East Point

East Point is a shopping and entertainment center. It's really huge. The center is just about 15 minutes drive from the city center of Tbilisi. It's on the eastern end of Tbilisi on the Kakheti Highway _ the road that goes to Kakheti. So, this center has just been opened in 2015. And this was what people of all Georgia were waiting for. The building process has been so interesting, that every time I passed it, I stared at it for a long time, until it faded away behind us.

East point is a huge center that is for everyone no matter what their age, sex or interests are. There are different areas: shopping areas, dining, and entertainment areas.

How to get there

So, how to get there? Well, if you have a car, you can just go to East and get on the Kakheti Highway and just in some kilometres you will see the signs that tell you that East Point is just 2 minutes away and then you will see a sign telling you to turn there and you will enter the East Point center. If you don't have a car and you want to go there by public transport there are two options, well, to be exact, there are three options, if you want to know the truth. So, the first one is to go there by normal yellow bus, but those buses don't go exactly in East point, so you'll have to walk for some time to get there, so I don't really like that bus idea. The second option is to go there by another buswhich is going directly to East Point center. This is a big bus, just like the travelling bus and is very comfortable and large and you will usually find it in Samgori, just above the Samgori Metro (the upper one) and it goes to East Point in every 15 minutes and it's totally free. The third option is going there by minibuses. There are some minibuses, which go there and some of them go near the center and some of them go exactly in East Point. You should go to Varketili Metro and above the metro you will find a minibus number 224 and it goes exactly in the East Point center. Another minibus that goes there but not inside the East Point is number 89 and also 165 minibus goes near it too. But the best option is to go there by 224!

Now that we've discussed options about how to get to East Point, it's time to talk about what to see and what to do there.

First of all, it's a shopping center, if you ask me. There are so many shops, that you can't really have time to visit all of them and look at all the things that are there.

Shopping at East Point

The very important shop that people go there for is Carrefour! This is a huge grocery store with many things inside and, I think, every family that lives nearby goes there on weekends to buy things for home and just have a walk together somewhere. There you can find different types of food, fruits and vegetables, herbs, spices, cheese, meat, canned food, frozen things, and many many other things, as well as kitchenware, houseware, things for your car such as polishers and things that have a scent, etc. You can even buy clothes and curtains and rugs and toys and flowers and gifts and pans and, boy, there are so many things! There is even a kids corner, where you can leave your kid to enjoy and have fun while you shop around the grocery store. You can even buy prepared food there, which is really delicious, and cakes, too. This is a very comfortable shopping supermarket, where you enjoy your shopping.

There are many brand shops in the East Point center, most of them are clothes shops. There are more than 150 clothing, shoes and accessories fashion retailers in East Point. So, there you will find: Aldo, Aldo Shoes, Bata, Bershka, Calzedonia, Caprisa, Charles & Keith, Factory, Flormar, Gloria Jeans, Inglot, Kenari, Koton, LC Waikiki, Lee & Wrangler, Levis, Lutecia, Madkeds, Mango, Massimo Dutti, MOA, Okaidi Obaibi, Parfois, Promod, Roniko, Samsonite, Sergent Major, Shoes Gallery, Stradivarius, Suite Blanco, Super, Super Toys, Tape A L’Oeil, The Children’s Place, Waggon, XS Toys, Yves Rocher, ZARA, Zippy…If you love shopping, especially for clothes, that is your heaven, I can say! You can wander in shops all day and never get tired, as everything is in one place and there is like a long street and there are shops along it on both sides.

