timmydownawell wrote:

sigmoid wrote: I'm all for progress and development but it's the commercialization of everything that ruins it and this Western obsession of trying to replace authenticity with artifcial "cool" and trendiness.

All the coffee and fast food chains down the BKK1 end of St 51 and St 57 make it so generic and boring. There were already three Brown Coffees, a White Coffee, a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, a Caffe Bene, a Gloria Jeans and a Costa Coffee down here and now there's a bloody Starbucks as well. Enough!

Can't I just get a tall black with a huge glob of condensed milk in the bottom, please? At a tiny fraction of the price?

John Bingham wrote:

timmydownawell wrote:

sigmoid wrote: I'm all for progress and development but it's the commercialization of everything that ruins it and this Western obsession of trying to replace authenticity with artifcial "cool" and trendiness.

All the coffee and fast food chains down the BKK1 end of St 51 and St 57 make it so generic and boring. There were already three Brown Coffees, a White Coffee, a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, a Caffe Bene, a Gloria Jeans and a Costa Coffee down here and now there's a bloody Starbucks as well. Enough!

Can't I just get a tall black with a huge glob of condensed milk in the bottom, please? At a tiny fraction of the price?

I remember these (at the time) fancy "Tea & Coffee" places opening up around 2005 and thinking what a terrible idea they were. Nobody would want to pay that much money for a drink. I was very wrong. They aren't about the drink, they are about the experience. You go there and hang out and meet up and use the WiFi and it can seem nicer than at your desk at home or some dreary office with a 2000 riel iced coffee. Not really my kind of thing, but I can understand why a lot of people like these places.

timmydownawell wrote:
Yes they seem to do a bewildering amount of business. But then again there's obviously a bit of money around BKK1.

Jamie_Lambo wrote:

Kuroneko wrote:

timmydownawell wrote:

bolueeleh wrote:welcome to globalisation

Ahh it's pathetic. In Australia the TV news repeatedly gets all excited because some stupid international brand (e.g. Zara, Top Shop, Microsoft, M&S etc) announced they would open a store in Sydney. It's like, "oh wow, look how important we are that they want to open a store here". Just sad.

But Footscray in Melbourne has Olympic Doughnuts

haha footscray is a beautiful place lol

SinnSisamouth wrote:

Jamie_Lambo wrote:

Kuroneko wrote:

timmydownawell wrote:

bolueeleh wrote:welcome to globalisation

Ahh it's pathetic. In Australia the TV news repeatedly gets all excited because some stupid international brand (e.g. Zara, Top Shop, Microsoft, M&S etc) announced they would open a store in Sydney. It's like, "oh wow, look how important we are that they want to open a store here". Just sad.

But Footscray in Melbourne has Olympic Doughnuts

haha footscray is a beautiful place lol

go the doggies!

John Bingham wrote:

timmydownawell wrote:
Yes they seem to do a bewildering amount of business. But then again there's obviously a bit of money around BKK1.

I'm not sure why you are singling out BKK1, these places are spread all around the city.