Shopping

Well, I've got my first taste of shopping here. After work, I went to a shipping center called the ITC, which is maybe 5mins walk from work, as I needed to get some stuff (a new pair of shades and a backpack mostly). There's two parts to the center, the part with "proper" shops where you can't really haggle, and the part with stalls where you can. So, I made a bee-line for the stalls!

Well it's a fair bit different to China! The layout is roughly the same - a big building wit a few floors with little aisles filled with small stalls, but the attitude is different. They're not pushy over here like they were in china, you could actually look at the stuff in the stall for more than half a second without the owner being in your face to buy something! It was only when you went over and started actively looking at stuff that they paid you attention. It's almost too polite - I didn't think I'd be missing the "Looka looka, special friend price for you! Good bargain!", but you sort of do! They're sort of apathetic enough about it over here that you'd almost feel bad about haggling!

I ended up getting my shades anyway, but I couldn't find a bag that suited me. I didn't even bother haggling over the shades either - at RPY20,000 (€1.70), what's the point? They had a few stalls with decent-ish looking glasses tho, so I may be looking for a wraparound pair for skiing next year. Were a few stands selling fake rolexes etc as well - they looked the same as the ones I got last year, but they were starting at 200,000 so I reckon I can get them for about the same price as last year of not cheaper.

There's a few open-air markets around I must hit as well. Lots of shopping still to be done! :-)