Another great shop or supermarket or call it whatever you want, is Domino! This is the first DIY (Do It Yourself) hypermarket in Georgia. This is also a huge grocery store, where you can find everything but food there. There are mostly things for your home. There are plates, glasses, pans, saucepans, everything you need in your kitchen, in short. There are also wallpapers. You can find plain wallpapers as well as wallpapers with different pictures on them. There you can also find many photo frames in different size and shapes that you wll definitely like. There are many lamps, all in different shapes and sizes and mechanisms as well as chandeliers and stuff like that. You will be amazed by the paintings that are hung on those huge walls, some of them are printed art and some of them are real paintings on canvas and they are really beautiful and the prices are reasonable too, so if you love hanging paintings on your walls at home you should visit this place. Oh, and now the flowers! There are so many flowers and they are so beautiful, that you want to take all of them at home. There are lovely orchids and cactuses and palms and mimoses, etc. They are just amazing! All in different shapes and sizes and prices! There are also doors for houses and flats, mirrors, curtains, bathroom baths, rugs, toilets, etc.

Between Carrefour and Domino you will find shops filled with appliances. There you will see MetroMart, Elit-Electronics, Beko, Megatechnika, where you can buy laptops, computers, refrigerators, mobile phones, tablets, washing and drying machines, etc.

Dining at East Point

Okay, after some shopping, it's time for lunch, or dinner, whatever you will! You can just choose whatever you want and dine in wherever you want. There are some options there:

• Dunkin' Donuts
• Khachapuri #1
• Lebowski Bowl Club Cafe
• McDonald's
• Wendy's

So, I'm sure you all know the phrase "America runs on Dunkins! " Well, now Georgia runs on Dunkins, too. Dunkin Donuts are really popular in Georgia, too and you can really enjoy it if you love donuts and want to eat in a good environment. There's even a Georgian Khachapuri on menu!

Another dining place is Khachapuri #1. This is a very popular brand in Georgia, everyone loves it and they have a great Acharuli Khachapuri there. Me and my friends often go to Khachapuri #1 and enjoy our Khachapuris, and despite the fact that I don't really fancy Khachapuri, I love eating their Khachapuri very much! So, if you want to taste Georgian Khachapuri, I recommend you visit this one here.

Lebowski Dining Cafe is also great, especially if you visit the bowling center there.

And everyone knows about McDonald's and Wendy's and I have a blog about Wendy's, where I wrote about it all. And I will write about McDonald's in another blog, so don't worry. Anyways, you have many opportunities of where to eat, and another thing, if you want some ice cream you can eat it at Luca Polare, which is located in the entrance of the center where there are entertainment and cinema and Wendy's located. I love Luca Polare's ice cream, it's very delicious and they have many different kinds of ice creams that you can choose from.

Entertainment in East Point

As I’ve said, East Point is a shopping and entertainment center, so it offers some really good entertaining areas, too, of course. Now, there you will find Lebowski Bowl Club _ this is a place where you can enjoy your bowling with your friends and family. There is a 8-ball pool, too and if you love playing pool, you’ll just love there because of the environment, to start from the beginning. There is also a huge entertainment area especially built for children, but, trust me, grown ups play there with pleasure, too. There are many machines and mini-cars and stuff like that that children and their parents, _ especially dads, love. So, I didn’t know then, but I know now, that there are 10 movie theaters in East Point cinema and there is this IMAX movie theater, too. People waited long for this particular theater and they were really excited to see movies there. The East Point Cinema is the first cinema in the Caucasus region with 10 movie theatres in it. And this IMAX movie theater is something that people really love. The popularity of East Point Cinema is because of this IMAX movie theater mostly, and so the films that are shown there are shown in the IMAX movie theater for the first weeks and then they show them in other movie theaters, too. IMAX technology was introduced in Georgia about a year ago. It is a technology, which lets people to kind of be in a film themselves and they think that they are in that film too. Films filmed with the IMAX cameras and technologies are of the highest quality production in the whole movie industry and IMAX has 10 times better graphics and picture, than the standard movie theaters. This is a huge screen and a great sound that IMAX offers. Cavea IMAX movie theater covers 4, 000 square metres in East Point. There are 1, 580 seats in these 10 movie theaters in all.

And one other thing, that you should know, the working hours of East Point is from 10 a. m. to 10 p. m.!