Hamleys Opens in Vivo

My son was happily playing at home when I dragged him to the opening of Hamleys. He really couldn’t care less and was doubly disappointed that we had to wait for 2 hours before the opening.

We hung out at the Book Cafe while Hamleys continued with their program with a number of VIP at the ground floor and held a parade, complete with a a mini marching band.
At 7 pm, they finally gathered again in front for the ribbon cutting. Yes, 7 pm and not 6 pm. 6 pm was for the VIP program.Hamleys occupies two floors in SC Vivo City filled with — of course, toys!The first floor was mostly filled with stuff for young children while the second floor was for the bigger kids.My son was a bit overwhelmed by the toys and yeah, the crowd.I was overwhelmed by the pens and the prices. 😛This Hamleys staff was really good in doing the demo and she’s bilingual so I was pretty much sold on the pens. I bought a couple of boxes after a miscommunication on the buy 3 take 1 promo. For a small box, the pens were pricey for almost 300,000VND.

But here are my favorite finds in Hamleys —
The scooter was just over 1.2MVND while the balance bike was just under 2MVND — really much cheaper than the First Bike being sold in Vietnam.On my son’s 7th birthday I had to look for a telescope as gift. Hamleys opened 2 months late.I was pretty excited with this microscope set! But no, not yet. Must.Not.Buy.This is one of my favorite shelves which displayed horseshoe magnets, voice changing gun, and binoculars!Okay so when I saw these Magic Balloons, I wanted to buy them for Sam and Rafa. I was pretty sure they’d enjoy it until I saw the price! It was over 800,000 VND! These are the pricier counterparts of plastic balloons which as a child, I could buy for less than Php5 (1/10 of a dollar) for a small tube. So we had to pass.These National Geographic toy blocks were really awesome. And they light up too!The opening went well I think and there were lots of people and a long line to the counter. Let’s see how they will fare in the Vietnam market.