First stop was a local store that seemed to understand what I was looking for yesterday but today she had finished shawls and scarves; close but not what we were looking for. Then we rode the bus to the city center and got off the 45 bus at ‘Popland’ where we all enjoyed having an ice cream treat. Once our treat was finished we caught the B11 out to the old campus and got the 84 bus from there to go to the textile market Qi Yan took me too last September. (Summer quilt and made to order fitted sheet) As the bus was coming to our stop I looked out the window and saw much to my dismay that the area had been bulldozed and in fact the bull dozers were still there. I took pictures of the destruction and figured that we would have to find another way to get our yarn. But wait this tale is not over yet.
We walked down the street in my hopes of finding some merchants selling their wares on the streets as we sometimes see. We wondered around until we found an alley that had an upholstery shop in it. The woman at the upholstery shop told us to visit Textile World 纺织大世界 down the street and that was the beginning of our trek down 5 city blocks. Once we found Textile World we were wowed by the pretty fabrics we saw, the displays of zippers and buttons and everything embroidery. However we soon found that in this world of textile anything yarn goods were scarce. We were told repeatedly to go to You Ai Lu 有爱路 which I recognized as being near 工人路 Gong Ren Lu. We got back on the 84 bus then the B11 back to the old campus and then we walked to Gong Ren Market. After walking around for hours we finally found the yarn place because I saw a young lady with yarn getting on her scooter and we went up to her and asked where and she pointed and of course said where in Chinese. We walked down You Ai Lu until we came to Bai Hua Lu 百花路. About half way the block we found a doorway leading to a path. We followed this path ‘the one down a quiet walkway where the ninja’s jump out’ and found not one, not two, but three yarn stores in this area. We found a regular shopping area hidden away from the prying eyes of tourist although they didn’t seem surprised to see foreigners tonight.
I have no plans to stop taking pictures of street signs. If I hadn’t done so when the ladies kept telling us You Ai Lu I would not have put two and two together and come home very upset that I didn’t get yarn.
We had a delicious dinner at Gongren Market after we got the yarn. It pales in comparison to our getting our yarn on our own!