fa yuen finds

Salome and I hit Fa Yuen Street today... it was my first bargain-hunting trip in quite a few months. In the past year or so, I've really made an effort to buy less, and when I have been shopping it's usually been at chain stores where I feel more confident of the quality (and can try things on!). But during today's trip, I was reminded of why the words "Fa Yuen" will always hold a little magic for me -- good deals, and surprising finds!

Though this surely goes against a fundamental rule of smart shopping, I usually try to go to Fa Yuen Street with an open mind, ready to consider all clothing items that I come across, and without any list of things that I need. I know... it seems like a sure way to end up with extraneous, unneeded stuff. But I find that if you approach Fa Yuen with a list, regardless of what you've found in the past, on the day that you go, you will not find anything even closely resembling the items on your list. Of course, I also try to balance the open mind with a good dose of realism. I try to avoid purchasing clothes that are either so daring that they will never be worn, or items that, in the words of my mother, "just don't do anything" for me. And I find that trips to Fa Yuen, or any shopping excursion in fact, are a great opportunity to exercise self-control.

Anyway, I found a lot of great stuff for my sister's kids today, and also a couple things for me. Here's a photo of what I got pour moi. I can't imagine an instance in which I would wear these two items together... though if I were about 100 lbs thinner and on a beach somewhere, maybe I'd be modeling for the J-Crew catalog (which is about the only place I think I've ever seen the turtle-neck + shorts combo).


I don't usually post many of photos of myself (especially in funny timer poses), but I do so now to show off my finds!

Brown Esprit turtle-neck: HK$20
Pale blue Old Navy shorts: HK$50

That's a grand total of HK$70, people! Which is only about 9 US dollars... pretty crazily cheap!

The stuff for my nieces and nephew will probably be Christmas presents... so I won't post photos here, as I'm sure that the three of them are regular readers of my blog. I also figure that the clothes would really benefit from some cute mini-models, so I'll wait until they make the journey down.