The NYC Experience: The Purse Whisperers

Haggling for Bling

Today we traveled to crazy Canal Street for knock-off shopping and haggling. We had no idea what to expect - we'd read a little bit on the internet about Canal St but all the suggestions and advice were completely conflicting, so we just decided to wing it.

Cindy wanted a small, blingy watch and small, blingy sunglasses. Tami wanted shoes and I wanted a satchel bag. I'm not really into name brands - I just like what I like, so it made it pretty easy for me. We made sure we had cash and we hit the street.

Chinatown

As you walk down the street, people walk by you quietly saying, "Prada, Coach, Louis Vitton." And if you're interested in something, they take you to a side street where there's somebody with a backpack to show you stuff - or they show you a "catalog" (which is a really nasty, germy laminated card with pictures) and then send a runner to go get what you want. There's always a look-out - who I'm assuming - is looking out for cops? Or making sure you don't run off with their backpack full of knock-offs? I'm not sure which.

We followed one lady around the corner to check out watches and Cindy haggled her way down from $50 to $20 for a Movado watch. Later she got her blinged out sunglasses for $5. At the place, I got Ralph Lauren perfume for $15. I saw a couple of bags I liked, but nothing like the Fossil bag I saw in Macy's that's $289. (sad face - I don't want to spend $289 for a satchel bag) I did see a nice coach bag in another guy's "catalog" but he wanted $60 and I only wanted to pay $25. We came to an impasse and I walked away.

Little Italy

We skirted through a little of Chinatown and then up Mulberry St - I love Little Italy! It's always nice and clean and decorated. Italian pride! We found a couple of cute shops in LI and Cindy got a hat and a really cute little sweater - that NO ONE ELSE in her office will EVER have (ha ha).

Our best find of the day, was a little gold kitty that waves his arm up and down for Tams - $8 down from $10.

We still hadn't found any cool shoes for Tami, so we went back uptown to the 40s and checked out the "Everything is $39" shoe shop, but to no avail.

We tried!

We grabbed lunch and then Tami and Cindy headed back to the apartment. I decided to check out TKTS for a possibility of Mary Poppins tickets and we scored(!) - we got $58 seats! Another show tonight... Supercalifragalisticexpealodocious!