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housethingsgoing
A frog and a duck living in a 4rm resale flat
Ready for some overseas retail therapy?
7
Overseas shopping has been quite different for Duck after we got our house - I'm now a lot more interested in art stuff, home decor, etc etc, because I have so~ much~ space~ to display all these pretty items now! (Just kidding, ours is just a 4RM flat LOL) But one thing I realised is that it's not always as easy to find places to get home decor/items as compared to shopping for clothes or food. So here's my little curated list of places I've enjoyed shopping at - hope it helps you on your next trip too! 
We visited Kunming back in 2024, and while there are plenty of interesting shops in the big malls and little alleys, we found that most of them have stuff you can already buy on Taobao - so we didn't want to spend our precious luggage space on those. That's until we discovered Eraser Books! It's a tiny little bookshop tucked away in a neighbourhood. They sell books (ofc!) but they also have an interesting selection of prints, art stuff, home deco and textiles. A lot of the items seem to be from independent artists/niche brands so if you're looking for something a little more unique, this is probably where you can find it. 
Next stop - Taiwan! Actually my favourite place to get knick knacks and cutesy stuff in Taiwan is Eslite Bookstore but our household income does not allow me to purchase much from there :P Another great alternative is Dihua Street - a super old school street where you have random ceramic stores and knick knack stores side by side with medicine halls and tea shops :) I love sliding into the little stores there - they have a lot of interesting ceramics and household items! We got this pair of cabbage teacups there - THEY LOOK SO REAL! - and they were pretty affordable (can't remember the exact price, but definitely less than $10 for each). 
Another place we hang out a lot at in Taipei (yes - we tend to visit Taiwan a lot oops) is the Y Zone of Taipei Main Station! Mainly because this is anime heaven for Frog to grow his collection of One Piece figurines - you can get a HUGE variety of anime related items here. They aren't always boxed and some of them are secondhand but the variety and prices are definitely much better than what we've seen at other anime chain stores (e.g. Animate) and even Syntrend, which is Taipei's 'official' mall for anime stores. (and trust me, you get a very good idea of prices for such things when you have a husband who is obsessed with finding the right figurines and spends 2 hours browsing through anime stores each time) IF you're not into anime, there's also some blind box stores along this zone (remember it's the Y zone and not the K zone or R zone) as well as a cute shop selling DIY crystals and miniature assembly stuff (hope it's still existing when you read this post) 
Our most recent trip was to Seoul where we picked up a couple of items at Zero Space - this poster of cats and this cat cup! No prizes for telling what our favourite animal is LOL. I really really love the illustration style they have at zero space so getting this poster made me really happy :) They also have illustrations of dogs and other animals as well if you're looking for prints for the house! PS. if you visit the Zero Space at Mangwon, they have a shelf with factory defect or clearance items - most of the things there are a super good deal! 
Ending off this post with this ocean tray we hauled back from Kuala Lumpur last year! Hand carried (literally) because it was so fragile :) It's not technically a 'buy' because we had to make it ourselves, but the end product is LEGIT BEAUTIFUL! and we get so many questions about it from our house guests. The workshop is located in GMBB mall - which is essentially the place to go if you love DIY - they have art jamming, tufting, and some interesting shops with local artwork/knick knacks where you can up your home deco game :)
23 May
