Shopping fix

After dinner we took the MRT to Woofenpu Market. I was excited about this trip as I had read that it’s the place where clothes shops buy stock at wholesale prices. There are hundreds of shops tightly packed close together selling cut price garments straight from the factories in Hong Kong and Japan (apparently labour prices are too high in Taiwan). The best time to go? August/September for the new collections. Perfect. I had visions of putting together my autumn wardrobe and being the envy of all my friends. Perhaps I’d buy my girls a few items if I spotted something suitable – I’d also read that you get bigger discounts if you buy in bulk. How I managed to persuade David to go with me, I’ll never know.

We came out of Housen Station passing people carrying cheap carrier bags full of goodies. I quickened my pace.

I must say that I was very disappointed. There were hundreds of shops and they were very cheap, but they were pretty much all the same. T-shirts, shorts, jeans and t-shirt material tunic dresses. All very casual, bordering on trashy and pretty boring. Most things were very cheap-looking and obviously aimed at the teen market. Items like these on a 30-something professional like me would be just so wrong. I wanted good fashion for grown-ups. I did buy a couple of t-shirts so that I didn’t go home empty-handed. The type that the dye comes off really easily. Despite the lack of purchases, the market was highly entertaining. The plastic models looked really lifelike which was sort of freaky. I couldn’t help noticing how badly dressed all the shoppers were. Nancy tells me that they dress even worse in Canada. I guess I am used to being around immaculately dressed Japanese girls.
We took the MRT back to Ximen and had a look in NET (NEXT rip off) in an attempt to fulfill that shopping craving. I picked out a few items to try on and then I realized that NET stands for New Era Teen. This made me feel incredibly old and sad so I put the clothes back without trying them on.

What an exhausting day! We went back to the Wonstar and slept for 9 hours straight.