Shopping Leblon on a Sunday

Here in Brazil, I am on a pay-as-you-go basis for my cellphone. Talking on cellphones here is extremely expensive compared to in the US and I need to put more money on it about once a week, even though I only use it when I need to, and calls here are never long (due to the price of a call). For example, when at home we always use skype to call other people’s cell phones and if you are out and about and don’t have credits on your phone you can forget about asking a stranger to use theirs, and you only ask a friend when the call is really important and short.
Today I woke up without credits and so I went to Shopping Leblon to put money on my phone. As soon as I passed through the sliding glass doors, I knew something was off. There were fewer people than normal, but that wasn’t the first thing I noticed. Everyone was wearing normal clothing.
Here in Rio going to the mall is an event, especially in Shopping Leblon. Every lady wears an expensive outfit, does her hair perfect, and makes sure everything coordinates just so. Every man is dressed sharp like he is about to go out to a fancy night club. And everybody makes sure to look at everybody else. I sometimes feel like I am going to the catwalk when I stroll through Shopping Lebon.
So to see people dressed normally was off putting. What was wrong? I ascended the escalator and noticed that every single store was closed. Oh, it is a Sunday, this makes sense. But, why are there so many people here then? I looked around to see couples looking into store windows like it was any other day of the week. They would point at items and converse about them, even though the store was obviously closed. In fact, the only open thing I could see in the entire mall was the Starbucks, in which there were quite a few of Rio’s upper class sipping away. I circled the second floor and watched as everyone there walked from store to store, gazing into the darkened displays leisurely.
How very strange.