Shopping on taobao

OMG. I cannot be allowed to stay home for long while on leave. Over New Year's we stayed home because Dan was ill and I was not feeling great. I got bored. REALLY BORED.

Our satellite TV's been out of service since Oct and I had no TV to watch. So I went online. Bad idea.

I was only looking to get cat stuff when it occurred to me that I should try looking for tank tops to bring home. Afterall, most clothes are made in China and they could be cheaper here. Being winter, you obviously can't find many tank tops in Beijing. But taobao should have everything right? And have everything it does.

Before I knew it, I was putting Zara work jackets, forever 21 tunics, random korean style jackets, jelly shoes, tank tops and goodness knows what else into my shopping cart... all i did for 3 days was trawl through taobao( otherwise known in our house as TTT) . I was even tempted to buy copies of Starck's Ghost Chair for our flat in Singapore. Daniel didn't like plastic so I didn't get them.

I eventually bought less stuff than what's in my cart ( because I went to the Zoo market and found my tank tops) but the terrible thing is, whenever I'm super bored, I'd think, "hmm, let my fingers do the shopping."

Other small things I bought in NYC

Erm.. like coach bags and shoes from Woodbury Common.

Before you judge and say "Wah!! Spend so much ??", each bag costs only slightly over US$100. A steal for a leather bag. The big green one costs slightly more given its size. It's big enough to fit my laptop, my huge wallet, a wrap, mobile phone, ipod, mints, keys ...

The shoes at Nine West were on sale and these 2 pairs each cost less than a pair of Charles and Keith shoes.

I also got facial moisturizers, hand creams etc etc from shops in the city - basically stuff that Dan & I use everyday - at great prices.

How to get to Woodbury Common:

- Take subway to Port Authority Bus Terminal ( it should be the red line)

- Go to the Bus Terminal and look for the Shortline Bus ticketing booth

- Bus ticket costs US$42 and takes you to the door step. It also comes with several additional discount coupons and a redemption coupon at Woodbury Common for a booklet of discount coupons to use at almost all stores.

- Bus trip takes 1 hr each way

- Best to catch the 9.30am bus which really really leaves on time!

One thing I did not buy on sale

Everything in the US is on sale!! And everything at Woodbury Common Outlet mall is ridiculously cheap... all 220 stores!! I'll post about Woodbury later.

First, the one thing I did not buy on sale is....

See that grin?

Viola! Tiffany... and american tradition :P

To be fair, Danny said he'll get it for me but since I wanted it, I'm going to pay for it myself!

cute new rings

Got these rings as Far East Plaza Singapore, from a little shop that sells the most interesting rings. One of the rings had a mini carousel on top!

Check out the detail of this ring. It looks like I have a cat wrapped around my finger.

Just cos it was a 2 finger ring... Rebel I am not...

Zootopia

I went to the wholesale markets again.. Ok. I know if you've been there before, you're probably thinking " but they sell so much junk!" I like the zoo because of the junk. It's quite fun picking out the gems from the junk! And I usually have quite a bit of success.

Today I got meself:

1. High cut Ugg boots in black... I like black and it matches just about everything in my wardrobe

2. Leggings ( tights if you will) in black with studs on the side

3. A black racer tee with black studs

4. A long striped shirt to wear with leggings

5. levi's jeans ( I think a bit too small cos I insisted to auntie that all my jeans are size 26) 

6. A work jacket with 3/4 sleeves

7. 2 super cute Patrick the starfish toy

8. Triumph & women's secret lingerie ( there's only 1 store that stocks these... I went round and round looking for it!!!)

9. A lace tee with funny poofy sleeves

10.  A fleece lined sweater for my bro

11. Socks

In all, I spent about 700RMB. Not too considering the stuff I've managed to pick up this trip :)

my fren francesco

Last name Biasia :P 

This bag is called Jennifer. Made with soft calfskin and embellished with burnished studs. I fell in love when I saw it. It's got my fav... STUDS. No more bags for the next 5years...

Making new italian "friends"

For some strange reason, people chat with Daniel on holidays. Random strangers... we sorta talked to Canadians and Aussies along our trip. Loads of elderly Canadians who travelled to Venice on cruise and were making their way to Rome.

We also made some new Italian "friends". Dan's new friends are called Ermenegildo and Salvatore. While I met Guccio, Miucci, Francesco and Furla. 

Good friends are for a lifetime. These "friends" better last a lifetime! 

Stuff we got for my family and Dan's mum. The pink wallet's for my mum :P

I heart Miu Miu

I stood for a super long time at the Miu Miu store in Rome today... thinking... "I shouldn't have bought anything else ( I bought stuff) and I shouldn't have eaten for days ( I ate a lot), then I can afford this gorgeous 900 euro bag. " See http://www.styledrops.com/handbags-36679.html for reference.

