I am in trouble. Today’s shopping was not successful, which means that I either don’t have a gift for Rudder’s birthday (tomorrow) or don’t have one for him for Christmas.
I was *planning* to buy a portable DVD player that he could tae on airplanes, and so we went to what’s supposed to be a great electronics mall in downtown Taipei. Problem 1: they ranged from NT$4000-9000, which according to xe.com is $123 – $277 US. According to Amazon it is perfectly possible to buy a portable DVD player in the US for $100-200. Since when is buying electronics in Taiwan more expensive? Probably I should have bargained, but then there was problem 2: all the ones they had, had battery lives of about 2 hours, which is not of much use on a 14 hour flight. According to Amazon (who can’t ship electronics here – I checked), Panasonic, Toshiba and Sony all have about 6 hours battery time, so I guess I will be in the local electronics centers tomorrow seeing if they have one of those. I will not be happy about it if it costs more than in America, though. (I would walk over tonight but I need to prop my foot up a for while.)
Also, I finished binding off my Sherbet socks (pictures tomorrow, maybe) so now all I have left to do is weave in a couple of ends. And then I will have *nothing* on the needles. (Nothing that counts, anyway; I do have a 1/3 done Trellis and Vine shawl, but that’s not really a work in progress. The problem is that I love the pattern and I love the yarn but they don’t play well together. The silk-alpaca yarn is too soft and yielding to show up the pattern well, and too sticky to unravel.) The next thing up could be socks for Rudder, but I haven’t found a pattern I like much for this yarn. I might just repeat the pattern I used for the just-finished socks (Knitty’s Back to Basics) because I liked it very much. Then again I hate to do the same thing twice in a row. (Four times, rather.) I suppose I should go figure out what gauge I get with this stuff, anyway. I could try two socks at once, but while I don’t think the mechanics would give me trouble, I think my yarn would tangle annoyingly.
I am dumbfounded by the idea of electronics being more expensive there! And of lesser convenience and quality too! Perhaps where you went was for European tourist types who would be thrilled with the prices vs those at home? And maybe the real bargains are to be had elsewhere?
Shaking her head and muttering over the weirdness, ~LA
Good luck finding it somewhere you can afford.
I have been known to wrap up photos of the item when I can’t find just the right thing!