Sunday, September 04, 2005

Of Gurney Plaza, Bookstores and CD-Hunting...

During the previous meetup with the Penang Bloggers recently, I also had the oppourtunity to do a bit of shopping around Gurney Plaza. The last time I was there, chunks of the shopping complex was closed for renovations. Now I know what they eventually did to the place. The people who made some of these changes are freaking geniouses I tell you!

Big Bookstore was relocated to another part of the same floor but sadly, MPH Bookstores are no longer with us on Gurney Plaza anymore. It is now replaced by Popular Bookstore on the other end of the floor. What used to be Big and MPH bookstores are now just a big blank of space waiting to be rented out. When I first visited Popular on August 21, the outlet was just newly opened for 5 days only and yet still some racks were covered up and the workers still painting the ceiling and setting things up. I was back there 2 days later and everyone's still cleaning up (wiping, mopping and polishing just everything) in anticipation of a Penang big-shot VIP to open the store formally with a press conference, speech, journalist and all of those things.

One thing I noticed is that the new CD shops (Popular's CD RAMA section and Artists Gallery) have better CD stock if compared to Tower Records and the small (but two) Speedy Entertainment shops. I managed to pick up the first Gorillaz album and Enigma's Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! album, and Maksim's The Piano Player album. Currently listening to all three on rotational basis and I'll pretty much come up with a review or two after this. :)

Here's some useless info unless you frequently hunt for albums: Let's say if you want to buy an album but they the shop doesn't have any stock, for Popular you have to pay a RM20 deposit and pay off the remainder when the stock arrives and they'll give you a phone call. Deposit is refundable after a month but I'm not sure how they'll deduct the 10% discount by then though. For Artists Gallery a deposit is not necessary, just leave a phone number with the artist's name and/or album title and they'll just give you a call, simple as that.

Edit: So it seems that MPH really will remain at Gurney! Thanks to 5xmom for the news. :)

4 comments:

SK said...

MPH moved already?

Ohhh, too bad. The only one available is in Gurney Tower, right?

Andy said...

I think they closed down the store there already. And yea, I guess the only MPH store left is over there. Think Popular's business might fare better than MPH.

5xmom.com said...

Eheh, the inquisitive 5xmom had investigated this matter. MPH will open again on the same floor as Popular, BBS. Isn't that great? Good for us consumers. I asked the MPH guys at the MPH in Gurney Tower (or something).

Andy said...

Hahah, you really hebat, 5xmom! :P