Shopping along East Street

Winter is almost around Xi'an. The jackets and coats I bought from Mango and Zara in the Philippines cannot protect me anymore from the morning and evening's cold wind. Temperature is nearing freezing point and everyone is starting to sneeze.

And so last weekend, the Misys girls -Khristine, Arlene and I, decided to shop for winter clothes today. Bao Jinlu and Zahid joined us. BJL recommended the East Street (near the Bell Tower) to be the best place to go. Contrary to what we presumed, the East Street is not the Divisoria of Xi'an. It's just a very busy street where a variety of clothing shops are located.

I shopped for three thick coats. Prices are actually a lot more expensive than the European brands available in the Philippines like my favorite Zara and Debenhams. Aside from the coats, I also bought a couple of scarfs. Could not find gloves to fit my small hands so I decided to look for them in the future. Zahid and Bowen purchased a couple of thick jackets too, which I picked for them. Khristine and Arlene got some kikay long sleeve shirts. I am not sure if they were able to get winter coats, I did not notice.

After four hours of traversing half of East Street, we felt tired and hungry. We were all carrying a bunch of paper bags and we looked like the typical foreigners new in China shopping for lots of things. Hahahaha. We were so scared we might be tempting someone to rob us.

We went to a popular Peking Duck restaurant near the Bell Tower after Zahid had his pants fixed in one of the shops where we bought most of our stuff. The restaurant was not the classy type, but it served good food. I did not like duck very much but I felt so full when we left the restaurant.

After checking out the remaining shops along the same street, we decided everything is enough for the day. Zahid went first while Bao asked us to visit a shoe store before we take a cab home. I advised him to buy Adidas, my favorite brand of sport stuff (aside from Speedo), and he said he would check it out tomorrow at the international mall nearby my apartment. So off we went…

All in all today, I spent around 3,300RMB for three winter coats, two scarfs and a knitted long sleeve sweater. It's around PHP24,000 when you convert it to peso. It is never true that things are cheaper in China...