Shopping in Taipei

One of the reasons why we continue to head back to Taipei for holidays (other than to eat) is the shopping. Although we landed in Taipei fairly light on luggage, like Topsy it just growed. 

One of the popular purchases among womenfolk are shoes. Shoes are extremely cheap if bought at one of the many night markets around Taipei, on average up to about $NT700 or so. Of course one cannot expect real leather, but they look pretty decent for essentially a throw away item after a few months wear. 

For the more mature (or financially well endowed), department stores provide an excellent outlet to give the wallet/purse/black credit card a workout on branded stuff. Sogo is the major store, but there is also Takashimaya, Ming Yao (no relation to the basketball player) and my personal favourites, Eslite and Hankyu. 

UniQlo, a Japanese clothing chain, is a popular destination for affordable clothing. T-shirts in particular, come nicely packaged in resealable zip lock bags. Just rip, pop out and wear. A UniQlo shopping experience is like heading to the supermarket, simply pick up a hand basket and start shovelling clothes into it.