Shilin Night Market

I spent the day browsing around the shopping districts of Taipei.

Luckily, a local Taiwanese woman, Liu, is staying at the hostel and offered to come with us. She provided great insight about where to shop and how to bargain. According to Liu, as a rule of thumb, westerners will almost always pay higher prices, so negotiate and shop around! Become friendly with the sentence "tai gui le" (too expensive).

I was in search of an electronic translator. After about an hour of searching in the electronic district we found one. But we did not buy it. Liu took us to three other shops before we came back, negotiated the price, and bought it.

After playing with my new translator for about 3 hours (it did not come with an english manual... I tought about translating the manual with the translator), we met up with some other expats and headed to the night market in Shilin.

Wow. What a place. I have never experienced anything quite like the night market. The streets are crowded with thousands of people, smells (some good, others bad - stinky toufu) permeate into your nostrils, and any of the regular goods you can imagine buying are probably within walking distance, but for a fraction of the price. But, so what? By those standards, many places would resemble Shilin's night market. Probably some do. But, to me, what really made Shilin stand out were the people.


Scott, one of the other students studying here in Taipei, and I were discussing how trendy the younger people were. We usually think of New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, as fashion capitals. But, when most of the goods, that is the goods that normal everyday people wear, come from Taiwan and Mainland China, these places, like Taipei, become fashion hubs.

I will probably go back to the night market for food or when I need to buy anything. Prices were very competitive and it was fun to explore the side streets and underground store fronts. Some shop owners did not allow us to take pictures, perhaps because some of their items were illegal.

Truly the night market is worth experiencing. It is definitely a tourist destination, so like I said earlier, always use "tai gui le."