So after spending several mins ooing and ahhing over the bags ( I heart the new collection with plenty many gold bling studs) and feeling Dan's disapproving stare and comments about how I've already got one bag... I walked away from Miu Miu with simply what I needed - a new pair of mega size sunglasses that amazingly fit rather nicely. I'm gonna make sure these last me longer than the last pair. Only hard cases from now onwards!

broken sunglasses

So smart lor... I think I sat or leaned back on my bag and in the process, broke my sunglasses... I think my ex-Ogilvy friends would be relieved that those glasses are gone. They were so horrified that I would buy anything from Dior... 

But those glasses suited me well!!!! now I'm sunglass-less :(

When you don't have much money to shop...

You go to the zoo... like I do. No. It's not too see the pandas, it's to hit the wholesale centres next door * grin* . Yup. i went again today for some treasure hunting. My last foray before going to work on Monday. 

total damage:   360 RMB

Items bought: 10 

- a cheap but chic nine west black and white v-striped fabric shoulder bag for work

- a kathy van zeeland cream vinyl bag ( not sure if this is the real thing but seems real enough with the prerequisite tags, printed fabric and cute zipper. I mean.. who knows kathy van zeeland here??? It's not high end lux so who would want to fake it right??) 

- 2pcs of Women's secret lingerie ( this was a real steal)

- 2 elastic belts (one with a star buckle, the other with a bow. These are so cheap and fun to wear with dresses)

- an O'neil polo tee for Dan

- a basic white tee

- a turqoise colored sun dress 

- a pair of PJ pants with little piggy prints

With so much new booty, I'm happy!

The bag I didn't buy

Yesterday at Changi airport, I went to look at bags. Not something I usually do. But there was a Mulberry boutique and I simply had to take a peek. I like the Mulberry look - the supple leather, classic designs and fact that the logo is almost invisible makes their bags all the more alluring to me - same reasons I want an Hermes bag :P 

Anyway, I stepped into Mulberry and saw a bag with my name written all over it. It was deep navy horsehair Roxanne. I couldn't find a pix of the bag online but this is the regular leather Roxanne. 

It felt as if Cupid just shot me. I was in luuuurve. And the bag was on 60% discount! But after much contemplation with Daniel in the background going " up to you", I decided NOT to buy it. The bag at full price was about SG$3,700. 60% sounds cheap but when I thought more about it, I would be spending SG$1500 on a bag... while I'm unemployed... hmm.. that amount buys me a new sofa and coffee table for our SG flat. So I steeled myself to the intense disappointment and walked away... 

Watch this

I got Dan his birthday present in advance. A Seiko titanium watch ( photo right). I can't afford anything better right now being unemployed and all so i thought I would get him a replacement for the Seiko watch he lost ( which I spent 1/3 of my first pay check on! ). There were plenty of other nice watches within my budget but I remembered how Dan liked the fact that his watch was super light. So I hunted around for the same titanium watch... seems like they are rare. Skagen has a pretty big titanium collection but I figured it's not quite Dan's style. I liked it very much so I got that too... I was right. He prefered the Seiko.. so the Skagen's mine. Muah hahaha.

cheap retail again

Sigh.... being unemployed, I should spend less money shouldn't I? But today I bought stuff again. Went to the wholesale centres at the zoo again. Brought Addy's friend from Singapore to look around for shawls and warm clothing etc. Veron and I decided we would get the ultra cheap UGG boots. Real or fake. Didn't matter. I just wanted an easy pair to wear and walk to the supermarket. There were quite a few shops selling the boots. I got the short UGGs for 100RMB ( lady didn't tolerate bargaining) and Veron got a taller non-branded pair for 80RMB. I wanted the cheap ones but my big foot couldn't fit into size 38!! Size 39 was far too huge. There were taller UGGs but I wasn't willing to spend any more than 100RMB. Afterall, these are going to my "market" and house visit boots. I must admit though.. I look a little strange in them because of my skinny ankles and twig-like legs..

I also got a hat (25RMB), 2 pairs of thick leggings ( 35 RMb for printed, 20RMB for plain brown with fleece lining) and a kids' plastic bib for the Toys' baby back home ( 25RMB). Veron tells me the bib costs thrice more back home and i figured it'll come in handy in a couple of months.

plastic bib for kids 1-3 yrs

my new hat

Printed leggings

Shopping again...

Despite the -4 to -10 degree forecast for today, I went out into the cold anyway. With my trusty down jacket, it wasn't that bad! The wind though, made it feel nasty on my eyes and ears.

