Shopping in Guangzhou 2013

Went to Guangzhou again during the holidays. Went back to my usual shopping haunts, but I realised that my taste in clothes has changed a lot. 

I used to love Shang Xia Jiu Pedestrian Street (上下九步行街), they have really cheap clothes, shoes and accessories going for insanely low prices. Like, you can get shoes, or shorts and tops for RMB20, which is like SGD4, you can even get bags at that price if you know how to bargain. 

The shop owners usually quote even locals more than twice the amount that they're willing to sell at. So if they quote you $100, you can start your bargaining from like $30 or $35, and get the item for no more than $45. If the shop owner doesn't seem willing to sell, just start walking away and they'll come chasing after you alr. 

 Cool advertising for the wedding shop, but then the make up skills were not really good leh, so the advertising may have had an adverse effect instead. Lol.

 But like I said, because the prices are so low, the quality of the things is not that good as well. When I was younger I didn't really care about quality, but more on quantity and variety. My mentality back then was that, why would I want to spend $300 on a piece of clothing when I can get 10 for that price at shang xia jiu pedestrian street.

But now, I prefer more quality stuff leh. It's really sad to see clothes that you like falling apart after one or two washes.

So this time round, I spent most of my time in Beijing Lu.

The road encased by the glass is supposed to be built in the ancient times, I forgot when exactly. They were doing drilling work in the area (I think) when they discovered it. So now it's become a tourist attraction.

 There's a new bookshop there that I really really like. The vibe is so cool-nerdy. The place is not really big and there were like 5 storeys, and they were playing classical music and all, I almost didn't want to leave the place.

When I was there, I frequented the bigger shopping malls like Guang Bai, they had really quality stuff but then the price also very "quality" la. Two pairs of shoes alone alr costed me almost SGD150.

Both pair of shoes were already heavily discounted at that point of time. The first pair was RMB450+ after discount, which is like SGD90+. The second pair was RMB 250+ after discount, which is like SGD50+. They're not cheap, but then the quality of the shoes are really good.

There are also some narrow alleys like the above that resembles shang xia jiu pedestrian street. They are much more wallet-friendly, but again, the quality is not as good la.

But honestly, shopping wise, Guang Zhou's fashion is quite different from Singapore I feel, or at least my style la. And the down side is that some of the things that you can find on taobao.com cannot be found in the shops, or are sold at exorbitant prices. For price wise and style wise, Bangkok would still be a better choice.