I’m in sticker shock! I went looking for a desk for my new apartment. Nothing too fancy, but nothing IKEA either. I took one of my co-workers to see the new place and then shopping on the furniture street – nothing but furniture for blocks, and blocks, and blocks. The first store had lovely Restoration Hardware furniture. I asked the price of a desk and chair….(are you sitting down?) over 200,000NT (nearly 7K USD). Yeah right! So after I picked my jaw off the ground I said “So what’s your real price?”. The salesman did some more calculation and came up 175K (5800 USD). And he was completely serious. Come on, now. They had the RH catalog sitting out; you could buy the same thing Stateside and have it shipped over for less than that! So either that’s what they did, and passed the outrageous customs bill onto unsuspecting consumers OR (more likely) they have craftsman who create repros of the expensive US stuff and charge outlandish fees for it! Definitely an eye opener. One kind shop owner stayed open until 11pm just letting us look at photos and check out leather and veneer samples. Guess that 14000NT teak table from Tealit is looking better and better and that price includes delivery and two guys to cart the thing up 5 flights of stairs! (Tealit is sort of like Craigslist.)
Speaking of Tealit, I saw some paintings for sale and started talking to (emailing) the guy who was selling off some of his collection. Turns out there is a big festival in Taiching (south of Taipei) this weekend, LUVstock, and I got invited me to attend! My camera and I will be taking the HSR (high speed rail) tomorrow into truly uncharted territory! Stay tuned for the pics!
Asia's best kept secret... 