Material Girl

Today. Was. Awesome.

As soon as my cousin got out of school today, my uncle took us shopping! There is an area in Taipei that is completely made up of wholesale shops. This area is simply too incredible for words, so today, my post will mainly consist of pictures.

My cousin outside of a shop for Chinese New Year

Me under an outrageously huge lantern

A sea of red

Fire crackers for ringing in the New Year

Cherry blossom tree in the midst of lanterns

Chinese New Year sticker

Hundreds of hanging decorations

Apparently chili peppers are popular for holidays here too

Chinese New year is like Christmas, Easter, and Halloween all wrapped up into one

Little figurines 

This is a decorated bamboo steamer

Mini bamboo steamer. It was about 3 inches in diameter

Chinese opera mask

More chili peppers, this time in key chain form

The following are pictures of an egg tart shop. Egg tarts are these delightful little pastries filled with custard. I suppose that they call them egg tarts because they kind of look like an egg, or maybe it is simply because they are made of eggs.

Giant billboard outside of the shop

Egg Tarts!

Now, here is the good part, this is what the wholesale area looks like. The banners are out all of the time, not just for the holiday season.

This is a wonderful snack that tastes like a waffle stuffed with crushed peanuts

Here is the inside of the snack

Crazy socks at one of the shops

The outside of one of the stores

This is a store that sold only wholesale scarfs

small jewelry boutique

The best place in the world!

This is another jewelry boutique, but the jewelry was incredibly inexpensive. The average price for nice jewelry was $3 U.S. dollars. The same jewelry would sell in the states for upwards of $10. Needless to say, me and my cousin went crazy!

Thousands of pieces to choose from

Back on the streets

A restaurant

This is a store that sells only brushes, but they sell any kind of brush that you can imagine. They have anything from hairbrushes to paint brushes, shoe brushes to industrial brushes, and everything in between. The shop has been around for 68 years, and the lady who runs the store is a brush expert. When my uncle inquired into a writing brush, she told him NOT to buy it until he had conversed with his teacher and found out whether he needed the brush or not, and what kind he needed.

Brushes galore

This was another shop, it's like a pet shop, but only for cats.

I love the name of this store. Do you think that maybe the owners like cats?

Aww, look at the cute kitties!

This was the upstairs area of the cat shop, it was a place where you could pet the cats, or just sit in this rad chair.

 Daiso Japan is a shop that is similar to the Dollar store, except it sells only Japanese products.

Strange fruit candies

Soup in a box

Chair leg covers, apparently this is common here to keep your furniture from scratching up the hardwood floors

Some kind of sweet cakes

 And now back to the streets again to be met by an army of food carts.

Chinese-style icecream

In case you can't tell, those are peanuts.

There was also a small market in one of the alleyways where vendors were selling fruit.

Fresh fruit...

...and dried fruit

 Then, we went to a coffee shop. I never knew how bleak and uncultured Folgers is until I came here. They have every machine you could possibly imagine for brewing coffee, and some that you can't.

coffee bean grinders

Weird Sci-Fi brewing contraption

 If I had access to these machines, I think that I would, by default, have to become a mad scientist. I would have no other choice. These machines just beg to be used for world domination.
                                                 
Just kidding. But seriously, these machines are pretty wicked.

Is it just me, or does this look like a still?

This store sells Chinese-style pizza

Now, here are some pictures of the kind of bakeries that they have in Taiwan:

They are almost too beautiful to eat.

Are you drooling yet?

 This little guy was congratulating me on a successful day of shopping.

That's all for today folks, but I will see you tomorrow bright and early (for you) with another post.