Looks like the sale season is coming. In the recent past week, I have popped down to a couple of shops in Riverside Plaza and found they are having a huge range of clothes on sale at this moment. It is probably because the season is changing and the days are getting warmer and warmer, but not all the stuff is only suitable for winter, and I found many of them are quite in season.
Like Miller’s Fashion Club shop which always gives people wrong impression that they normally appeal to those big size women with cheap quality, fabric and price. But it’s not true. Miller’s has very a wide range of ladies wear from size 8 to size 22. Anything you like to put on to try out, you could find the right size easily. Some of them are very nice and trendy, like the things on Silhouette and Cross Road brands. And the prices are so reasonable, you won’t get the same things from China where used to be the major place for me to shopping the clothes.
Things just changed for some reason. Many of my girlfriends from China have noticed that it’s no longer a pleasant experience when shopping in China for clothes. Last year when I popped in Parkson I was shocked. A very ordinary T- shirt with a brand I don’t know was 900 RMB, any shoes with a decent brand were at least 500 RMB. I think it is crazy to pay for a small piece of leather and a tiny thin heel with 500. Actually I couldn’t find anything under 300 RMB in that crazy shopping mall.
The demin jacket I finally bought from Esprit was very simply designed and made, but it was nearly 600 RMB. And….guess what? They said it’s cheap. My God! With the same amount of money 600 RMB in Australia, you can get a pretty nice evenning wear to go for a Hollywood’s celebrities’ party. Last time in Canberra Centre I saw a pink silk dress with nice beading on the top half and right goes down to the ankles’ length, beautifully lining, delicate shoulder straps, very gorgeous, suit for any formal occasion. It was just 80 Australian dollars. I guess if I want to get the similar thing in China, I have to pay at least 2000RMB. But here, in the sale season, 20 AUD for a very funky jean jacket that I have only seen on the fashion magazine, 13.95 AUD for an embroidered aqua blue Turkish style cotton blouse, or just 29.99 for a little black halt-back and back neck tied party dress, with some very attractive and beautiful details on the chest area. It’s quite garnish!
Comparing to Miller’s, Target’s clothes are a bit more expensive, but I bought a twisted dry and lace shirt for only 4.86 AUD. I can’t believe it when the cashier scanned the bar code to get the final price on the register. But for other stuff, it’s just a bit hard to find the size under 12, otherwise I would have been too lucky. Of course if you go for some brands like Portman or Susanne, the price range would be between 50 to 100, but 100 AUD is just 600 RMB, what can you buy with 600 RMB in Parkson? A piece of shit?
I don’t know why Chinese clothes retailing turned out like this. It makes people feel that everybody is a millionaire and be able to spend thousands on clothes every month. It’s kind of like a virtual and dream kingdom build up by people’s hallucinations, where everyone has become rich and just earns money by catching the gold falling from the sky. I have gradually come to realise this and started to cut down the purchase in Chinese clothing market. A couple of girls close to me found the same thing and we had conversation about what we have found out, like Emma and Lily. Last time I saw Emma in Shanghai, she was wearing a gorgeous lace shirt and a beautiful casual knitwear but very stylish bought in Australia. Well, Lily maybe is a much earlier awakener, having her consciousness about comparison between the clothes pricings of two countries.
My husband still doesn’t believe it. Men are not sensitive to this sort of things. Having too much successful experience of getting great deals in Wholesale Market at Exhibition Road in Beijing and maybe too little experience of shopping in a real shopping town, he believes that China has the cheapest clothes for sale because it is the manufacture of over 70% clothes around this world. I am not going to convince him. He would find out.
We need an ice cream scoop, and a well-made natural ingredient waffle cone to make it happen. Bell is a good brand, and the size is perfect for a guilty ice cream eater. They also provided 3 different colours. But be careful when you pick one from the shelf of supermarket. Some of them are already broken in the box, so shake it to listen if there is a sound of waffle chips.
chuck it in the drawer. The second one is required a bit skill to be properly operated. I suggest you to dip the scoop in to the hot water before you spoon the ice cream, and rather than making a long movement on your spooning, better to make several short movements to make a ball first. Never squeeze the handle when you spoon the ice cream, squeeze it after you already form a complete round ball, then let it go off the scoop first, not directly let it go into the cone. Does that make sense? My husband thinks I do a great job on that, at least much better than him.
