over the bar, the same smell of roasted coffee, the same subdued chatter.
The consistency is boring, but it is also comforting. I know that wherever in the world I go, hearing a cacophony of languages I don’t understand, brushing past tall men in robes or fashionable women in knee-high boots, once I enter a Starbucks it’s like coming home. It’s something familiar, something I understand. Being in a different city, you can go adrift, cast loose from the moorings of your own place and culture.
Starbucks, transcending culture, having created its own, is a pocket of home wherever it is.
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You really are a Starbucks addict! I hope they invite you to some of their events. My regret is that I attended one and I never wrote about it. You’d probably help them increase popularity (beyond their current popularity ratings).
I wish! I notice they keep checking out my site, but I never get an invitation for anything. Why spend when you get it for free anyway? Haay.
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