I was stuck for things to do today and I feared that if I didn’t leave the house soon I would become lost in a world tragedy and despair. I went to Emporium (a large mall) with Kitty. We spent some time watching a woman making something out of Lego. I was drawn to the Lego because it brought back memories of my youth, but this woman was confusing me.

She was moving erratically, trying to build what looked to be a house. She was sat at a table with several other children and each time one of the children would dare get too close, she would shoo him away. I found it odd that she was taking the whole Lego experience this seriously. The effort she was putting into her project seemed to be filled with necessity rather than enjoyment.

For a while now I’d been meaning to pay a toy shop a visit. I wanted to compare what the children of today are playing with to what I used to play with. My own childhood was filled with Transformers, Action Force (G.I. Joe), Mask, lots of cars, and Ghostbusters. We went to the toy section of the large department store whose name I don’t know.

The first thing I noticed was that the toys for girls were very sexually suggestive. There were dolls dressed as sluts, complete with high heels and tight pants. I could only imagine this was the effect that J-Lo and Christina Aguillera have had on pop culture. Even Barbie and her friends were looking a whole lot bustier than I remembered. The girls’ toys were focused primarily on femininity as opposed to any childlike quality.

The boys’ toys were as I remembered 15 years ago. They were almost entirely the same: action figures, robots, pirates, swords. Even Thomas the Tank Engine still had his own section. I felt strangely at home, so much so that I decided to buy some things. The first item that caught my shopper’s eye was a Micro Places toy made by Tomy. It was 399 baht and it’s really quite bizarre. It’s a little cat that has its own room, and in this room the cat sings, me-ows, talks to the fish in a bowl, and it actually moves around thanks to a magnet on its underside. It’s voice activated too.

My second purchase was a Transformer. I purchased the smallest one on the shelf for 295 baht. His name is Leobreaker, whatever that means. I must say, even the biggest of the Transformers was unusually small. I remember transformers as large, clunky things. The one I purchased was a little disappointing. As of yet, I’ve not been able to get it to transform from the robot in the lion. There is also no hologram.

My final buy was a tiny Hello Kitty in a car. It cost 160 baht and I’m yet to really get excited about it. All in all, the toys I bought kept me briefly entertained when I returned home. The Micro Places cat is probably the only toy that will get my attention again in the future.

The best toy I saw in the department was a large robot that was able to play MP3s, had Javagames, could walk around and do all sorts. There were quite a few robots and suchlike, but this one really stood out. It cost a staggering 26,000 baht and so I decided to put off buying it for now.

For half-an-hour at least, I felt like a child again.

Techno’ tags: Toys, Bangkok Shopping