I hit the Jiayi Market located across from Kunlun Hotel. I like this market because they sell nice stuff at more reasonable prices than the Silk Market or Yaxiu Market. And it's not as far as the wholesale centres. This is a great place to buy kids clothes. And that was my goal - to buy stuff for friends' kids. I found a shop that sells Baby Mexx and got a winter body suit thingy. Prices ranged from 50rmb onwards for the winter stuff. The same shop sells the coolest Harley and Catepillar boots for little boys. Then hit another shop to get stuff for the Toys' baby. Baby Asher will soon have a new set of clothes! The white one with penguin prints is apparently from Baby Gap. Prices at this shop started at 30rmb for the light cotton stuff.

Then I spent on something I maybe shouldn't have... a leather jacket. I was torn between 2 choices. Both were biker style. The first was 1600rmb and on close examination, the buttons were Ben Sherman. So assumption is the jacket is from Ben Sherman except the label's been replaced with the stall's own and the seller didn't know better else it wouldn't have been 1600rmb!! It was a tad big and she didn't want to budge on the price. So off I went.2nd option is the one I bought ( above pix). Again, I don't think the seller knew what she had. The jacket had a Banana Republic label. Usually, the sellers there would tell you that it's a foreign brand, very famous, expensive, lah dee da. I've gotten Forever 21 stuff at this market before so it's possible it's the real thing. Afterall, who wants to fake Forever 21 & Banana Republic right? But this seller didn't seem to know. She basically promoted the softness of the leather and the style. Opening price was 1750RMB and after some haggling she came down to 1300... I eventually got it for 1100rmb thanks to today's lousy weather which is affecting their business. I haven't been very successful haggling at this market. It's not like the Silk market where you slash everything 60% or more. At Jiayi, they boot you out if they think you are being ridiculous! More locals shop here too... maybe that's why.

Anyway, I love my new jacket! It's a perfect replacement for my fav spring/ autumn Topshop jacket that's been washed till it's somewhat grey. And in the meantime... I'm broke!

Zoo-therapy

Made a trip to the wholesale centres at the zoo today for a spot of cheap retail therapy..and this is what I bought. Total damage: 305 RMB / SGD68 and I only spent 4 RMb on transport having taken the subway to Xizhimen and trudged 1km from station to the zoo. Talk about CHEAP retail therapy.

PS: only 2 items here are for me, the black and the blue tees, the rest are for my sis and frens back home. Apparently the bag's one of those old Nine West collections. The seller kept telling me Xi Jiu...I had a closer look to realise she meant Nine West... I just thought it'll make my sis a nice work bag!!

Dan's first pair of decent glasses after 5 years

That's Daniel with his new glasses that we got today at Optical City 眼镜城; his first new pair of glasses after more than 5 years!!

Dan's eyes have been red since last Friday so he hasn't been wearing his contacts, giving his eyes time to recover from whatever irritation it was. Since he was hiding out at home on Sat to game, there was no issue of him wearing his super old glasses. On Sunday, we went out and Daniel seemed rather self conscious in his glasses. He never ever wears them out. The last time he did was when he lost a contact lense and we had his current pair of glasses made. We made those at least 5 years ago at Singapore's Queensway shopping centre to replace a certain pair of Austin Powers look-a-like glasses which I detested. They were HUGE and hideous!!! Covered more than half my face!!

Anyway, back to our current predicament. Daniel took a gamble with his contact lenses on Monday and ends up having even redder eyes. So today, off he goes to the doc to get the eyes checked. Oops... he's got conjunctivities and can't wear contacts for the next week or so. But what to do?? He's not gonna wear those old glasses to work. They aren't very flattering to his face anymore AND they are no longer at the height of optometrical ( is there such a word??) fashion.

Enter his multiple-opti device owning wife (i.e I own many many pairs of glasses). I bugged him to get a replacement pair at 眼镜城. Afterall, they cost 1/4 of what we pay back home, especially for his lenses which need to be in high index. After 1 hour of trying round , square, black, brown, big, small, metal, plastic frames, we finally settled for this classic black metal frames which are wide enough for his face and at the same time have a bit of a funky design. So tomorrow, Daniel can wow the world with a whole new look :)

Cab Directions:
Optical City, located beside Panjiayuan Bridge, 眼镜城，在潘家园桥附近
Subway Directions:
Jinsong Station (Line 10) , take exit D. Walk about 300m and you should reach Panjiayuan bridge. Cross the bridge and you're there.
There are actually 2 Optical cities, one on each side of the bridge. I go to the one with an iron wrought gate in front and a small alley dotted with optical shops leading up to the main building. A pair of glasses with plastic multicoated lenses typically cost between 120 -200RMB depending on your frames of course! You can also call/ msg me if you want to go cos there's a shop I frequent so often they give me a very reasonable price with minimal haggling.